Leaders of church split over approval of movies

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Methodists locked

in sex-film battle

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) Explicit sex movies produced and filmed by ministers are causing an uproar within the United Methodist Church.

Screenings of the 10 films -intended for sex counseling

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are

all right if the viewers are carefully selected, says the Nashville-based Board of Discipleship. But some church leaders and members disagree; they want the films discontinued.

The denomination counts nearly 10 million members in more than 38,000 churches.

A national task force was set up to study the films and sex forums, which have been used in some parts of the country for up to seven years. The task force recommended in October that use of the films be continued as long as audiences were strictly limited.

When the Board of Discipleship approved the recommendation, five Nashville churches were so unhappy they sliced their autumn apportionments to the board.

In addition, the United Methodist Laymen of Nashville voiced opposition, and Nashville's bishop and the West End Methodist Church of Nashville have appealed to the General Conference, the highest authority in the United Methodist Church, to override the board.

The General Conference, composed of lay people and church leaders, holds its quadrennial meeting in April in Indianapolis.

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Robert Sullins, a leader of the West End church, served on the task force and voted with the minority to halt use of all but two of the sex films.

"The films showed

men and women through the act of masturbation, and they also showed male and female homosexuality. Each one of these movies was from beginning to end from the point of undressing to the point of climax."

Dr. Melvin Talbert, general secretary of the board, said the human sexuality forums in which the films are shown are intended only for people who will be counseling others.

Talbert said the board had demonstrated its concern in October by asking the church's standing Committee on Family to review the forums and films.

The family committee begins its review in February and should make a report by next October, he said.

The Rev. Dr. Ted McIlvenna, director of the National Sex Forum in San Francisco, is the Methodist clergyman who made most of the films.

He said some Methodist leaders objected to the films from the beginning. "When we established the program, they wouldn't even say, 'homosexual.' They said, 'Hpeople.'

"They just assumed that anything that is sexually explicit is pornography," he said.