Unity talks underway for US Methodists and Episcopalians after LGBTQ+ clergy ban lifted

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Excerpt from premierchristian.news

The US Episcopalian Church (ECUSA) is reviving plans for potential full communion with the United Methodist Church (UMC) after the UMC voted to end restrictions on LGBTQ+ clergy and same-sex weddings at its General Conference last month.

UMC Delegates voted to lift a decades-long ban on ordaining “self-avowed practising homosexuals” as priests and marrying same-sex couples.

Last week, ECUSA’s General Convention vowed to “continue dialogue” with the UMC “with the goal of reaching full communion” and to “celebrate” the UMC’s “historic and sweeping changes” to its Book of Discipline and Social Principles.

A plan for unity between the two denominations was paused in 2020, after the UMC’s General Conference was postponed multiple times due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Prior to a vote on full communion, The ECUSA has called for plans to be drawn up that outline how ordained ministry will be recognised by each denomination, as well as “principles for the orderly exchange of ministers”.