United Methodists lose one-fifth of US churches in schism driven by growing defiance of LGBTQ bans [View all]

Source: Associated Press

United Methodists lose one-fifth of US churches in schism driven by growing defiance of LGBTQ bans

BY PETER SMITH
Published 8:01 AM EDT, July 6, 2023

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.

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/united-methodist-churches-exit-lgbtq-clergy-marriage-fc83fd20ad003c6ecaac5ae60ddd5afd