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When California pastor Luiz Lemos, 60, was ordered by his bishop to transfer to another United Methodist church last August, he faced a choice between ministry and family: Either move five hours away from home and risk losing two foster children, or resign as a pastor in the California-Nevada United Methodist Conference.

Lemos resigned. But the story of Lemos, now leading a new community church nearby, and seven other pastors who faced similarly traumatic career choices may become a major case study of a bishop's questionable use of power.

All eight United Methodist pastors are conservative evangelicals in the liberal California-Nevada conference; 67 of the conference's pastors participated in uniting two lesbians in a marriage-like rite in 1999.

The evangelical pastors say that Melvin G. Talbert, their bishop until his September retirement and an advocate of same-sex unions, violated the Methodist Book of Discipline while moving to force them from their Methodist pulpits.

Lemos, a native of Brazil, resigned from Foothills United Methodist Church in Cameron Park, California, after Talbert abruptly appointed him to the United Methodist Church of Lindsay, California, a smaller church with a declining membership.

Talbert's move was all too familiar to Lemos. Months earlier, Talbert had unsuccessfully tried to appoint another pastor, Kyle Phillips, to the Lindsay church. Phillips refused and has also left the denomination.

Lemos says his Methodist district superintendent required him to relocate one month before his starting date. Pastors are usually given at least six months' notice to move.

Lemos received no consideration for his two foster children. "We must have permission from the court and their biological parents, who still hold parental rights over the kids," Lemos says. "I would have probably lost my foster children. It would have been devastating."

The children, Mexican boys ages 7 and 9, come from abusive homes. "After four years, we love these kids like we would love our own," Lemos says.

While tensions between conservative and liberal Methodists have been brewing for decades, the Sacramento same-sex union ceremony provoked a fresh debate over homosexuality and the process of church discipline.

The California-Nevada conference is one of more than 50 United Methodist conferences across the nation. Tensions reached a boiling point this spring after conference leaders declined to take action against the 67 pastors who performed the rite for Ellie Charlton, 64, and Jeanne Barnett, 69, at St. Mark's United Methodist, Sacramento, in January 1999.

Although the Book of Discipline says homosexual union services are not to be performed by Methodist pastors or held in a Methodist sanctuary, many conference leaders disagree, including Talbert.

The bishop formally filed charges against the pastors for breaking church laws, but an investigating committee dropped all charges. Conservatives have accused Talbert of stacking the committee with same-sex union supporters.

"There is another more basic and fundamental covenant" than the Book of Discipline, Talbert said in one of his few statements on the matter. Talbert declined CT's request to elaborate on his views or address the accusations of misconduct.

In response to the committee's exoneration of the 67 clergy, six evangelical pastors in March issued a letter criticizing the conference for refusing to uphold church law. They also encouraged churches in the conference to hold apportionment money, which supports Methodist operations and ministries, in escrow.

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November 13 2000, Vol. 44, No. 13