In a statement released on RMNBlog (the blog site for the Reconciling Ministries Network(RMN)) Matt Barryman, RMN Executive Director expressed disappointment with the October 23 letter from the United Methodist Council of Bishops Executive Committee asking Bishop Melvin G. Talbert to refrain from performing a same-sex wedding ceremony this Saturday.
Berryman focused particularly on the bishops’ concerns regarding the breaking of the ministerial covenant by Bishop Talbert in disobeying the United Methodist Book of Discipline:
We are concerned that the covenant shared among the bishops does not allow room for critique and seems to require allegiance at the expense of the gospel for which it was created to support and embody. As expressed in the letter, the bishops’ covenant is structured in such a way that censures dissenting parties and silences the voice of the prophet. We cannot imagine how a covenant of this kind serves the church since the unity and peace it seeks to preserve is bereft of justice and therefore not true peace at all.
Click here to read the full text of Berryman’s statement.
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