The Christian Post's top 10 stories of 2023 (part 1)
6. Hundreds of congregations vote to leave the United Methodist Church
This year, the United Methodist Church had more than 5,600 congregations leave the mainline Protestant denomination due to its ongoing debate over homosexuality, totaling over 7,600 congregations since 2019.
One of the largest religious groups in the United States, the 7,600-plus departures came from a global denomination that previously had approximately 30,000 member churches in America.
Over the past few decades, the UMC had experienced an increasingly divisive debate over whether to change its Book of Discipline to allow for the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of noncelibate homosexuals.
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Although efforts to amend the Book of Discipline at General Conference had always failed, progressives within the denomination often refused to follow or enforce the rules, prompting many conservatives to decide to leave.
In 2019, at a special session of General Conference, delegates voted to add Paragraph 2553 to the Book of Discipline. The paragraph, which is set to expire at the end of 2023, created a process for allowing churches to leave the UMC due to the LGBT debate.
While only a few hundred congregations took advantage of Paragraph 2553 for the first couple of years it was in effect, this changed in 2022 when around 1,500 churches voted to leave.
One factor for the acceleration of the departures was the announcement by the UMC that they were delaying General Conference yet again due in part to ongoing COVID-19 pandemic issues.
The General Conference was originally scheduled for May 2020, but was postponed to 2021 due to pandemic lockdowns and then again pushed back to 2022 for the same reasons. In March 2022, it was announced that the gathering would occur in 2024.
The delay meant that a proposal to allow for a gracious separation policy was being pushed further back, and would not be passed before the expiration of Paragraph 2553.
Additionally, a couple of months after third delay for General Conference was announced, the Global Methodist Church, a theologically conservative alternative to the UMC, was officially launched.
“Supported by fervent prayers, faithful discernment, and a sure hope for the future, the Global Methodist Church is a Holy Spirit inspired movement committed to making disciples of Jesus Christ who worship passionately, love extravagantly, and witness boldly to the ends of the earth,” stated the nascent denomination in 2022.
“Thousands of Methodist clergy and laity from around the world have worked together for over three years to lay the groundwork for a new, theologically conservative Methodist denomination steeped in the great ecumenical and evangelical confessions of the Christian faith. They envision a church fired by a warm hearted, Wesleyan expression of that faith that is dedicated to sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ in word and deed.”
In 2023, the disaffiliations increased considerably, with the total number of exiting churches going from a little over 2,000 at the start of the year to more than 7,600 by mid-December, according to numbers compiled by UM News.
Among the regional bodies of the UMC, the Mississippi Conference has had the largest number of congregations disaffiliate from the denomination since 2019, with 386 churches having left.
The Kentucky Conference saw 366 congregations leave, while the North Alabama Conference lost 349 churches, the West Ohio Conference lost 348, the Western North Carolina Conference lost 346, the North Georgia Conference lost 334, and the North Carolina Conference lost 326.
Approximately 3,000 of the disaffiliating churches have opted to join the GMC, while the others have either joined other denominations or became nondenominational congregations.
Bishop Tracy Smith Malone, whose East Ohio Conference approved the disaffiliations of 237 churches in 2023, said an at event held in October that the departure of the congregations was “like a revival.”
“There was a different spirit in the place,” Malone recounted. “It felt like everyone could breathe. There was a renewed sense of hope and excitement, and really believing that we are ready to forge ahead.”
“We were tired of the fighting, tired of all of the conversations being dominated by separation, disaffiliation. … People were tired, and the conference was ready and is ready and has already forged ahead.”
While most congregations seeking to disaffiliate from the UMC did so without incident, some filed lawsuits against the denomination, claiming that the process was unfair to them.
These lawsuits have largely failed, however. For example, the Montgomery County Circuit Court ruled against 42 churches suing the Alabama-West Florida Conference in November, while a Florida county judge ruled against 71 churches suing the Florida Conference in April.
In late June, Fifth Avenue United Methodist Church of Wilmington, North Carolina, filed a complaint against the North Carolina Conference, claiming that the regional body shuttered their congregation before they had a chance to vote on disaffiliation.
Michael Gryboski contributed to this report.
