Few expect to find religious substance on cable-news channels and websites.
But on New Year’s Eve, MSNBC posted a liberal overview of the same-sex dispute that is splitting the large United Methodist Church (UMC) and affects U.S. Protestantism over-all. The writer was Robert Allan Hill, dean of the chapel and New Testament professor at Boston University.
The Guy assumes that MSNBC has neither sought nor posted any theological article on this by a doctrinal traditionalist, any more than we’d expect Fox News to post a liberal’s religious commentary on this topic. Such are the “silos” that shape today’s cable “news” offerings and audiences.
As of December 31, the dispute over the Bible and sexual morality caused 7,660 congregations, roughly a quarter of the UMC, to depart, the largest U.S. schism since the Civil War. But Hill is upbeat because there’s now “a way forward” for “creative repositioning” in the UMC.
Sexual traditionalists have won every UMC showdown the past 52 years, but their voting power is seriously weakened by the big U.S. walkout, raising the odds that liberals can finally change official belief at the General Conference in Charlotte April 23 to May 3, or else at a special 2026 conference called by the bishops.
The media still have some difficulty explaining why this conflict has been so persistent and disruptive, so The Guy will sketch some pointers from the immense literature on this from scholars. Whatever the case with Catholic and Orthodox churches, for Protestants it’s all about the Bible, what it says and how that’s to be interpreted and applied.
Hill charged that current supporters of the Christian teaching across the centuries “have apparently not read all of the Bible, or at least have not read some parts of it carefully, faithfully and fully” so that the issue “is biblically misunderstood.”
For starters, he says there’s a “paucity of any biblical material” on homosexuality, with only six passages. Traditionalists cite a larger number but, leaving that question aside, they argue that both the Old and New Testaments clearly teach a moral aversion to same-sex activity and no verse tolerates it.
