Sexuality issues rarely prime cause of schism
The top legislative body of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) votes to allow ministers to preside at same-sex marriages and recommends changing the church’s definition of marriage to that of a “unique commitment between two people.”
In the United Methodist Church, a pastor defrocked for performing a same-sex marriage for his son is reinstated by a regional appeals committee.
As usual in the decades-long denominational debates over sexuality, each of these recent developments revived talks of schism and of the potential of a mass exodus of congregations.
