>>The UMC General Conference is now dominated by orthodox Christians from Africa who out-vote the North American revisionsts.
>>The North American heterodox are openly talking schism and separation because they know they cannot “win”
They don’t want schism, but they will campaign for new rules to allow conferences to follow the cultures that they are in. Kinda breaks the whole “in the world, but not of the world” thing, but the UMC isn’t really concerned with those “guidelines” found in “a 2000+ year old book written for cultures that no longer are relevant”, are they? They say that God is still speaking (but he just stopped writing).
The UMC in the US is bleeding members while the UMC in Africa (and Asia) is exploding.
At the last General Conference, the ordination of self avowed homosexuals was voted down with a 61% majority. With the growing influence of orthodox churches, esp. those in Africa, I can't see that it would be any closer in 2016.
Some have advocated that each Annual Conference should make its own decision on this issue, but that won't fly either because the more conservative UMC churches will not share leadership with an institution that doesn't stand 100% against ordination of homosexuals.
If the orthodox churches hold firm next year, I wouldn't be surprised to see the liberal churches breaking away. It will be interesting to see what the denominational leadership, who are more liberal, will eo.