An official rule permitting congregations to part ways with the United Methodist Church (UMC) while retaining church property is about to expire, but the effects of the split are far from over.
Churches in Alabama continue to face divisions even after failing to leave the denomination under the rule. Some congregants who were members of UMC churches left to form their own independent churches or joined other Methodist denominations like the Global Methodist Church (GMC).
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More than 5,000 congregations have now been approved to disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church throughout the last two years over the longstanding dispute regarding the denomination’s position on homosexuality, the Christian Post reported Saturday.
“The number of churches that have had their disaffiliation votes approved by their annual conferences under Paragraph 2553 of the UMC Book of Discipline went from around 4,600 on Tuesday to 5,321 as of Friday morning,” the report observed.
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On Saturday, 264 congregations part of the United Methodists of the Holston Conference had their requests processed to leave the denomination, citing “issues around human sexuality and other matters.”
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Nearly 200 Alabama churches officially seceded from the United Methodist Church (UMC) last weekend following years of conflict over social and theological issues.
Members of the UMC’s North Alabama Conference (NAC) approved the decision to leave at their meeting on Saturday at the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Center (BJCC).
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In Florida, over 100 churches formerly affiliated with the United Methodist Church (UMC) have filed a lawsuit against a regional UMC group to negotiate fair terms for formally departing the denomination.
According to The Daily Wire, the lawsuit was filed on July 14th in the Circuit Court for the Eighth Judicial Circuit for Bradford County, Civil Division; the suit was filed against the UMC’s Florida Annual Conference. The lead plaintiff is the Grace United Methodist Church in Lawtey, which argued that, in the process of splitting from the church, it should not be forced to purchase its property from the regional body since the church itself already bought the location before the denomination was founded in 1968.
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Last week, at least 70 churches in the state of Georgia announced their intentions to split from the United Methodist Church (UMC) over the church’s stance on the LGBTQ community.
Fox News reports that the split marks one of the biggest fractures in recent memory for the UMC, which is the third-largest Protestant denomination in the country. Last Thursday, the North Georgia Conference voted to allow the churches in question to disaffiliate from the broader church. The departing churches will be following the disaffiliation process that was first laid out in 2019 by the UMC’s General Conference, rules that are in effect until the next conference in 2023.
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Leaders of the United Methodist Church announced a plan Friday for the church to split over divisions on gay marriage.
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The United Methodist Church, America’s second-largest Protestant denomination, faces a likely surge in defections and acts of defiance after delegates at a crucial conference voted Tuesday to strengthen the faith’s bans on same-sex marriage and ordination of LGBT clergy. Emotions were high throughout the third and final day of the UMC’s meeting. Some supporters of greater LGBT inclusion were in tears, while others vented their anger when, midway through the session, delegates defeated a proposal that would have let regional and local church bodies decide for themselves on gay-friendly policies. “Devastation,” was how former Methodist pastor Rebecca Wilson of Detroit described her feelings. “As someone who left because I’m gay, I’m waiting for the church I love to stop bringing more hate.” After several more hours of debate, the conservatives’ proposal, called the Traditional Plan, was approved by a vote of 438-384. The Traditional Plan’s success was due to an alliance of conservatives from the U.S. and overseas. About 43 percent of the delegates are from abroad, mostly from Africa, and overwhelmingly support the LGBT bans. If the bans were eased, “the church in Africa would cease to exist,” said the Rev. Jerry Kulah of Liberia. “We can’t do anything…
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The top court of the United Methodist Church has ruled that the consecration of an openly gay bishop violates church law but the bishop for now still has her job. In a somewhat convoluted decision, the judicial council, convening in Newark, New Jersey, said that Karen Oliveto “remains in good standing” pending the completion of another administrative or judicial process, according to a UMC news story. The decision, made public on Friday, said, “It is not lawful for the college of bishops of any jurisdictional or central conference to consecrate a self-avowed practicing homosexual bishop.” Oliveto was consecrated in July 2016 by officials in the Western Jurisdiction. She is the episcopal leader for an area covering Colorado, Montana, Utah, Wyoming and one church in Idaho. A church lay member from Kansas in the South Central Jurisdiction formally challenged Oliveto’s elevation to bishop. The denomination’s high court rejected an argument from the Western Jurisdiction counsel made during an oral hearing last week that Oliveto’s same-sex marriage in 2014 to another woman was not a public statement about her sexual practices. “A same-sex marriage license issued by competent civil authorities together with the clergy person’s status in a same-sex relationship is a public…
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The United Methodist Church appears once more to be on the verge of a split over LGBT issues. The mainline Protestant denomination, which has a large presence in Tennessee, has experienced internal divisions for years over homosexuality, but tensions are at a fever pitch with the elevation of the first openly gay bishop. The UMC’s top court in Newark, New Jersey, heard arguments this week in the case of lesbian Karen Oliveto, who was elected as bishop last July for an area which includes Colorado, Montana, Utah, Wyoming and a church in Idaho. The area is in the denomination’s Western Jurisdiction. Oliveto is married to a woman who is a UMC deaconess. Oliveto’s election was contested by a church lay member from Kansas in the South Central Jurisdiction whose legal representative maintained Tuesday that homosexual practice is incompatible with the denomination’s book of discipline. However, a representative for Oliveto’s Western Jurisdiction argued that someone from another region has no standing to bring a case and that the book of discipline does not specifically prohibit same-sex marriage, according to a UMC news story about the hearing. The United Methodist Queer Clergy Caucus on April 16 sent an open letter to the UMC in…
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