Dallas, USA - Many people look to their religion for guidance on tough moral questions. Methodists who do so these days may find something less than clarity concerning homosexuality.
In recent weeks, Methodist leaders have issued two rulings that strike many people as confusing, if not outright contradictory. On Oct. 31, the United Methodist Church's Judicial Council, the equivalent of a Supreme Court, ruled that a Virginia pastor had the right to deny church membership to a homosexual man. Two days later, the church's Council of Bishops, analogous to the executive branch, released a unanimous pastoral letter that said "homosexuality is not a barrier" to membership.
And after the bishops' letter, the church's Communications Commission - something like the White House press office - sent out a letter defending a new "inclusive" ad campaign that starts next month.
The announcement lambasted the Judicial Council ruling as "contrary to the spirit of the teachings of the church, our history, and most importantly, the teachings of Jesus."
So where does all that leave Methodists who are grappling with the issue?
"Don't ask me to make sense of it. It's a very difficult situation," said the Rev. William Lawrence, dean of the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University.
The actions of the Judicial Council and Council of Bishops aren't precisely contradictory.
The Judicial Council ruling, which carries the force of church law, said the Virginia pastor had the right to make his decision. It may have implied, but it never said, that he was correct to do so.
The pastoral letter, which has only symbolic power, emphasized the openness of the Methodist church to homosexuals. It implied, but never came right out and said, that the pastor's decision was wrong.
Some of those closest to the argument say the dispute is more technical than moral: How much authority does a bishop have over a pastor? The Virginia bishop had instructed the pastor to grant the man membership. And how much does it matter that the pastor was willing to minister to the man, even as he was denied church membership?
But for many Methodists, and others not interested in the fine points of Methodist polity, the muddle is only the latest illustration of the American cultural confusion about homosexuality.
Earlier this month, Texas became the latest state to enact a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. But on the same day, Maine's voters rejected an attempt to repeal a state law that protects homosexuals, transsexuals and transvestites from discrimination.
The United Methodist Church, claiming more than 8.2 million members, is the nation's third-largest denomination, behind Catholics and Southern Baptists. So the seeming confusion among Methodists should matter to those outside the denomination.
"Our religious institutions are embedded in the larger culture," said Lawrence, who has served as a pastor and written about Methodist history.
"When we debate a huge moral question, it's a pretty good insight that we're engaged in the same debate that the larger society is engaged in."
Several other faith groups are engaged in similar disputes: Catholics are awaiting a ruling from the Vatican on whether gay men should become priests. Presbyterians and Episcopalians have struggled in recent years about gay clergy and the blessings of same-sex unions.
Strident partisans on both sides are clear about what they believe:
Either homosexuality is a sin and should be condemned in congregations and discouraged by public policy. Or it's simply a fact of biology and should be as accepted in the pulpit and at the courthouse.
Between those poles is a broad middle ground - people uncomfortable with some aspects of homosexuality but unresolved about how to deal with it in worship or law.
"The murky middle is huge and it consists of a lot of different nuances of opinion," Lawrence said. "It's not only the middle, but it's very murky."
The Methodists try to split the difference. On the one hand, the church considers the "practice of homosexuality incompatible with Christian teaching." And "self-avowed, practicing" openly gay or lesbian are not supposed to be ordained.
(The same day the Judicial Council issued the ruling about the Virginia pastor, it defrocked an openly lesbian pastor from Philadelphia.)
But the denomination's standards also say "that God's grace is available to all, and we will seek to live together in Christian community. We implore families and churches not to reject or condemn lesbian and gay members and friends."
In the Virginia case ruled on by the Judicial Council, the facts are not in dispute: A gay man who was not Methodist had become active in a Methodist church in South Hill, about 80 miles southwest of Richmond. He joined the choir and took part in other church activities. Eventually, he told the pastor that he wanted to join. He also told him that he was gay.
Someone joining the Methodists from a different denomination is required to take a series of vows, including "to renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of the world, and repent of their sin."
The South Hill pastor, the Rev. Ed Johnson, turned the man down for membership. His bishop and a state conference of Methodist clergy both told him to accept the man. When Johnson held his ground, he was suspended. The Judicial Council, hearing the pastor's appeal, ruled that he had the duty and authority to determine who was eligible to take membership vows in his church and lifted his suspension.
So where does this leave other pastors?
"In one sense, it says to the pastor `struggle with this,'" said Dallas Bishop Rhymes Moncure.
That's not a struggle that some pastors are familiar with.
"We tend to welcome people when they come to us," said the Rev. John Fiedler, pastor at First Methodist Dallas. "We welcome the decision without doing a complete background check."
The Rev. Janet Bell Odom is pastor of Camp Wisdom United Methodist Church in Oak Cliff, Texas. She's never run into the question of whether or not to accept someone for membership, she said.
"I don't know what decision I'd make," she said. "As a minority, I have to say I have empathy and know what it's like to be a minority in a struggle with the church."
But she does know the confusion in the church hierarchy is not making her job easier.
"I think it's time for the church to say what we are or are not," she said.
But can the church make itself clear without losing those who lose the argument? Retired Dallas bishop William Oden, now bishop-in-residence at Perkins, has his doubts.
"To clarify it either way is inadequate," he said. "Either way pushes us to a conclusion we're not ready to make."