Redlands Daily Facts
MENTONE >> A church has fired a minister who contended that homosexuality is not compatible with biblical teaching and who called on his congregation to leave a denomination that disagrees with that stance.
The council of Mentone Congregational Church, which is part of the United Church of Christ, on Wednesday night handed a termination notice to the Rev. William P. Roberts, its pastor since 2008, according to church moderator Carmen Ivory.
“You have been open, very verbal and adamant over your beliefs about an ‘open and affirming’ church environment,” the notice reads in part. “These verbal expressions are creating division in the Mentone Congregational United Church of Christ.”
Roberts’ firing, which Ivory said was based on a consensus of the church council, became effective immediately, she said: “He was there, and he accepted the letter from us.”
Multiple calls to Roberts were not returned Thursday.
Roberts had scheduled a gathering this Sunday to ask congregation members to vote to withdraw from the UCC, which welcomes people of all sexual orientations and gender expressions and pledges nondiscrimination under its Open and Affirming Resolution of 1985, said Hal Jackson, a member of the UCC Southern California Nevada Conference’s Committee on Church and Ministry.
Because of Roberts’ firing, Ivory said, the meeting will not take place.
Roberts had contended that the UCC’s open and affirming position “is not biblically sound,” Jackson said in a news release last week. Jackson characterized the UCC, including the Mentone congregation, as a fellowship where everyone is welcome.
Like other UCC flocks, the Mentone church is part of a Congregationalist heritage under which individual churches make their own decisions about hiring and firing of ministers; no governing body outside the congregation is involved.
In fact, said Janet Wilson, president of the United Church of Christ in Redlands, many of the denomination’s policies — including the Open and Affirming Resolution — do not bind member churches.
“The UCC encourages all its congregations to identify as open and affirming,” Wilson said. The Redlands church does so. “But not all do.”
The Mentone church has not identified itself specifically as an open and affirming congregation, Ivory said, acknowledging that her church’s policies do not match those of the denomination: Mentone UCC does not perform same-sex wedding ceremonies.
“But I would call us open,” said Ivory, who has held the post of moderator for about a year and been a member of the church for more than 20 years. “That’s just part of who we are. If you want to worship with us, we welcome you.”