Back in 1969, approximately 11 million believers belonged to the United Methodist Church, making it the third-largest religious body in the United States after Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists. Yet over the following decades, the denomination—like many others in America—dwindled. Then, between 2019 and 2023, the church split, largely due to disputes over its teachings on gender and sexuality.
Leaders of the United Methodist Church are gathering this week and next in Charlotte, North Carolina, for the international General Conference. They will almost certainly liberalize the church’s teachings on the very topics that led to its schism. But while it will continue to lose members, the decline of the United Methodist Church isn’t just indicative of trends in American liberal Protestantism. Rather, it’s a telling sign of a wider institutional demise of denominationalism across the nation.
For decades—as mainline Protestant denominations like the Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church (USA) liberalized their policies to affirm same-sex marriage and gay clergy—United Methodist traditionalists won all the legislative votes regarding its teachings on sexuality. But their victory was in part due to their church’s unique international membership: Delegates from growing congregations in Africa consistently sided with U.S. traditionalists. In 2019, at a special governing General Conference, 53 percent of United Methodist delegates reaffirmed the church’s affirmation of sex only within marriage between a husband and a wife.
Those legislative wins did not change the overwhelmingly progressive bent of the United Methodist leadership, including among bishops, church agencies, seminaries, and most clergy. So after the 2019 General Conference victory, traditionalists realized their best option was to take advantage of a temporary policy allowing them to leave the church after a two-thirds congregational vote and an often-hefty exit fee. Then in December 2023, the United Methodist Church concluded a four-year process that allowed conservative congregations to quit the denomination without forfeiting their property (which the denomination typically holds). Over 7,600 congregations—25 percent of the U.S. total, or about 1.5 million members—left. When taking their departure into account, the United Methodist Church now likely has approximately 4 million members.
(Read rest of article here at The Dispatch.)
Comment by John on April 29, 2024 at 10:37 pm
You know your link to the rest of the article doesn’t work?
Comment by Alix on April 29, 2024 at 11:47 pm
Any time you guys want to check out the teachings of Jesus rather than doubling down on backwards church politics, the body of Christ will be happy to have you back. Until then, we’ll be serving the folks who have been left out of the church for so many years, and growing the Methodist movement. Your hatred doesn’t have to inspire ours.
Comment by Palamas on April 30, 2024 at 5:33 pm
Yes, it does, John. Try it again, or update from Windows 95.
Comment by Robin S. Andress on May 1, 2024 at 1:47 am
The effort of IRD to destroy the UMC has led to this moment. Most Americans will not continue to support medieval notions of Biblical interpretation. So just go away and do whatever.
Comment by Gordon Hackman on May 1, 2024 at 7:50 pm
Thank you IRD for standing firm in the faith given once for all the saints despite the hatred you receive from those who don’t know the scriptures or the power of God.
Comment by Douglas Ehrhardt on May 2, 2024 at 2:30 am
No one hates like leftists.
Comment by pam on May 2, 2024 at 10:27 am
Beastiality will be accepted at the next General Conference.
Comment by Jonathan Rogers on May 3, 2024 at 7:48 am
Looking at the photo, I thought of the Pharisees and how they had to dress before the people and wore their long robes and tassels. Jesus was really hard on them. He called them whitewashed sepulchers full of dead men’s bones. Instead of donning white robes or any robes, it would be best to dress in sackcloth and sit in ashes and repent before destruction comes from the hand of the Almighty. John Wesley clearly warned of this day. When any church or denomination loses the power of God, it becomes an empty religious shell. It’s hard to imagine men and women who would rather make a religion out of their sin instead of repenting of their sin and experiencing the supernatural power of God to regenerate them and transform them into an entirely new creature in Christ Jesus. You will not get to heaven without it.
Comment by Joseph on May 6, 2024 at 11:41 am
God made them Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve. Man made religion will always pervert the truth in order to pursue there lust and perversion scripture was clear about the day when this would happen in the name of God they do immoral perverted things .