Posted on 12/06/2022 10:56:44 AM PST by SeekAndFind
“I’m surprised it took so long. The UMC went woke years ago.”
My wife’s mother, her mother and her mother were lifelong Methodists, until my MIL died in 2004.
She refused to have her funeral in the church where she had grown up. She scheduled it in a funeral home 12 miles away had the local Baptist Minister instead of the 2 so called Methodists in charge of her funeral service.
The post funeral reception was held in her church’s entertainment hall and that was basically the end of dozens of relatives attending any official function from then on.
Many rescinded their membership at/after her funeral.
That church officially closed very quickly without funds.
Locals/former members bought it and made it into a successful small.local Historical Museum.
Makes one wonder, how often churches must close after their Woke B$!???
Wouldn’t it be easier to just start a new denomination from scratch?
The main problem is most likely property, as in who gets to keep it.
But with lefties it's never decided “once and for all”. Rather than leave the Conference (of course they threatened to,) they have been tormenting the conservative churches until those churches leave.
Eventually, they will drive enough conservative churches out so that gay marriage will pass at the next meeting.
Liberals can't built their own organizations, instead they”capture” existing ones, taking the infrastruction, assets and endowments that were built up by generations by those who put their blood, sweat, tears and treasurer into creating those organizations.
Conservatives are told (and some stupidly believe they can) “form their own organizations” if they don't like it. It's impossible, though, to start from scratch when you are competing with existing multi-billion dollar long-existing organizations.
See my post 23.
I remember growing up in the early 1990’s a woman Methodist “pastor” leading a church - she was a lesbo if I ever saw one.
It was insane then and even more now.
Wrong question really. They do not accept the authority of scripture at all.
Not to pick on just the UMC. The sodomy/non-sodomy schism cuts across denominational lines in Christianity and also exists among the various forms of Judaism.
Saw that after I posted. We were posting at the same time.
We left the UMC a long time ago, just after they merged with the EUB Church. That building is now a mosque.
In a town near us there are two UMC churches: one was always UMC and the other became such after the merger with the EUB. They were never on friendly terms with each other, and even less so now.
Several new denominations have started; i.e. Global Methodist Church. But you would want to maintain your church that was built and maintained by the local congregation.
Also how would you feel if your departed relatives and members of your community had donated significant resources to their church, only to have UMC tear it down, sell, or rent the property, because not enough members remain to sustain the property.
Naturally this slows down the process of Christians leaving apostate churches, and they are more prone to do so as individuals than as congregations.
The day may come soon when LGBTQ "hate crimes" laws or similar tactics are used to force all churches to conform to unbiblical practices or face fines and imprisonment to break all resistance. If and when that day comes Christians will need to be ready to cheerfully give up the bricks and mortar of their property to maintain their integrity and witness.
While such persecution can wear down Christian faith, there are plenty of examples from history of the opposite impact: The commmunist outlawing of Christianity in China for example, led to dramatic growth of the church over the last two generations. Just as I hold that the establishment of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire may have been Satan's greatest stroke against the Church, driving the church underground in America, stripping it of the insulating walls and distractions of shallow churchiness, may be God's great gift to us in the years ahead.
WOW!
Methodists falling for that Globull malarkey?
Good luck with your schism!
How many well-meaning churches are held captive by their church buildings? Heat, repairs, paint, and the inevitable "building committee".
I've seen this focus the energy of a congregation move from the Lord and the Kingdom into worldly trappings.
May it be so.
An astute observation.
Fixed it. Spiritually, there is no such thing as a liberal Christian church. Only a Christian church.
Is, or is not.
I agree it is a most unfortunate name. But the rationale for it is because the Methodist movement has been multi-national since its founding. I remember my great-grandparents' generation supporting Methodist missionaries in Africa and elsewhere.
In a great stroke of irony, it is the current Methodists of Africa whose votes in the UMC's governing world conference killed the acceptance of gay wokism, leading to this schism. They are not having it. The namby-pamby whites in this country have struggled with an inability to say "no" and oust the radical gays for the past 25 years, until finally the gays grabbed enough political power over the bishops to claim title to the name UMC and "rights" to the properties, unless those forced to leave can cough up a large ransom to settle pension obligations, mortgages, etc.
One of my cousins' tiny UMC cannot afford the $80K they have been assessed to leave. It's just a matter of time before the ruling junta replaces their Biblically-sound pastor with an LGBTQ-affirming radical minister. My cousins will have to leave their parents' graves behind if they switch churches to get away from apostasy. Same with a lot of the congregations who haven't left, or can't afford to.
Come as you are, but don’t stay that way.
“Book of Discipline”. Is that book God breathed? NOT!
Organized religion is a waste of your time.
Read the bible (Protestant bibles, of course).
Thanks for explaining.
I am an honorary Methodist, having been born at Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn, many decades ago.
I have numerous Methodist friends and relatives. They are all sad to see the Old Church change so drastically.
Especially those of us who experienced the former Methodist Episcopal Church as a holy church in our childhoods, Biblically sound and socially conservative, teetotaling and life-embracing, liturgically beautiful—before the fateful merger in 1968 with the Evangelical United Brethren. Straight downhill from there.
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