Three Chicago-area churches to sever ties with United Methodist Church following split LGBTQ inclusion
Thank you for supporting our journalism. This article is available exclusively for our subscribers, who help fund our work at the Chicago Tribune.Faith Evangelical United Methodist Church, with its distinctive crenelated tower at the corner of York Street and North Avenue, will soon end ties with the Methodist denomination.
The split came out of the denomination’s 2019 General Conference in response to a decadeslong conflict over the role and status of LGBTQ people in the denomination. At this time, the UMC Book of Discipline, which contains the denomination’s policies and procedures, prohibited the ordination of “self-avowed, practicing homosexuals” and disallows clergy from conducting marriages of same-sex couples. Churches are also prohibited from hosting such marriages.
In the past, clergy have faced discipline for performing same-sex marriages or identifying as LGBTQ, but many churches have disregarded the laws for years. Jane Ahrens, chair of the Faith Evangelical Church Council in Elmhurst, declined to comment on specific causes for the anticipated split. First United Methodist Church of Elmhurst set out this sign after the vote at the United Methodist Church’s General Conference in February 2019 to maintain bans against gay marriage and gay clergy.
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