Nearly 5,000 churches have left the United Methodist Church denomination this year for deviating from the Bible on abortion, homosexuality and other issues.
Pro-life pastors and members of the UMC have been increasingly concerned with the denomination’s actions on abortion. For years, the UMC was affiliated with the pro-abortion group Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, and some of its pastors promote killing unborn babies in abortions by “blessing” abortion facilities and praying for “abortion rights.”
According to the Catholic News Agency, 4,876 churches officially disaffiliated from the denomination this year, many of them joining the biblically-based Global Methodist Church.
Nearly one fourth of the churches in the UMC denomination have left in the past two years alone. The denomination reported 30,543 churches in the U.S. in 2019, and about 1,800 more congregations left last year, bringing the total to nearly 6,700 that have disaffiliated, the Christian Post reports.
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Jay Therrell, one of the leaders of the exodus and president of the Wesleyan Covenant Association, told CNA that UMC leaders have been straying from “the authority of Scripture and the lordship of Christ … for many, many years,” especially on matters of human sexuality.
“We absolutely believe that the United Methodist Church is drifting day by day ever more progressive,” Therrell said.
Concerns include the ordination of two openly homosexual bishops in contradiction of official UMC beliefs and the promotion of abortions.
Here’s more from CNA:
In the United States, the UMC is divided into five “jurisdictions.” Each of these jurisdictions passed similar measures in 2022 stating that “LGBTQIA+ people will be protected, affirmed, and empowered” in the church, according to the AP. …
At the 2022 South Central Jurisdiction Conference, RMN reported that Rev. Katie McKay Simpson, a pastor from Louisiana, “called the jurisdiction to collective confession and apology for challenging the historic election of Bishop Karen Oliveto, the Church’s first out gay bishop.”
For many years, pro-life pastors in the UMC also have been warning about the growing acceptance of abortion among denomination leaders.
The current United Methodist Church position does not condemn the killing of unborn babies as a sin. Instead, the position statement describes abortion as a “complex” issue. It says: “Our belief in the sanctity of unborn human life makes us reluctant to approve abortion. But we are equally bound to respect the sacredness of the life and well-being of the mother and the unborn child.”
In 2021, the United Methodist Women, an organization within the denomination, went further by issuing a statement that openly promoted legalized abortion on demand. In the statement, the United Methodist Women criticized the Texas heartbeat law, which has saved thousands of unborn babies from abortion, and promised to “pray” for abortions to become legal again in Texas.
