Second-largest Protestant denomination in US votes to allow LGBT clergy — but African pastor holds the line

United Methodists voted on Wednesday to rescind a denominational rule prohibiting LGBT clergy from ordination, a historic moment for the country's second-largest Protestant denomination and its progressive drift.

In 1984, the United Methodist Church took a stand for orthodox Christian sexual ethics, declaring:

Since the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching, self-avowed, practicing homosexuals are not to be accepted as candidates, ordained as ministers or appointed to serve in the United Methodist Church.

Now, 40 years later, the UMC will officially allow LGBT clergy.

At the UMC's general conference meeting in Charlotte, the denomination struck the prohibition from denomination guidelines with an overwhelming vote, 93% to 7%. The change was passed alongside nearly two dozen other pieces of legislation without debate.

The change follows the conference's trend, which has been to pass denominational legislation normalizing the LGBT lifestyle and to remove ethical and disciplinary measures related to LGBT-identifying and LGBT-practicing Christians. Conference delegates are expected to pass additional pro-LGBT measures before the conference ends on Friday.

Methodists who oppose the UMC's progressive trend began breaking away from the denomination several years ago, starting the Global Methodist Church or remaining independent. Thousands of Methodist congregations have already joined the ranks of the Global Methodist body.

The pro-LGBT affirming vote is representative of the split, as most conservative Methodists chose not to attend the conference.

Still, some faithful Methodists, especially from Africa, are holding the line.

"We see homosexuality as a sin," Forbes Matonga, a pastor from West Zimbabwe, said. "So to us, this is a fundamental theological difference where we think others no longer regard the authority of Scripture."

Whereas the UMC is now going the way of other progressive Christian denominations in the U.S. — like the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America — it's important to remember that the embrace of pro-LGBT theology is almost uniquely confined to the Western church, where issues of sexuality and gender have become cultural lightning rods.

The vast majority of Christians in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, however, continue to uphold orthodox Christian teaching on sexual ethics.

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