AP Photo/Sid Hastings - Protestors chant during the United Methodist Church’s special session of the general conference in St. Louis on Tuesday. America’s second-largest Protestant denomination faces a likely fracture as delegates at the crucial meeting move to strengthen bans on same-sex marriage and ordination of LGBT clergy.

Local Methodist pastors are as split on same-sex marriage and gay clergy as leaders of the United Methodist Church.

At a recent special session of its General Conference, leaders of the United Methodist Church rejected the One Church Plan, a measure that would have overturned restrictions on openly gay clergy and performing same-sex marriages, as outlined in its Traditional Plan.

Methodist pastors in Marshall County have been following this issue closely, noting how congregations locally and abroad have become fractured over a topic some regard as a human rights issue and others see as the church maintaining its Biblical understanding of human sexuality.

“I’m disappointed because the traditionalist plan represents one segment of the United Methodist Church, and it’s not reflective of the whole body,” Pastor Nan Smith of Hope United Methodist Church in Marshalltown said. “We’ve always allowed for differences in thoughts. We’re not of one mind.”

Over 800 church delegates from around the globe voted on the issue at its conference in St. Louis. The final tally was 438 to 384 in favor of upholding the Traditional Plan. In 2016, over 100 gay clergy members came out publicly in an open letter to the church. The UMC has over 12 million members, with half residing in the U.S. It is the second-largest Protestant denomination in the nation.

Since 1972, the issue of human sexuality has been discussed during every General Conference, which is held every four years. In 2016, the Commission on a Way Forward was organized with a majority of bishops favoring the One Church Plan, which would have allowed individual churches and regional annual conferences to decide whether to ordain and marry LGBTQ members. February 2019’s special session was delegated as a time when just the issue of human sexuality could be discussed, free of other distractions.

“Every time we get together (the issue) comes up, so this vote at the special session was an attempt to explore it more fully, and the big question was not only what do we believe, but how we live together as a church among those different beliefs,” Pastor Jeff Kodis of First United Methodist Church in Marshalltown said.

Kodis said the conversation has been very painful and raw for people on both sides of the issue. He has been a Methodist minister for 17 years, around three of which spent in Marshalltown, and said he supports the UMC’s decision to uphold the Traditional Plan.

“As someone who has grown up in the church and who took vows to uphold the beliefs and practices of the church, for me, this just affirmed what I said I believed in the beginning. I believe their decision affirms the historic, Biblical understanding of marriage and sexuality,” Kodis said. “It really isn’t a huge issue for our congregation either way. It doesn’t rank as one of our highest priorities as a church. There’s a difference of opinion in our church body, but we have other things we focus on.”

Pastor Scott Lothe of the Laurel United Methodist Church, previously pastor of Hope United Methodist Church in Marshalltown, said he is in favor of the One Church Plan, and is a supporter of same sex marriage and ordaining openly gay clergy.

“The way the division started, 40-plus years ago, language got into our Book of Discipline by the General Conference that said homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teachings and our ministers must not officiate, nor our churches host, same sex unions, and neither shall we ordain practicing, self-avowed, gays or lesbians,” Lothe said. “As society has changed its views toward that, there’s been this force in the church saying we need to overturn this language.”

Lothe said he believes the last time the Methodist Church was this divided was over the issue of rights for African Americans and slavery.

“This is our slavery moment – human sexuality – and in 150 years it will be something else,” he said.

The UMC, like other churches, does have LGBTQ members of its clergy and congregations.

“But it was on a don’t ask, don’t tell basis,” Lothe said.

Kodis said for him, the issue is not about human dignity and worth, which he said every person is deserving of in the eyes of the church. Instead he said the issue is “what actions or behaviors honor God, and while we all agree on the first one, of that every human being is worthy of respect and love, the second one is where we disagree.”

When asked about his feelings on if someday the UMC reverses its stance on homosexuality, Kodis said, “I don’t just blindly believe what the denomination believes. I’m in the UMC because it’s a good fit for what I believe and my faith, and if they changed, I would have to make the decision whether I can stay with integrity in that system. It would all depend on what the change was.”

Lothe said the Judicial Council, which acts as a Supreme Court in the UMC, will now review the decision. It will decide what parts of it are in keeping with the church’s Constitution and what parts may need to be amended.

The Traditional Plan’s goal is to strengthen the denomination’s bans on clergy officiating at same-sex unions or being “self-avowed practicing homosexuals.” It encourages the people who don’t obey the church’s prohibitions to seek a different church home.

The issue of same-sex marriage and ordaining openly gay clergy may again be voted on at the church’s next General Conference, which will take place May 5-15, 2020 in Minneapolis.

The discussions leave folks wondering if the UMC is headed for a split.

“It already has,” Lothe said. “But legally we have to figure it out. Early on at the conference they took a vote of the delegates to see what were the five top petitions they wanted to see debated and number one was pensions. If we split up, what will that look like for our pensions and our property, and ways of separating and the Traditional Plan were also discussed.”

Lothe has accepted a position as pastor at St. Timothy’s United Methodist Church in Cedar Falls, where he said he is eager to help congregants with the “healing process” of this decision.

Smith, who grew up in the Presbyterian faith, found the Methodist Church in college. She’s been a minister for nine years, serving her current church for the past six. She said she will broach the topic of the special session at this Sunday’s worship service.

“This church (Hope United) will always be welcoming and be inclusive of all people who want to have a part of our ministries,” Smith said. “There is already a division in the (Methodist) church, and I don’t know what the future brings because of that.”