Posted on 03/02/2019 3:53:06 PM PST by xzins
The late Richard Neuhaus once recalled that in the 1970s it was widely expected among religious cognoscenti that United Methodism would be the first of America’s historically liberal Mainline Protestant denominations to abandon traditional Christian sexual ethics. After all, it was the largest and most Americanized of mainline churches, and it wasn’t protected by strong traditions of liturgy or ecclesiology. Its experiential theology often seemed muddled.
When Neuhaus shared that recollection in 2005, the Episcopal Church and United Church of Christ had already surrendered. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church (USA), and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) were on their way. Besides the American Baptist Church (liberal northern counterpart to Southern Baptists), only United Methodism among the “seven sisters” of mainline Protestantism has officially retained Christian teaching that sex is exclusively for husband and wife.
That teaching was stunningly reaffirmed this week at United Methodism’s governing General Conference, specially called to adjudicate the church’s teachings about sex. Stunning at least to the U.S. bishops and other American church elites who’ve long assumed that United Methodism would remain attached to the liberal Protestant project that captured mainline denominations early in the last century. It also stunned secular observers, many of whom assumed that all “mainstream” churches (i.e. not evangelical or fundamentalist) had long ago aligned with American secular culture on sex.
History of the Debate United Methodists have openly debated sex since 1972, when the General Conference, responding to ambiguous language on sexuality proposed by a church agency, added to the church’s Social Principles that homosexual practice is “incompatible with Christian teaching.” It also stipulated that “sex between a man and a woman is to be clearly affirmed only in the marriage bond.”
Over the decades subsequent General Conferences, which typically convene every four years, added that practicing homosexuals—along with other persons sexually active outside natural marriage—could not be ordained. And they banned clergy and churches from celebrating same-sex rites. Funding by church agencies to advocate for homosexual causes was also banned.
United Methodism, after a century as a liberal mainline Protestant denomination, is slowly emerging into a new identity that is global and orthodox.
These policies across years were sustained by evangelical delegates based on theological conviction and by institutionalist delegates for pragmatic and cultural reasons. Liberal activists—cheered by seminaries, church agencies, and many bishops—reasonably assumed that eventually they would prevail. After all, United Methodism was a progressive denomination, and wasn’t sexual liberation the inevitable next step?
Debate Today And they would’ve been right, but for the rise of United Methodism in Africa, which exploded over the last 25 years to 5.3 million members, or about 43 percent of global United Methodist membership. U.S. membership has shrunk since the 1960s from 11 million to 6.8 million and loses nearly 100,000 annually. Meanwhile the African churches are gaining more than 100,000 annually. African United Methodists, who are uniformly conservative theologically, will outnumber U.S. church members in a decade or less. Churches in the Philippines and Eastern Europe, though much smaller than Africa, are also mostly conservative.
American delegates were 58 percent of the recent General Conference, which meant that liberalizing the church’s marriage teaching required unobtainable votes from conservative overseas delegates. A “Simple Plan” to remove the church’s sexual prohibitions failed by 60 percent to 40 percent. The “One Church Plan” heavily pushed by U.S. bishops, allowing local churches to choose their own policies on sexuality, failed by 55 percent to 45 percent. A “Traditional Plan” backed by U.S. evangelicals and overseas delegates to enhance enforcement of the church’s sexual standards passed by 53 percent to 47 percent.
We are not children in need of Western enlightenment when it comes to our sexual ethics.
This General Conference debate over sexuality was even more intense than most. A self-identified “centrist” who presented the One Church Plan to delegates likened the Traditional Plan to a “virus” being injected into the church. Others compared it to segregation. Since the main talking point for the One Church Plan was that it would tolerate different viewpoints within the church, traditionalists wondered why liberals and “centrists” who so abhor their beliefs would want to share the church with them. How long would their traditional beliefs be tolerated by United Methodists who view support for historical Christian sexual standards as morally equivalent to white supremacy?
Proponents for the One Church Plan, veering from their ostensible purpose of church unity, in their arguments doubled down on LGBTQ advocacy, further alarming overseas delegates. Liberian seminary president Jerry Kulah electrified a General Conference evangelical breakfast by declaring of his fellow African United Methodists: “We are not children in need of Western enlightenment when it comes to our sexual ethics.”
Liberal Response Liberals inside and outside United Methodism have responded to the General Conference with outrage. A prominent “centrist” large church pastor who backed the One Church Plan is summoning allies in April to plot next steps. In response, one prominent pro-LGBTQ activist in academia complained about the “arrogance” of this “white cis-hetero man” calling “folks together to his church to talk about how to move forward,” when it should be the victim groups who now lead.
Some liberals are now speaking openly of quitting United Methodism and creating a new progressive church. The General Conference approved legislation allowing congregations to leave the denomination with their property if disagreeing with denominational teaching on sexuality. This legislation may have to be clarified at the 2020 General Conference.
Creating a new liberal Methodist church would take time. And some church liberals remain in denial about the political and demographic realities that bar their future success within United Methodism. But their defeat at the February 23–26 General Conference was decisive and momentous. United Methodism, after a century as a liberal mainline Protestant denomination, is slowly emerging into a new identity that is global and orthodox. Richard Neuhaus, if still with us, likely wouldn’t be surprised. But many others are.
ping
The pervert anti-Christian left can make it official and call it the Satanic Church of Sodomy.
Don’t let them fool you. They still support the Sandanistas, which is why I haven’t set foot in my old church, except for weddings and funerals, since Reagan was president.
What puts people in harms way for Romans 1:18-32 is not retaining the knowledge of the Lord.
Find where unorthodoxy has departed from the faith, or as Christ told Ephesus that had departed from their first love: “Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.”
It is good to resist those who push the homosexual agenda and libertine sexual morals, not unlike resisting the Nicolatians may have once been.
Even if the whole world seems to be going away, cling to the Lord and be victorious. There is always a remnant.
Best wishes to United Methodists around the world.
People don’t leave their first love without usually taking another.
Real Methodists can join a nearby large lib church until they are the majority with the right officials in place. Leave libs their smaller storefront, barn, or whatever.
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May the Good Lord bless those who are faithful to Him.
that is somewhat like happened early in the 60’s. The homosexual advocates began infiltrating the churches and seminaries, a few at a time. But they would volunteer for various positions as they opened, when someone was needed on a district or diocesan level, they would say, “if no one else wants it, I’ll go.” Looking back it is clear. They made no waves, just quietly began taking over various aspects of church life. Now they control it and the people in the pews don’t know what happened.
It happened in schools, universities - all levels of career government organizations. Now, how do we reverse the takeover???
Let the liberals leave.
It would be wonderful to see the orthodox keep the faith AND the property...for a change!
I am happy that at least one mainstream denomination is staying Christian.
Therefore:
Lutheran (EL C S*A) Ping!
* as of August 19, AD 2009, a liberal protestant SECT, not part of the holy, catholic and apostolic CHURCH.
Be rooted in Christ!
NOTE: The August 19 date pertains to the adoption of gay agenda policies, NOT the UMC agreement!
Very impressive.
Start a new denomination??? Why bother. If they want to be Unitarians, they should just leave and go to a Unitarian Church.
They are still a very liberal denomination belonging to the communist-loving National Council of Churches.
Africa teaches the decadent West!
They want to set up a gay group.
They scream for unity, then denounce the people they ostensibly want to unify with. They only want their money and organizational structure so they won't have to purchase their own real estate and do the hard work of church planting. They also just want their own way and not God's way, so they respond not with dialog, grace, reconciliation, reason, courtesy, reason or scripture, but with outrage. Yeah, that's real attractive to the people whose pockets you want to pick and deepest beliefs you want to despoil.
Some liberals are now speaking openly of quitting United Methodism and creating a new progressive church.
Well, duuuuuuh! Trads have been asking them to leave for 24 years. Liberals, the smart ones, sure are slow to catch on.
United Methodism, after a century as a liberal mainline Protestant denomination, is slowly emerging into a new identity that is global and orthodox.
I dispute this characterization. Number one, "United" Methodism has only been around for half a century, and it was built on the earlier Wesleyan theology and culture that was quite conservative. Methodists were leaders in the temperance movements in England and America since Methodism's founding in the 1700s. That it has been a traditionally "dry" church is probably one of the reasons Methodism still has a socially conservative core membership.
Methodists have also sponsored missionaries for more than a century. I have a basket in my kitchen brought back from Africa by a missionary my family sponsored back in the 1930s and 40s. The troubles i started creeping into Methodism the 1920s when the communist movement was gathering steam. American missionaries in South America became infatuated with "liberation theology" and began infecting the world headquarters in Washington, DC, but while the elites may have been enamored, the people in the pews stayed Biblical until the seminaries were corrupted in the 1960s.
It took another decade for the pastors they were turning out reached senior status. Combined with the merger in 1964, "United" Methodism took a sharp left turn. Not not a century ago, as the author claims, to the people in the pews. Many, but not all, started embracing liberal politics also in the 60s due to the legitimate moral appeal of the racial Civil Rights movement, which soon was co-opted by feminism, gay rights and the communist-inspired victimology movement. Hence, moral confusion, due to UMC's structural weakness (no catechism or formal canon) and the lamentable practice of taking up or down votes on matter of scripture at successive conferences.
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