Explainer – United Methodists open first top-level conference since breakup over LGBTQ inclusion
United States AP Thousands of United Methodists are gathering in Charlotte, North Carolina, for their big denominational meeting, known as General Conference. It’s a much-anticipated gathering. Typically it is held every four years, but church leaders delayed the 2020 gathering until now due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Rev K Karen, left, of St Paul & St […]
In the US, the United Methodist Church has lost a quarter of its churches – most in the South
United States RNS Americans looking to understand the ways political polarization has defined US voting patterns need look no further than the divisions in the United Methodist Church. Five years after allowing churches to leave with their properties if they disagreed with the direction the denomination was heading on human sexuality, the results of the […]
United Methodist Church: One fourth of churches in US have left in schism over LGBTQ ban. What happens now?
PETER SMITH, of Associated Press, reports on the growing number of congregations leaving the denomination…
UMC bishops request 2026 General Conference as hundreds more churches disaffiliate
Chicago, USRNS United Methodist bishops have proposed a five-day meeting of the denomination’s global decision-making body, the General Conference, in May, 2026. The announcement comes at the end of the Council of Bishops’ spring meeting last week in Chicago and a weekend that saw hundreds of United Methodist churches in the United States leave […]
United Methodist bishops meet, look to pivot after 2,400+ churches disaffiliate
Chicago, USRNS About 100 active and retired United Methodist bishops from across the globe are meeting this week in Chicago for the first time in person since the COVID-19 pandemic and since the launch one year ago of the Global Methodist Church, a conservative denomination formed for United Methodist churches looking to disaffiliate over LGBTQ […]
United Methodists: What happened to the proposal to split the denomination?
EMILY MCFARLAN MILLER, of Religion News Service, reports that before United Methodists could vote on the widely endorsed plan, traditionalists went ahead and launched a new denomination and several representatives of centrist and progressive groups revoked their support…
United Methodist bishops acknowledge breakup is imminent
United StatesAP The United Methodist Church’s Council of Bishops, ending a five-day meeting Friday, acknowledged the inevitable breakup of their denomination – a schism that will widen this weekend with the launch of a global movement led by theologically conservative Methodists. The breakaway denomination, called the Global Methodist Church, will officially exist as of Sunday. […]