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More than 140 United Methodist Church congregations in the Susquehanna Conference, including 14 in the Harrisburg area, plan to end their affiliations with the denomination under agreements approved by the conference Wednesday night. Among those churches are 14 in the Harrisburg district and 43 in the York district. The seven-district Susquehanna Conference includes 870 churches, almost 150,000 members and close to 580 pastors. Nationally, simmering disagreements over the 6.4 million-member church’s position on ordaining and marrying members of the LGBTQ community, as well as other issues, have caused a rift fueling the “disaffiliations” by more moderate and conservative churches. Marriage...

The Wesley brothers were central figures in the 18th century Evangelical Revival in Great Britain. Theirs was one of the most effective partnerships between brothers in ministry.The Industrial RevolutionThe Wesleys grew up during the Industrial Revolution. Their lifetimes and ministries spanned a time of rapid change. Revolutions in smelting, spinning and distilling created whole industries. The 18th century saw some of the first experiments in electricity, photography and the steam engine.A Desperate SituationWhen the Wesleys began their itinerant preaching, there were no railroads and no restaurants. Only five or six members of parliament even went to church. Infant mortality was...

The King of England was the head of the Anglican Church from the time of Henry VIII in 1534.Download as PDF ... Beginning in 1535, all English subjects, including those in English colonies, were required to the Oath of Supremacy:"I (state your name) do utterly testify and declare in my Conscience, that the King's Highness is the only Supreme Governor of this Realm ... in all Spiritual or Eclesiastical things ... So help me God." For most of England's history from 1535 to 1829, not to take the Oath of Supremacy was considered treason, resulting in government prosecution, fines,...

Pope Francis praises John Wesley for leading people to ‘knowledge of Jesus Christ’ by Staff Reporter posted Thursday, 19 Oct 2017 Pope Francis blesses a picture on a mobile phone (Getty Images) He was celebrating 50 years of dialogue with the World Methodist CouncilMethodism founder John Wesley brought many people to Christ through prayer and Bible reading, Pope Francis has said.Speaking with leaders of the World Methodist Council, Pope Francis praised 50 years of dialogue between the Catholic and Methodist churches, Vatican Radio reports.“We are no longer strangers,” he said, but rather, through our shared Baptism, “members of the household...

“Pray for Orlando" we read on Facebook and Twitter. Prayer is vitally important, but is there more we can do? As United Methodist Christians, we mourn with the victims and families of those wounded and killed in the shootings on June 12, 2016 in Orlando, Florida. We may even pray and wonder if anything could have been done to avert this heinous act. But should we do more? Is there anything that can be done to keep something similar from happening in the future? While we may not agree on a solution, many of us agree there is a problem....

Why Did God Kill Onan? Luther, Calvin, Wesley, C.S. Lewis, & Others on Contraception Genesis 38:9-10: “But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so when he went in to his brother’s wife he spilled the semen on the ground, lest he should give offspring to his brother. 10 And what he did was displeasing in the sight of the Lord, and he slew him also.” It is an historical fact that no Christian communion sanctioned contraception until the Anglican Lambeth Conference in 1930. Protestant historian Roland Bainton states casually that the Church “very early forbade contraception”...

In 1968, Pope Paul VI issued his landmark encyclical letter Humanae Vitae (Latin, "Human Life"), which reemphasized the Church’s constant teaching that it is always intrinsically wrong to use contraception to prevent new human beings from coming into existence. Contraception is "any action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act [sexual intercourse], or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" (Humanae Vitae 14). This includes sterilization, condoms and other barrier methods, spermicides, coitus interruptus (withdrawal method), the Pill, and all other such...

Coded diary of Methodist Church co-founder Charles Wesley is cracked after 270 years Charles Wesley, Christmas carols composer DM 3.1.2002 P51 A 270-year-old diary, written in code, has been cracked for the first time to reveal a secret history of the Methodist church, it emerged today. After nine years of painstaking work, more than 1,000 handwritten pages from 1736 - 1756 have been deciphered from the personal diary of co-founder Charles Wesley. He helped establish Methodism with his brother John and also wrote many well-known Christmas carols, including Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. The long passages of ‘hidden’ material in...

Free Grace by John Wesley Preached at Bristol, in the year 1740 "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" Romans, 8:32 TO THE READER Nothing but the strongest conviction, not only that what is here advanced is "the truth as it is in Jesus," but also that I am indispensably obliged to declare this truth to all the world, could have induced me openly to oppose the sentiments of those whom I esteem for their work's sake: At whose feet may...

The other day, a lesbian Methodist pastor was acquitted on charges stemming from her sexual orientation and will continue in her ministry. A jury of pastors in Bothell, Wash., deliberated for 10 hours before a majority ruled that the homosexual relationship between the Rev. Karen Dammann and another woman, who were recently "married," is allowable under the church's social principles, even though the Methodist Book of Discipline declares homosexual practice to be "incompatible to Christian teachings." Should anyone be surprised? Having abandoned Scripture and the teachings of Methodism's founder, John Wesley, who believed that the Bible was God's infallible Word...

Methodist George W. Bush and Methodism's founder, John Wesley, share similarities. But the Rev. Wesley's example as a minister and social reformer provides instruction for Mr. Bush's own faith and presidency. First, the similarities. John Wesley, whose 300th birthday Methodists observe today, believed in personal spiritual discipline. He read his Bible daily. He prayed regularly. And he met with others in small groups. President Bush started practicing personal spiritual discipline about the time he gave up alcohol in the mid-1980s. He regularly reads the Bible. He says he can't imagine doing his job without prayer. And his more formative adult...

QUESTION: Is it true that 1 John 5:7 is not in any Greek manuscript before the 1600s? If it is true, why is it in the King James Bible?

Arminianism Another Gospel by Rev. William Maclean, M.A. (1965ad) ARMINIANISM Arminianism is the name given to the doctrines held and propagated by Arminius, a theological professor at the University of Leyden in Holland, who died in the year 1609.?These doctrines are a perversion of the Truth of God and the way of salvation.They have no scriptural foundation.They were never taught by the prophets of the Old Testament Church, nor by the apostles of the Lamb in the New. Basically they are a revival of the ancient semi-Pelagian heresy condemned by the Church of God.They are not the doctrines of the...