Event at Lake Junaluska sparks uproar

Conservative groups blast
retreat center for hosting
‘Hearts on Fire’

United Methodist News Service
LAKE JUNALUSKA, N.C.—Renting facilities to a group that advocates gay rights in the church has brought a summer storm to Lake Junaluska.
The Reconciling Ministries Network, which advocates full participation in the church by people of all sexual orientations, is staging its Sept. 2-5 “Hearts on Fire” event at the Southeastern Jurisdiction’s retreat center. Several hundred people are expected to attend.
E-mail and official statements have passed back and forth in recent weeks, and church-related blogs and Internet forums are buzzing about the gathering.
“SEJAC (Southeastern Jurisdiction Administrative Council) does not approve of or disapprove of the ‘Hearts on Fire’ conference program,” said Jimmy L. Carr, executive director of Lake Junaluska Conference and Retreat Center. “The participants in the event will use the facilities of SEJAC, and we will host them, as we do other groups who are our guests, in a gracious way that is exemplary of the wonderful United Methodist Church that we so love and desire to serve in the name of Jesus Christ.”
Conservative leaders within the denomination have marshaled their supporters to express dismay at the gathering being allowed at Lake Junaluaka.
“The ‘Hearts on Fire’ conference … should not be held,” said the Rev. James V. Heidinger II, president and publisher of Good News magazine. “The conference will not just be advocating for change in the church’s standards; it will include large doses of preaching and teaching that are in direct opposition to the scriptural norm and to the church’s standards. That should not happen at a United Methodist conference center.”
Mark Tooley, director of UMAction, part of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, said, “Since Lake Juna-luska’s own internal rules require it to rent its facilities only to groups that share the ‘mission’ of The United Methodist Church, it seems highly inappropriate to rent those facilities for a rally for same-sex ‘marriage,’ homosexual clergy, and various exotic forms of sexual expression.”
The Rev. Troy Plummer, executive director of the Reconciling Ministries Network, said Lake Junaluska is fulfilling its mandate as a “faithful United Methodist retreat and conference center to serve the whole church.”
Lake Junaluska officials are “practicing open hearts, open minds, open doors as they continue to make disciples for Jesus Christ,” Plummer said.
“I am perplexed by any who would confuse the love of God and grace of Jesus Christ with closed doors, closed minds, closed hearts,” he added.
Carr said the leadership at Lake Junaluska treated the request to rent facilities the same as it would a request from any other United Methodist group. The retreat center “researched their request and found RMN to be an affiliated caucus … of The United Methodist Church,” he said.
The 2005 United Methodist Directory, published by United Methodist Publishing House, lists the group under the heading “Affiliated Caucuses and Ecumenical Groups,” he said.
Reconciling Ministries “is made up of a broad cross section of The United Methodist Church, and we understand its members are primarily heterosexual,” Carr said.
The group plans to play host to many United Methodist leaders during the Sept. 2-5 event, Carr noted. Those include Bishops Minerva Carcaño, Scott Jones, Susan Morrison, Sally Dyck and John Schol.
“We also discovered that RMN was allowed to participate during the 2004 General Conference along with other affiliated caucuses,” Carr said. “The executive committee of SEJAC, who administers Lake Junaluska facilities, reviewed their request and agreed for us to provide hospitality to this group.”
The Lake Junaluska Conference and Retreat Center is known throughout Methodism as host to a number of gatherings each year. The conservative Confessing Movement, another unofficial United Methodist group, had its annual Epworth Institute for young pastors there in July.