Another large denomination has abandoned its commitment to scriptural fidelity and caved to the whims of culture. On Wednesday, the United Methodist Church (UMC) voted overwhelmingly to lift the denominational ban on “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” serving as clergy.
“Delegates voted 692-51 at their General Conference — the first such legislative gathering in five years,” reports Peter Smith at the Associated Press. “That overwhelming margin contrasts sharply with the decades of controversy around the issue.”
“The proposal passed with 93 percent approval from the international delegates and will take effect when the conference ends on Friday,” reports Christina Grube at World.
The UMC is holding its first general conference in five years, and the heated controversy over homosexual issues wasn’t present this time. Instead, the delegates folded the measure into a “consent calendar,” a batch vote on multiple issues that are usually minor and don’t require debate.
The vote doesn’t require churches to consider LGBTQ clergy, nor does it specifically affirm gay pastors and bishops. The decision also allows churches to give to LGBTQ causes but also gives churches a wide berth when it comes to same-sex marriages.
“Delegates also approved a measure barring district church leaders from penalizing clergy for not performing same-sex marriages,” Grube reports. “The change also protects clergy from penalty if they conversely choose not to perform a same-sex marriage. District leaders are also prohibited from requiring or banning churches from hosting gay weddings.”
Unsurprisingly, gay Methodists celebrated the decision.
“It seemed like such a simple vote, but it carried so much weight and power, as 50 years of restricting the Holy Spirit’s call on people’s lives has been lifted,” Bishop Karen Oliveto, the UMC’s first openly lesbian bishop, told the AP. Apparently Oliveto hasn’t felt the Holy Spirit’s call to repent of her sins.
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Five years of waiting for a decision on the issue of homosexual clergy has divided the Methodists. About a fourth of all U.S. Methodist congregations have left the UMC since 2019, choosing biblical fidelity over worldly culture. The division is more pronounced in the Southeast, where as much as half of the congregations have left the UMC in some regions. An astonishing 81% of churches in Northwest Texas have disaffiliated from the denomination.
On his podcast on Thursday, Dr. Albert Mohler chalked the vote in the UMC up to another victory in the long march of the Rainbow Cult:
Again, remember what the [UMC’s] Book of Discipline said at the beginning of this week, “The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” That’s one of the clearest statements, I think, found in any denominational declaration about homosexuality as sin. That’s just very clear. And so long as that’s in the Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church, you can’t have the LGBTQ+ victory. And so, it’s out. It’s out right now, out entirely. Out by a vote of 692 to 51, that’s out.
Mohler also pointed out that conservative churches that remain in the UMC are only conservative to a point:
So, that also means that in this sense, the conservatives who may remain in the United Methodist Church are only, well, so conservative. They’re not so conservative that they will not be a part of a church that allows this in any form, in any place. And when it comes to North America, it’s going to be pretty much a rainbow flag church almost instantaneously. In effect, it became so yesterday.
The refrain from the left is that the UMC is now more “inclusive,” like this post that a left-wing Methodist friend of mine shared on Facebook:
Any church that’s worth its salt will welcome anybody, but a church that is faithful to God’s Word will encourage repentance from sin and life change — not put unrepentant sinners in charge of shepherding the congregation.
The Apostle John put it this way:
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
1 John 2:15-17 (ESV)
The lines have never been more distinct. Churches can either stay true to God’s timeless truth, or they can compromise with the world. The UMC has done the latter.