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My book club was reading the C.S. Lewis book “The Screwtape Letters”. One of the things that stood out was saying, “Making him think of himself as a Christian AND ...

It didn’t matter if it was vegetarianism or spiritualism or liberalism. The AND distracted from the Christian and eventually overtook it. Make them promote the social justice AHEAD of Christianity, though Christianity may be appropriated to spread the “AND” ideology.

The conservative Methodists are making a wise move in seceding from an apostate denomination. However, the Southern Baptist Convention, where conservatives were able to overthrow liberal control 40 years ago, is witnessing a resurgence of liberalism, in the guise of “social justice”. The Presbyterian Church in America, an outgrowth of rejection of liberalism in the larger denomination in the 1970s, is witnessing a similar deterioration, where political correctness is rearing its head vs. sound Biblical doctrine. Hopefully, the Methodist conservatives will learn a lesson from the Baptist and Presbyterian experience. There are no second generation Christians.

The decline of the Methodist Church has personally been sad to witness, as I have a number of Methodist relatives. Not following closely the happenings within the church, I offer no provable actual evidence for the cause of the decline. However, I remember vividly a conversation between me and my (Southern Baptist) pastor in 1967. He (pastor) was alarmed to learn that the Methodist Church had voted premarital sex was not sin, especially when it was accompanied by an engagement ring. Like the male rabbit who was not much impressed when a class of kindergartners had voted he was female, we likened how the author of the Bible (ie God) was likely not much impressed when a denomination voted that sex, with conditions, but outside marriage, was Biblically endorsed.

Move then to 1988. A female friend had attended a Baptist conference for singles at a Baptist retreat at Lake Yale, Florida. When she returned she talked to me about something she had experienced at the conference. She said that on the opening night of the conference they had been shown a video with a teacher discussing sexual purity and the single man or woman, and God’s plan for you. After the video she said they broke up into discussion groups of 6 to 8 all female, and groups of 6 to 8 all male. In her group there were 2 early 20’s Methodist women. My friend was stunned when the Methodist women asked, what that was all about. She said they had never heard such stuff, even though they were raised in the church, and were apparently devout Methodist. She said the Methodist women were disbelieving that sex except within marriage was wrong, because that was not what they had been taught.