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2008-03-04 issue:

No additional discipline for Lancaster bishop

by Anna Groff

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PITTSBURGH—Before Lancaster (Pa.) Mennonite Conference bishop Linford King ordained a second woman pastor on Jan. 20, LMC moderator Keith Weaver sent King a letter stating that the ordination would have “the likelihood of additional disciplinary action” (see News Digest, Feb. 5).

King ordained Janet Breneman at the Laurel Street Mennonite Church in Lancaster anyway. The LMC bishop board met on Feb. 15 to consider how to proceed.

LMC does not allow ordination for women, and a bishop board proposal to do so did not pass in a January 2007 vote by conference leaders holding ministerial credentials. King ordained Elizabeth Nissley at James Street Mennonite Church on June 24, 2007, and LMC sent him a letter of reprimand last August.

With additional disciplinary action pending against King after the Jan. 20 ordination, nine credentialed leaders from King’s Lancaster city district sent a letter to the LMC bishop board advocating for King and asking that he not be disciplined further.

On Feb. 15, the bishop board decided to work at “bridge-building and uniting,” Weaver says, “as the board seeks to determine an appropriate response.” The bishop board also adopted a statement that acknowledges the broken trust between the bishop board and King, accepts responsibility to determine an appropriate response to this break in trust and agrees on the need for conversations with King for restoration.

King says he felt called to give his district—his employer—first loyalty; that is why he agreed when several pastors and congregations in his district asked him to ordain the women pastors.
“The congregations drove this,” he says. “They said: ‘We have done prayerful work and want to ordain our leaders. Will you do that for us?’ I had to think about how I would say no to that.”

King also holds a denominational minister position with Mennonite Church USA Executive Leadership’s Congregational and Ministerial Leadership.

King says that before the Feb. 15 bishop board meeting he received a call from Gilberto Flores, director of denominational ministry and missional church for Mennonite Church USA Executive Leadership, saying that Mennonite Church USA Executive Board and Executive Leadership are “standing by him.”—Anna Groff

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