Posted on 12/15/2022 12:12:57 AM PST by Morgana
More than 400 congregations in Texas have voted to leave The United Methodist Church amid the mainline Protestant denomination's ongoing schism over LGBT issues.
Over the weekend, UMC regional bodies in Texas voted to approve the disaffiliation votes of hundreds of churches, with most planning to join the recently created Global Methodist Church.
The total number of departing congregations includes 294 of the 598 churches belonging to the Houston-based Central Texas Conference and 145 of the 201 churches belonging to the Lubbock-based Northwest Texas Conference, reported The Dallas Morning News.
The departing congregations constitute nearly half of all UMC congregations in Texas and are in addition to hundreds of churches in other states that have had their departures affirmed by their regional bodies.
The UMC has faced a divisive debate over its official stance on homosexuality, as laid out in its Book of Discipline, which prohibits the blessing of same-sex unions and bars the ordination of noncelibate homosexuals.
Although theological liberals have failed to change the official stance, many leaders have refused to enforce or follow the rules, leading to much frustration among theological conservatives.
An example is the election of the Rev. Karen Oliveto as bishop of the UMC Mountain Sky Area. While Oliveto is in a same-sex marriage and had her election declared invalid by the United Methodist Judicial Council in 2017, as of this month, she remains in office.
Mark Tooley, head of the theologically conservative Institute on Religion & Democracy, put the tally of churches that have left the UMC in recent months to over 1,300 in a recent piece, with more expected.
(Excerpt) Read more at christianpost.com ...
BTTT
This in spite of the General Conference leadership refusing to hold its quadrennial meeting now for 2 full cycles to prevent this split. Leadership of the new Global Methodist church are largely intellectuals, seminary professors, who are trying to limit the scope of the division to merely ordination of homosexuals. The division is much, much deeper.
(merely to ordination)
More leaving last Saturday (North Alabama) ........
United Methodist split: 198 churches leave North Alabama Conference
This has gone beyond the original issue. One group decided they would not abide with the majority vote and the other group is tired of that disrespect and is leaving the Church.
Blf
Does it have anything to do with the fact that under the law Biden just signed the church could lose its tax-exempt status?
All the mainline church denominations have been taken over by democrats. We left the Presbyterian Church USA 20 years ago because of it. The UCC is the worst.
The mainline churches have been spending years talking about divesting their pension funds from Israel.
The Presbyterian PCA is a conservative, Calvinist denomination that started in the 1970’s AFTER leaving the mainline Presbyterian Church, USA..( apostate)
For almost 50 years it has stayed strong and unwavering in its doctrine and faith!
We’ve belonged for over 30 of those years.
So who is leaving? The good guys or the bad ones?
Conservatives are leaving.
That was my question. The writer should find a different line of work.
Our local UCC has its second creepy gay male pastor in a row. They come and go.
Dare anyone to ask a UCC member about their "environmental justice" platform. It a euphemism for a world without borders, but particularly ours.
How is your attendance? Did your church break away from the Presbyterian Church USA?
I’m starting to the think the Quakers are on to something...
When is that official split we were all promised going to actually happen?
It was a newly planted Florida church with the PCA in mid 1980’s……..
R C Sproul was a mentor to our church and pastor….(RC broke away from the USA in the 1970’s)
The PCA Presbyterian began during that time
We now belong to a sister ( planted ) church about 25 miles from the first one and this PCA church is thriving!!!…excellent attendance!…..our church does a great outreach to the community….and missionaries.
We have a good mixture of young marrieds with families…teens…elderly, etc
Gotta hand it to Satan. He has perfected the art of ‘divide and conquer’.
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