Posted on 09/09/2023 2:53:14 PM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
Bishop Karen Oliveto sees her consecration in 2016 as a breaking point for some of the thousands of people who have made the once unthinkable decision to leave the United Methodist Church.
Oliveto is the church's first openly gay bishop and oversees congregations in Colorado, Montana, Utah, Wyoming and one church in Idaho. Her service defies long-standing rules in the denomination. Disregard for those church laws is fueling divisions that have already led to the exodus of about 20% of the United Methodist Church's congregations across the U.S. since disaffiliations began in 2019. The number of members who have left with their congregations isn't as clear, as the latest figures from 2021 don't reflect the total number of departures.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
May have something to to do with the church’s warmongering as evidenced by our resident church lady.
Grew up Methodist but gave up on them many years ago.
UMCREVMOM?
Yup
Apostasy and heresy are why Christians are leaving this debauched and pagan consortium of child molesters.
Well, there ya go.
We have become another Sodom and Gomorrah. I am waiting for God to say enough is enough and just pulls the plug on this totally failed social experiment we call earth. I am ready.
It seems the Methodist Church is going woke and when they lose congregation after congregation they too will go broke. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Now that there is your problem…
I went to private universities, a few years at a Jesuit run university and graduated from a Free Methodist sponsored university.
One rule both observed was NO POLITICS!
We had class prayer, mandatory chapel, et al, but politics was forbidden.
We were there to get an education not an indoctrination in secular world “Moral” values,
that has no place in a Religious school or church.
It is interesting that the Reverend Mother posts daily about Ukraine, a subject she has a lot of passion for, but refuses to comment on the Methodist schism. Which, presumably she has both expertise in and some skin in the game.
Old joke of Catholic priests confronted by Protestant ministers at a conference. Ministers hold out their hands to shake.
“We wanted to thank you again for the big increase in our congregations of all the former Catholics who left because of your marriage and divorce rules.”
But a serious note is I have thought for a long time now the handling of disappointment by Jews and Christians about God is leading to large withdrawals from all faiths.
All the 1950s majorities of observance by Americans have died out and many churches and synagogues have been closed.
Gallup website:
U.S. church membership was 73% when Gallup first measured it in 1937 and remained near 70% for the next six decades, before beginning a steady decline around the turn of the 21st century.Americans’ membership in houses of worship continued to decline last year, dropping below 50% for the first time in Gallup’s eight-decade trend. In 2020, 47% of Americans said they belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque, down from 50% in 2018 and 70% in 1999.
The ancient question about theodicy centers on the answers to prayers about good and evil. Billy Graham in 1968 book: “God hears all our prayers and answers all of them. But sometimes his answer is “no.””
So people desperately, sincerely pray for God’s help. Two parents pray that their tiny infant in agonizing pain will be cured. He or she dies. A person prays for their loved one in surgery. The person gets worse and dies. A woman prays to have a child she can love. She had an operation that means she can never have a baby. Passengers on an airplane pray that the Muslim terrorists holding them hostage will let the plane land safely. One by one most of the hostages are killed and the plane crashes and all the rest die.
We all know, in honesty, of things we prayed for that were good and decent things for which to pray and God answered “no.”
This makes the limited mind capacity of humans look for meaning and some way to accept ‘it will be to bring forth greater good later’ as one answer. Or as Robert Ringer wrote
“If a flea is on a dog and the dog is walking up a hill, the flea cannot understand why. We are like the flea.”
From what I’ve heard, the United Methodists have become more liberal on homosexuality and all the LGBT things , while those leaving the United methodists are forming a new Methodist organization. This new organization is adhering to the traditional theology on homosexuality.
I never thought I would see schisms in religious Faith over the issue of homosexuality and gender identities, but that appears to be what is happening.
Christians leaving an un-Christian church? Who’d a thunk it? /s
Quit obfuscating, tell us what you’re thinking.
P.S.:
I did take two days off, as you requested.
Anything goes in my Mom’s Methodist church. I’ll never understand it. I cannot STAND going to her church, and I rarely do. Her ‘Pastor’ is a gay female.
Next time I attend her church will most likely be her funeral, and that’s really sad. :(
God is involved in politics, it’s not just a secular world thing. Jesus was seen as political change in His time, though He did not speak all the time about politics He did touch on some political based things and was constantly doing things to upset the political leaders of His day, namely the high priests etc they were political groups.
FR etiquette 🙄
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