Featured United Methodist bishops acknowledge breakup is imminent

Wow, this board hasn’t as yet had a representative of U M come forth to explain the schism… I find that interesting. A Methodist Pastor friend of mine just died so I can’t tap into the heart of this. Wish Pastor Durant was still active on this forum to give his take. Oh well, will have to muddle through it. Perhaps being Arminian and liberal is too much for most congregants.

Any consolation, the Presbyterian church USA is worse.

 

Not necessary….however he did receive his education from them… and I’ve always liked and appreciated his thoughts on subjects.

 

The legal ruling document for the UMC is their Book of Discipline which prohibits gay marriage and gay ordination. Progressives have introduced motions to delete these prohibitions at every quadrenniel conference since 1973. These motions always lose because voting depends on delegates and the number of delegates is proportionate to membership. Like other mainline US denominations, the American UMC has endured a slow steady decline for decades, but there has been a great revival and expansion of UMC methodism (very evangelical) in Third World countries, especially in Africa, and so, the pro-gay progressive agenda has always been voted down. These constant defeats have ignited rebellions in regional US conferences, which paradoxically insist that ordinands obey The Book of Discipline, and yet, perform gay marriages and ordinations, despite this contradiction.

Our quadrenniel conferences have been discontinued in recent years due to Covid and visa problems, but the progressive agenda would have been defeated with finality, had this conference occurred. So both sides decided they couldn't wait and unilaterally agreed to split last Spring. Hundreds of US UMC churches quickly left the UMC amd our local UMC church left just last week. The evangelical wing of the schism is a new denomination called The Global Methodist Church.
By the way, you should reassess your stereotypes of the UMC, the 2nd largest US Protestant denomination. The UMC hired me as a tongues-speaking Pentecostal and my replacement upon my retirement also speaks in tongues. In fact, when he was Spirit-baptized, he spoke in fluent Korean, a language he never studied--a fact confirmed by a Korean member who heard his extensive message in tongues. In one of the UMC churches I pastored, we witnessed miracles as spectacular as any miracle stories in the Gospels. Though some of our members have spoken in tongues, I never promoted this while I was pastor. Indeed, in my first 21 years in a huge Canadian Pentecostal church, not once was there a sermon on tongues!

 

NALED IT!!!!

 

This represents the development of an infrastructure for a post-schism conservative Methodist denomination, growing out of the Wesleyan Covenant Association. I know of some churches here in Illinois that are planning to be part of the GMC.

 

This is as close to a perfect explanation of the nature of the coming schism as you're going to get. The perpetual rescheduling of the General Conference "due to COVID", etc. was starting to be seen as just another case of the UMC Bishops "kicking the can down the road" to avoid schism as they had been doing for at least the last 25 years. When talk of not having a GC in 2024 "because of COVID and visas" started, the conservatives in UMC said "enough already" and announced the kickoff of GMC in May.

 

Not according to church history.

 

So all the 'Baptistic church history' which is non-existent, must have been destroyed by those evil Catholics? Funny how none of gnostic writers and other heretical writings were not destroyed along with them. What happened? So, just where, when and who were these Baptistic churches that you say existed. There must some evidence somewhere, eh?

I can quote Baptist historians that say you are a product of the Reformation, but you will hold on to the fantasy that your churches existed even without one smidgeon of historical evidence to support it.

 

They existed? Let's see examples of these Baptistic churches with solid doctrine. All the early break away churches that SDA, LDS, JW's and Baptist latch onto had serious doctrinal problems and many of them looked much more Catholic than anything your church looks like. Look at the Waldenses! Catholic to the core!

All of the historical documents show that, in essence, the closest thing we have today to the early Church is actually the Catholic Church. In these main points the Catholic Church is today what she has always been. Her leadership is unapologetically monarchical and hierarchical. Her teaching authority is centralized and universal, and the pope is what he has always been, the universal pastor of Christ’s Church, the steward of Christ’s kingdom and the Rock on which Christ builds his Church.

 

I wonder why the bible never mentions the 'Trinity', 'Incarnation', etc. Jesus, speaking Aramaic, renamed Simon Kepha, meaning “rock”. So what was said was “You are Kepha, and upon this kepha I will build my Church.” In Aramaic, the word kepha has the same ending whether it refers to a rock or is used in a man’s name. But when Matthew wrote his Gospel in Greek, he had to use the masculine for petros because you cannot call a man by a feminine term in that language. So, because Matthew wanted to call Peter a rock, he made the normal feminine word petra masculine (petros) to create a play on words. To bring out the word play, verse 18 might be translated this way” “You are Rocky, and on this rock I will build my church.”

 

As Greek scholars—even non-Catholic ones—admit, the words petros and petra were synonyms in first century Greek. They meant “small stone” and “large rock” in some ancient Greek poetry, centuries before the time of Jesus, but that distinction had disappeared from the language by the time Matthew’s Gospel was rendered in Greek. The difference in meaning can only be found in Attic Greek, but the New Testament was written in Koine Greek—an entirely different dialect. In Koine Greek, both petros and petra simply meant “rock.” If Jesus had wanted to call Simon a small stone, the Greek lithos would have been used.

 

"the church in ordaining practicing homosexuals to the ministry" that has been happening in RCC from the beginning and they continue to deny it.

 

Since the beginning? What time frame are you talking about? This is probably your prejudice against celibacy. You probably think men cannot control themselves with God’s grace for a higher cause. It that it? What about Paul?
(1 Cor 7:7-8).