{"id":55091,"date":"2024-06-02T17:29:10","date_gmt":"2024-06-02T21:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/?p=55091"},"modified":"2024-06-25T12:20:53","modified_gmt":"2024-06-25T16:20:53","slug":"dean-robert-a-hill-opinion-article-published-on-bu-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/dean-robert-a-hill-opinion-article-published-on-bu-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Dean Robert A. Hill Opinion Article published by BU Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following is an excerpt from\u00a0<\/i>Dean of Marsh Chapel and School of Theology Professor of New Testament and Pastoral Theology\u00a0<\/span>Robert Allan Hill<\/a>\u2019s opinion\u00a0<\/span><\/em>article \u201cPOV: Schism in the Methodist Church Explained<\/a>,\u201d published on May 29, 2024 on <\/em>BU Today<\/a>. The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Boston University School of Theology, its employees, faculty, or students.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Given the\u00a0<\/span>completion of a split<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>within the United Methodist Church last month, people have asked several questions as the divorce is being finalized. Here is an attempt to respond to some of these interests.<\/p>\n

Why have a quarter of American Methodist churches left the denomination?<\/h3>\n

Like other Protestant denominations (Episcopal, Presbyterian, Lutheran, etc.), the United Methodist Church (UMC) has faced decades of conflict, largely over the full humanity of gay people. Like other denominations, after years of national and other meetings (\u201cconferences,\u201d in Methodism), the denomination has at long last come to a conclusive point. As a result, some 20 to 25 percent of churches and members have departed the denomination.<\/p>\n

Why now?<\/h3>\n

The schism, finally and fully ratified in April, has been fully present since at least 1970, and has been debated, avoided, postponed, and dreaded since before I entered the ministry in 1979. The determinations of the General Conference (the governing body of the UMC) have at long last, and with both grace and truth, come to a conclusive point on the gay issue. It has been a long time coming.<\/p>\n

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Read the full article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following is an excerpt from\u00a0Dean of Marsh Chapel and School of Theology Professor of New Testament and Pastoral Theology\u00a0Robert Allan Hill\u2019s opinion\u00a0article \u201cPOV: Schism in the Methodist Church Explained,\u201d published on May 29, 2024 on BU Today. The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12612,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[201,203],"tags":[194,250,391],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55091"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12612"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55091"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55302,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55091\/revisions\/55302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}