The Fall of The Methodist Church

Recently the United Methodist denomination had their annual conference. There were a lot of very interesting things that took place throughout the whole week. The conference opened up with some rules and guidelines given. In the beginning of the week they announced to all in attendance a code of conduct that all must follow. They declared that these are all based on guiding principles of: love, justice, kindness, accountability, integrity, respect & dignity. Then they gave three boundaries for everyone to be aware of: personal space, language & spiritual. In the language category they explained “be respectful of the choice of language that is used. Including avoiding exclusively male language for God. They felt the need to state that this was not policing but just challenging everyone to have “self-awareness guiding us to care for others.” This created an environment where everyone speaking gave not only their name but gender, pronouns, race and if they were an adult or not. For example, one delegate said before speaking, “Becca Geroud, clergy, New England annual conference, she/her/hers, queer, white, adult…” Or another one, “I am Scott Brewer, a cisgender, white, lay, male delegate from the Great Plains Conference…” There was even a session of debate on land acknowledgement. There was a motion on the floor making it mandatory to acknowledge whose land their churches and conferences are “really” on.

But the big news across the national media was a change in their rules about who can be clergy in their denomination. AP News reported, “ United Methodist delegates repealed their church’s longstanding ban on LGBTQ clergy with no debate on Wednesday, removing a rule forbidding “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” from being ordained or appointed as ministers. Delegates voted 692-51 at their General Conference — the first such legislative gathering in five years. That overwhelming margin contrasts sharply with the decades of controversy around the issue.” The vote resulted in applause and celebration. They even danced in the isles to the song “Love Train”. It was not much of a surprise to be honest. This denomination has been on the theological slide for many many years. One main reason this rule change  got passed was due to the amount of conservative churches that have left the denomination.

This was never the intention John Wesley and his brother envisioned when Methodists were started. As Albert Mohler wrote, “John Wesley never intended to establish a church. His goal, aided by his brother Charles, was to lead a holiness movement within the Church of England. They were eventually dubbed ‘Methodists’ as a term of derision, simply because of the methodical approach taken by Wesley’s devotional societies. Methodism quickly made its way to the colonies, and Wesley himself came to Savannah in 1735. The Methodist movement was made for the American moment. Wesley was a loyal British citizen and was also loyal to the Church of England. With the War of Independence, the Americans were left to establish their own church. The Methodist Episcopal Church was established in 1784 in Baltimore and the movement spread like wildfire. Before long the Methodists would be the largest single denominational movement in America, and they remained strong well into the 20th century.”

But I could tell right away that this was all a selfish endeavor and had nothing to do with following after God. First, when going over what their guidelines and boundaries would be for the conference, did you notice what they used as their guiding principles? “love, justice, kindness, accountability, integrity, respect & dignity.” Not once was scripture mentioned or referenced. Wouldn’t a conference of supposed churches want to use the Bible as their guide? Wouldn’t people claiming to be children of God want to follow what God has to say? Wouldn't people in search of establishing the “truth” in their denominational practices use what is actually the truth?! But they didn't. They used humanistic, critical theory and  postmodernism philosophy to be their guide.

The other point to bring up about this conference and the expected demise of this denomination, is one of hypocrisy. I don't know if I should call it hilarious, sad or expected with how everyone thinks today. They made sure to acknowledge everyone’s gender. They “monitored” that everyone supports whatever someone wants to call themself or what they may refer to themself as. And that is what you saw all week: people coming up to a microphone and introducing themselves as how they wanted to be called, gendered and referred to. So everyone was able to safely decide and proclaim how people should refer to them. Well almost. Everyone that is but God! Isn't it very interesting that they want to promote people deciding for themselves what their gender is, but God can’t decide for Himself?! Because, remember, they said in the beginning of the conference that you need to respect what gender people may use to refer to God. But wait a minute, everyone gets to decide for themself who they are, but God is not? This shows how hypocritical, selfish and self-defeating their thinking really is. This is not about being a church, followers of God, loving others, politically correct or tolerant. This is about doing what they want, however they want and not being told no. This is about finding their identity within themself and not the God who created them. They don’t even know the God who created them, because they allowed everyone present to make up whatever god they wanted to create in their sinful mind.