Posted on 12/15/2022 12:12:57 AM PST by Morgana
It’s really more than LGBT. If staff can ignore the Book of Discipline, you can have non-ordained staffers performing sacraments, essentially negating the need for ordained clergy. Full-time clergy can be replaced with congregants who are good at preaching. I was a UMC lay speaker. All I had to do was show up on Sunday and preach. I have a friend who has a full time job in manufacturing but pastors a UMC church.
Sounds great! We joined the conservative Wesleyan denomination after we left the PCUSA and love it there.
“All the mainline church denominations have been taken over by democrats.”
Yep. I suspect what happened is that members raised their kids in the church, then sent them off to University where they, of course, became hard-core Leftists. The kids now become a weapon of the Left, as they know how to infiltrate the leadership, move up, and take over...which is what likely happened here.
A friend told me that his UMC church held a vote of the congregation to leave. The vote was 94-4 in favor. They have to pay UMC for their land and building. Fortunately, they have a reasonable amount of savings and can do it.
The seminaries started to doubt the Bible then accepted professors then students without insisting that they hold a strong view of the Bible.
Going back 120 years the Methodists were by today’s standards “fundamentalists”, standing on the fundamentals of the faith. Today no one wants to be shackled with that title. That and locally, since great grandpa, grandpa, mom and dad were raised, married and buried in the First United Methodist Church corner of Main and Elm st. and help build the sanctuary, no one wants to leave on account of a lack of faith standards.
Can’t say it would be an easy decision but the truth is the UMC stands for nothing these days.
All these articles are vague on this point.
Very curious.
https://news.yahoo.com/alabama-united-methodist-churches-join-180844854.html
“But biblical beliefs seem to be the main reason for denominations becoming two (or more) very different groups of believers.
The AP reported that the UMC “passed non-binding measures asking anyone to withdraw from leadership roles if they’re planning to leave the denomination soon — a category that almost entirely includes conservatives moving toward the exits. The denomination still officially bans same-sex marriage and the ordination of any ‘self-avowed, practicing homosexual,’ and only ... the General Conference can change that.”
UMC members and clergy say another reason for the split is what they see as “liberalism” being preached in churches and taught in seminaries.
“For years, bishops have told traditionalists that there is room for everyone in the UMC, but not one single traditionalist bishop was ever elected. ... We now have the most progressive or liberal council of bishops in the history of Methodism, period.””
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