Archive Marriage and Relationships - 2019

PLEASE NOTE

The content on these pages is an archive created before the Methodist Conference voted to allow same-sex marriages in June 2021.  Read more here.

The Marriage and Relationships Task Group presented a report to the 2019 Conference with recommendations about various issues to do with relationships in general and marriage in particular. Those recommendations will be submitted to the wider Church for consultation during 2019-2020, with a final decision being made at the July 2020 Conference.

The report was extensively discussed, and the Conference made amendments to some of the resolutions which were presented by the Task Group, and therefore some of the resolutions which are now presented to the Synods as provisional resolutions are different from those described in section 5 of the report. However, resolution 10/1 directed that the report be commended for study and prayerful discussion, and the full report is therefore reproduced here in the form in which it was presented to the Conference.

The Methodist Church has not fully reflected on the theology of marriage and relationships since 1992 although work has been carried out by several Task Groups since then. The Marriage and Relationships Task Group set up in 2014 identified the need for an update and to revisit the ‘definition’ of marriage and the current Task Group (set up in 2016) have been looking at this. The 2018 Conference directed that, instead of a statement, the Task Group should bring a report on these matters which could include any proposed changes to Standing Orders, were the definition of marriage to change.