Getting Permission to Break the Rules: Clergy Respond to LGBTQ Exclusion in the United Methodist Church

Abstract

Organizational scholars expect organizations to conform to the norms and expectations of their institutional environments. In some cases, though, organizations may reject rules if they perceive a greater advantage to defiance than to conformity. This project analyzes a sample of sermons given by United Methodist Church (UMC) clergy surrounding the 2019 UMC General Conference. We focus on a subset of sermons in which clergy explicitly mention they will not follow denominational rules, meaning they will marry and ordain LGBTQ people, to investigate how clergy legitimize their rule breaking. We find that clergy draw on several sources of religious authority to justify their decisions, including meso-level structures in the UMC tradition, the autonomy of local congregations, and religious texts and leaders. This project provides empirical evidence of how organizations resist institutional pressure and construct their decision as legitimate, with implications for other organizations and for LGBTQ inclusion.

“Too Much to Hope”: Analyzing Clergy Rhetoric on White Supremacy

“…In contrast to interviews or surveys of clergy, sermons capture how clergy publicly navigate contentious and important issues with their congregations. These data enable us to better understand the frameworks clergy offer on race and racism, as well as how they imbue those frameworks with moral or divine authority (Gilliland and Krull 2022; Mayrl 2023; Mehta, Schneider, and Ecklund 2022). By analyzing the content of clergy messages, this project also makes theoretical contributions to our understanding of religion and racial attitudes owing to both (1) the silence of some clergy and (2) the multiple racial frameworks evident in their responses.…”

Are Online Congregations Representative? Exploring Resource and Political Differences

“…For example, social justice activists working with congregations often face a preference for comfort over sustained engagement, thus hindering their efforts (Delehanty 2016). Additionally, clergy are often hesitant to engage with controversial issues, fearing their own limitations and the threat controversy could pose for congregational stability (Cadge and Wildeman 2008;Campbell and Pettigrew 1959;Gilliland and Krull 2022;Hadden 1969). As a result, clergy who have a broader audience of online attendees, possibly people who they do not know and might offend, may opt to limit their political engagement as compared to clergy speaking only to their congregations.…”