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Methodists Urge Civility Ahead of Debate on GaysTue Apr 27, 7:46 PM ET Add U.S. National - Reuters to My Yahoo!

By Greg Frost

PITTSBURGH (Reuters) - The United Methodist Church pleaded on Tuesday for civility and respect as its members prepared to debate church policy on homosexuality, an issue that threatens to tear apart the third-largest U.S. Christian denomination.

Just as the Episcopal Church struggles to stay together after the consecration of its first openly gay bishop, the United Methodist Church -- whose 8.3 million U.S. members include President Bush (news - web sites) and his wife, Laura -- faces a possible schism over a decision to allow the Rev. Karen Dammann to remain a minister despite a church ban on gay clergy.

Dammann, a lesbian from Washington state, had been accused of violating a church law declaring homosexuality incompatible with Christian teachings, but a clergy jury last month cleared her of the charges.

Some 1,000 Methodist delegates are meeting in Pittsburgh church's general conference, a rule-making session held once every four years. Among the tasks they will likely take up is whether to replace the so-called "incompatibility clause" in church law with more inclusive language.

But resistance to such change may be stiff from delegates representing conservative to moderate regions who are expected to dominate the meeting.

The Confessing Movement, a conservative group in the United Methodist Church that has 600,000 supporters, has called the Dammann verdict "schismatic" and said the Pacific Northwest Conference -- the part of the church that acquitted Dammann -- had broken off and gone its own way.

LEADERS LAMENT TENSION, CONFLICT

This will not be the first time the Methodists have tried to reconcile homosexuality with a general doctrine of inclusiveness. In fact, homosexuality has been a controversial issue at each of the church's quadrennial conferences since 1972.

Noting that the church has so far failed to resolve its differences on human sexuality, Bishop Kenneth Carder of Mississippi urged delegates to proceed with civility and open-mindedness.

"Even the central activity of the church, worship, has become in many congregations a source of tension and conflict between 'contemporary' and 'traditional' expressions," Carder said in an opening address delivered on behalf of church leaders.

"We often label and malign those with whom we differ, rather than humbly and sensibly listening and engaging one another in meaningful disagreement in common pursuit of transcendent truth."

Earlier, as delegates filed in to the convention center in downtown Pittsburgh, more liberal members of the church stood by with glass bowls of water and asked conference participants not to forget their baptism.

Among those bearing water was the Rev. Bonnie Beckonchrist, lead pastor of the First United Methodist Church in Arlington Heights, Illinois, and a member of a group seeking greater inclusiveness.

"We baptize people in the Methodist church long before we know their sexual orientation," she said. "We want to remind people that in our baptism we are named and claimed by Christ, and you can't erase a watermark."

This year's conference will run through May 7 but because of the fluid nature of the conference, it is not known when delegates will take up the question of homosexuality.