{"id":17828,"date":"2018-05-04T14:42:55","date_gmt":"2018-05-04T21:42:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=17828"},"modified":"2018-05-04T14:46:08","modified_gmt":"2018-05-04T21:46:08","slug":"a-letter-from-bishop-stanovsky-as-the-council-of-bishops-offers-its-recommendation-to-the-umc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/a-letter-from-bishop-stanovsky-as-the-council-of-bishops-offers-its-recommendation-to-the-umc\/","title":{"rendered":"A letter from Bishop Stanovsky as the Council of Bishops offers its recommendation to The UMC"},"content":{"rendered":"

How very good and pleasant it is<\/em>
\n\u00a0 when kindred live together in unity!<\/em>
\nFor there the Lord ordained his blessing,<\/em>
\n\u00a0 life forevermore.<\/em>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span>-Psalm 133:1, 3b<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n

Today, the Council of Bishops strongly recommend that United Methodists stay together as ONE CHURCH.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Bishop Elaine JW Stanovsky<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Together, the council agreed to recommend that the 2019 General Conference make room for individuals, local churches and annual conferences to exercise conscience as they choose whether or not to ordain gay and lesbian clergy, or to perform weddings for couples of the same gender, by removing prohibitive language from the Book of Discipline, <\/em>and letting Annual Conferences set standards for ordination, and same gender weddings.<\/p>\n

This recommendation emerged out of honest anguish and disagreement, as well as patient listening and fervent prayer, as we met in closed session. We make this recommendation despite deep and painful differences in our understanding of God\u2019s will for LGBTQ people and a recognition that the \u201ccontextual\u201d teachings and practices of the church in one area not only makes ministry more difficult in other areas, but can cause real harm to people.<\/p>\n

While forces around the world are sowing distrust and driving wedges to divide people against one another, we hope The United Methodist Church can be a witness to the whole world that people can live together in peace and love each other, despite profound disagreements, even as we continue to discern God\u2019s will and way for the whole human family.<\/p>\n

Living in hope,<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Bishop Elaine JW Stanovsky<\/strong>\u00a0| Greater NW Area<\/p>\n

Click here to read the Council of Bishops Press Release.<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How very good and pleasant it is \u00a0 when kindred live together in unity! For there the Lord ordained his blessing, \u00a0 life forevermore. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0-Psalm 133:1, 3b Today, the Council of Bishops strongly recommend that United […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":17829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[458],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17828","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-greater-northwest-episcopal-area"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/sun-breaking-thru-fb.jpg?fit=1200%2C627&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-4Dy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17828"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17832,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17828\/revisions\/17832"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}