The Rev. David Meredith, an openly gay pastor of Clifton United Methodist Church, has put himself at the center of the decades-old denominational battle over homosexuality.

On May 7 last year, Meredith, 61, married Jim Schlachter, his partner of almost 29 years.

On May 9, the first of several formal complaints — two from prominent local Methodist church pastors — were filed with the West Ohio Conference of the United Methodist Church.

Sunday at the conference's headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, Meredith will appear before the seven members of its Committee on Investigation to determine the validity of allegations and whether an internal trial should be held.

Ordained in 1987, when he was openly gay and entered into the committed relationship with his now-husband Jim Schlachter, Meredith could be stripped of his clerical rights and lose his job.

"I could lose everything," he said.

Meredith, who has lived in their Madeira home with Schlachter since 1990, said he faces three charges Sunday. Citing the Methodist's Book of Discipline, they are:

• "Immorality including but not limited to, not being celibate in singleness or not faithful in a heterosexual marriage."

• "Being a self-avowed practicing homosexual."

• And "disobedience to the order and discipline of The United Methodist Church."

Meredith and Schlachter married three days before the denomination's international voting body met to consider changing church doctrine on homosexuality. At its meeting in Portland, Oregon, though, church leaders did not address the issue. They voted instead to send it to a committee.

The governing body of the United Methodist Church voted in 2008 and 2012 against removing anti-gay policies. The core of that policy reads that homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching." Methodist ministers are forbidden from conducting gay marriages, which are not allowed to be held in denominational churches.

Neither Bishop Gregory V. Palmer of the West Ohio Conference nor its communications director, Kay Panovec, responded Tuesday to email and phone messages requesting comment.

The Rev. Mark Rowland, the senior pastor of Anderson Hills United Methodist Church, Anderson Township, is one of the complainants in the case, Meredith said. Another is the Rev. Derek Russell of Hillsboro First United Methodist Church.

Neither Rowland nor the church's communications director, Susan Mahaney, responded Tuesday to The Enquirer.

The issue is divisive within the mainline Protestant denomination, which has about 7.3 million U.S. members. In April, Methodist leaders announced they would hold a special session in February 2019 in St. Louis, Missouri, to determine the church's stance on homosexuality.

In April, when the denomination announced its 2019 conference, a major conservative Methodist leader, John Lomperis, a 2016 voting delegate told Fox News that he welcomed the opportunity to "address the issue we put off in 2016."

"Time and again, we have shown that the votes are simply not there to liberalize the Discipline's biblical standards on sexual self-control — no matter how much political organizing, money and dishonest rhetoric about 'compromise' gets thrown into liberal efforts," said Lomperis, United Methodist Director for the theologically conservative Institute on Religion & Democracy, based in Washington, D.C.

In many ways, Clifton United Methodist stands at the opposite end of the theological spectrum inside the denomination.

In 1998, the church, under the leadership of its former pastor, the Rev. Jerry K. Hill, declared itself a Reconciling Congregation. That designation means all people, "regardless of sexual orientation, are beloved children of God who have a place in the church." Clifton was one of about 150 Methodist congregations to take that public stance at the time, according to its website.

Meredith came to Clifton United Methodist on July 1, 2012, and had previously served local congregations Oxford United Methodist Church, Oxford, Ohio, and Armstrong Chapel United Methodist Church in Indian Hill.

"We have never hidden our love," Meredith said of he and his husband. "We have welcomed into our home bishops, superintendents, colleagues. We talk about our love and commitment. … This effort is to make caricatures of gay and lesbian folks. It is a threat hanging over my head, a threat of bad theology that says I will burn in hell."

Sitting beside his husband on a couch in their home, Schlachter said, "I was introduced to everyone. Now I am a surprise."

Meredith is popular in his congregation and among social justice advocates regionally. In June, after the second mistrial of white, former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing, Meredith protested in the rain in front of the Hamilton County Courthouse with local Black Lives Matter members. Tensing had been charged a second time with murder in the shooting death of unarmed black motorist Sam DuBose.

Meredith invited them to march with his congregation in Cincinnati's Gay Pride Parade the next day. They did.

A rally in support of Meredith will move from Worthington United Methodist Church at 3 p.m. Sunday to the West Ohio Conference, 32 Wesley Boulevard, Columbus. His hearing will begin inside at 4 p.m. and is not open to the public. Supporters, who will sing hymns and pray, will call for Meredith to retain his position at Clifton United Methodist. An array of sanctions are possible if the investigation committee rules that Meredith should stand trial.

Vandals struck Meredith's church in March, scrawling slurs of a sexual nature on its sign.

Stephen Depoe, a lay leader in Meredith's local church who started worshipping there at the time Meredith was appointed, said his pastor preaches and lives the importance of supporting all people who are oppressed.

"The thing is, David Meredith is a Methodist through and through and wants to reform the denomination from within," Depoe said. "David Meredith supports the many good aspects of Methodism."