Delegates to the denomination’s General Conference in Fort Worth, Texas, on May 2 rejected a call for the UMC “to review and identify companies that profit from sales of products or services that cause harm to Palestinians and Israelis and begin phased selective divestment from these companies,” the United Methodist News Service reported.
Two other proposals, one presented by the Methodist Federation for Social Action calling for “phased, selective divestment”, were also rejected, the news service reported.
Another proposal that did pass, from the church’s Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, called for the denomination to continue its advocacy of “a peaceful settlement of the conflict “through negotiation and diplomacy rather than through methods of violence and coercion.”
U.S. Jewish groups, including the New York-based American Jewish Committee, welcomed the decisions on divestment. Rabbi Gary Greenebaum, the committee’s U.S. inter-religious affairs director applauded what he called “balance in [UMC] efforts to foster peace between Israelis and Palestinians.”
The issue of transgender rights — which some observers thought might be deliberated because of a recent case involving a transgender UMC minister — was not debated at the 23 April-2 May meeting. Earlier during the once-every-four-years General Conference, the UMC’s main governing body, turned down efforts to change denominational rules on homosexuality, which include prohibitions against ordaining openly gay clergy.
The conference also heard from Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, elected leader of the West African nation in 2006 following years of internal war and political instability. Sirleaf praised the denomination’s long history of institutional support for schools and hospitals in Liberia.
“For more than 175 years, you, the Methodist Church, has stood by and with the Liberian nation,” Sirleaf told delegates in a 29 April speech. “The church must continue to work to assist us meet the challenges for the people of Liberia.”
The UMC has 12 million members, about a quarter of them in Africa, Asia and Europe. In the United States, the United Methodist Church is, after the Southern Baptist Convention, the second largest Protestant denomination with about 8 million members.
