By Jim Patterson
Oct. 28, 2020 | UM News

Real progress on racial issues in The United Methodist Church is impossible unless LGBTQ people are accepted as full participants in every aspect of the denomination, said both panelists during a sometimes emotional online discussion.

“You can’t begin to have a conversation about anti-racist work as long as there is this conversation about splitting the church over sexuality issues,” said Miguel A. De La Torre, professor of social ethics at Iliff School of Theology, during the Oct. 28 discussion. “If our queer brothers and sisters are not part of the liberationist movement, we cannot have any type of church that’s anti-racist.”

United Methodists have been torn over human sexuality issues for decades and are moving toward a spilt because of it. That possibility has been forestalled because the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the denomination’s General Conference meeting to be delayed until late summer of 2021.

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