United Methodist Church Lost Over 6,000 Congregations, More Still Leaving

Honestly, I don’t totally even remember what “United Methodist” means. I would assume they are Methodists, but probably closer to Episcopalian than to “charismatic.”

All of the “mainline protestant” groups have already gone full-anal.

AP:

More than 6,000 United Methodist congregations — a fifth of the U.S. total — have now received permission to leave the denomination amid a schism over theology and the role of LGBTQ people in the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination.

Those figures emerge following the close of regular meetings in June for the denomination’s regional bodies, known as annual conferences. The departures began with a trickle in 2019 — when the church created a four-year window of opportunity for U.S. congregations to depart over LGBTQ-related issues — and cascaded to its highest level this year.

Church law forbids the marriage or ordination of “self-avowed, practicing homosexuals,” but many conservatives have chosen to leave amid a growing defiance of those bans in many U.S. churches and conferences.

Many of the departing congregations are joining the Global Methodist Church, a denomination created last year by conservatives breaking from the UMC, while others are going independent or joining different denominations.

Some 6,182 congregations have received approval to disaffiliate since 2019, according to an unofficial tally by United Methodist News Service, which has been tracking votes by annual conferences. That figure is 4,172 for this year alone, it reported.

Some annual conferences may approve more departures at special sessions later this year, according to the Rev. Jay Therrell, president of the Wesleyan Covenant Association, a conservative caucus that has advocated for the exiting churches. While most UMC congregations are remaining, many of the departing congregations are large, and denominational officials are bracing for significant budget cuts in 2024.

The numbers of exiting churches are higher than conservatives originally estimated, Therrell said.

Legal wrangles have largely been resolved over how much compensation the departing congregations must pay for their property and other financial obligations.

“For the most part, bishops and other annual conference leaders have been very gracious, and I deeply appreciate that,” Therrell said. “There have been some small exceptions to that, and those are unfortunate, but we’re grateful that cooler and calmer heads have prevailed.”

Bishop Thomas Bickerton, president of the UMC’s Council of Bishops, said the departures were disappointing.

“I don’t think any of us want to see any of our churches leave,” he said. “We’re called to be the body of Christ, we’re called to be unified. There’s never been a time when the church has not been without conflict, but there’s been a way we’ve worked through that.”

But for those who want “to go and live out their Christian faith in a new expression, we wish God’s blessings on them,” he said.

…

With these departures, progressives are expected to propose changing church law at the next General Conference in 2024 to allow for same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBTQ people.

All of the churches are collapsing because of this liberalization.

If people want “a shittier version of Netflix,” they can just turn on Netflix on Sunday morning.

The Catholic Church should be positioned in a unique place to grow, but everyone in America knows that the Catholic Church is associated with the Democrat Party, and even though they don’t technically support anal and abortion, most of their members in America do. And then you have the fact that the Catholic Church is run by the “Anal Pope.”

Although we’d have to check the numbers, I think a lot of people dropping out of these anal churches are just making their own little congregations, which are likely to turn into weird cults and lose more members.

With the whole country going full-Satan, you’d think there’d be a rival brewing. But there is no sign of that.