The decades-long battle for the soul of the United Methodist Church (UMC) is now lost. A liberal faction has secured an increasingly hostile takeover.
Christians outside of the UMC, please share this article with any Bible-believing United Methodist friends, to show the urgency of quick action. Please also learn from our mistakes.
Theologically conservative United Methodists, we have a soon-to-expire, perhaps once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to lead our congregations out of a rapidly radicalizing, declining denomination without losing our church buildings, which are technically “held in trust” for the denomination
Sadly, some denominational officials and even pastors of conservative-leaning congregations suppressed information or actively misled people about the UMC’s new leftward shift and our slow-motion schism.
This is no longer the UMC as we have known it. As documented on www.umchoices.org, the UMC’s increasing embrace of gay weddings brings with it increasing radicalism on a range of other theological and social issues.
Already, over 2,000 U.S. congregations have left the UMC, with at least as many in the pipeline.
Entire United Methodist regions outside of the U.S. have already begun departing.
Yes, the UMC’s official doctrinal and moral standards remain biblical, including forbidding gay weddings. But these “on paper” standards do not reflect reality.
Continue reading on The Christian Post by clicking here.
Comment by Steve on March 20, 2023 at 3:52 pm
It just seems disingenuous to keep pushing an across-the-board “time is running out” narrative while multiple annual conferences have already extended the deadline until after GC2024 using other paragraphs in the BOD that have already been used for churches to leave in the past. Granted, some annual conferences are being heavy-handed but not all.
People pressuring churches across-the-board to leave now, and who also want more churches in the GMC, are beginning to sound like the used car salesman saying they got a guy coming in this afternoon to buy the car we want if we don’t act now! Sounds like we are being pressured to trade a lemon for a lemon. Many of us can still shop around for the best deal.
Comment by George on March 21, 2023 at 8:31 am
I’m not really sure if ostriches can bury their heads in the sand when one sounds the alarm but, I can assure you that lots of United Methodists can and do.
Comment by Gary Bebop on March 21, 2023 at 12:20 pm
John Lomperis is only trying to wake up the many sleepy heads who seldom attend to anything outside their immediate local domain. He’s doing us important service. Methodists are people of tradition and legacy; we deplore the shouters and the separators. But this leads us into error. Too often we fail to see and to act until its too late. Then we lament, “What happened?”
Comment by Dr. Lee D. Cary on March 23, 2023 at 2:02 pm
John, I read your entire article, both accurate and compelling.
Each of the three comments above are also enlightened and sincere.
But the importance of the battle over the ownership of church property is a canard.
The Church is not now, nor has it ever been, equivalent to the property of a building. Just as a school building is not the same as an education. Nor a physician’s office, medicine.
This will, for many, be difficult to accept. Particularly those in the generation of worshippers in and beyond their 60’s. The place where they may have married, baptized children, met long-time friends, attended funerals of relatives – that place will be hard to leave.
When that generation is gone, the consequences of this particular ecclesiastical suicide will become apparent. In the empty pews.