The fun part starts when it turns out most gays aren’t really that interested in attending church... and those churches that didn’t leave fall apart.
Had a friend years ago who fought for the rights of women to be ‘fireman’... Then after winning the battle I saw her on thee street and she asked if I knew any women who wanted to be ‘firemen’. I was stunned. I thought there was a backlog of women wanting the jobs and there wasn’t. It was just a way to stick it to the existing system.
“The fun part starts when it turns out most gays aren’t really that interested in attending church... and those churches that didn’t leave fall apart.”
The United Methodist Church has made the economic cost of disaffiliating very high. The congregations leaving are having to buy their buildings and other property as well as pay large cash sums to the UMC. The congregations leaving are willing to pay the price for independence.
There have been many studies indicating conservatives tithe more frequently than liberals and give to charities at significantly higher levels than liberals at the same income.
In coming years the liberal churches will miss the dollars of the conservatives they drove out of the church. In my town the large downtown UMC has lost half its membership in the last 5 years, has sold off lots and buildings the church owned adjacent to the sanctuary in order to stay afloat, and is constantly begging its remaining liberal membership to give. I was shown its most recent fundraising email which stated less than 20% of the congregation is currently supporting the church with monetary gifts. Apparently the 80% of the remaining liberal membership doesn’t feel a need to support the church with its gifts and tithes.
Membership in the United Methodist Church in the United States peaked in the 1960’s at 11 million. Today the UMC claims 5.7 million in the United States and that number continues to decline.
The small Methodist church of a relative of mine closed about 5 years ago. Located in a close in suburb of a major city it was unable to attract young and middle age people to sustain the membership as the old members died off. The elderly membership decided finally to close the church when they could no longer afford to maintain the property.
My relative was on the church board and was the congregation’s representative working with the UMC to close the church and transfer the property. He said the church bureaucracy never expressed any concern about the ongoing spiritual health of the members or transitioning them to new congregations. All the church bureaucrats cared about was the value of the real estate and other property the church was giving as well as insuring the departing members paid their monetary pledges for the year before the church closed. Within weeks of the last service the property had been sold to a developer and the church building was bulldozed to construct an apartment complex.
Another example of organized religion being a business first.