UMC Split

“delegates at the GMC General Conference across six days seemed to feel joyful and hopeful. First, they seemed to feel liberated.” - The Dispatch

“To be a member of the Gideons, one must be an adult man and conform to a set of spiritual beliefs that are entirely uncontroversial for most Biblical Christians. Among these requisites is the commitment to ‘the Biblical standard of marriage being between one biological man and one biological woman.’” - Juicy Ecumenism

“The liberal Methodists of North America have now virtually guaranteed their denomination’s extinction. Conservative Methodists around the world were and still are the lifeblood of the tradition….In this, they represent the larger trend in Mainline Protestant churches.” - Breakpoint

“This General Conference will liberalize United Methodism’s teachings on marriage and sex….over 7660 traditionalist churches, including up to 1.5 million members, exited the denomination under a temporary policy allowing departure with property.” - Juicy Ecumenism

“Paragraph 2553 expired at the end of 2023, with over 7,500 congregations successfully disaffiliating from the UMC through the process” - CPost

Related: The UMC lost a quarter of its churches — most in the South - RNS

“approximately 7,400 congregations have left the denomination since 2019 under the provisions of Paragraph 2553, including 192 churches in the Florida Conference.” - CPost

“The group, which includes some of the biggest churches in the conference, will formally exit the denomination at a special session of the conference, or regional geographic body, on Nov. 4.” - RNS

“There will be yet another explosion next May, when United Methodism’s governing General Conference meets for the first time since 2019. With so many traditionalists gone, the convention will likely delete its current bans on same-sex rites and sex outside of male-female marriage.” - World

“while most of those churches have followed the disaffiliation plan outlined by the United Methodist Church’s General Conference, other congregations and annual conferences have tried different ways to leave” - RNS

“It didn’t work, he said, because some church leaders and regional conferences have taken action to oppose the denomination’s official stance barring LGBT members from ordination and marriage.” - CToday