I’ve told this story before, but it bears repeating here. Once upon a time, I wanted to be an Episcopal priest. The diocese in which I was living rejected me. In retrospect, I probably would have made a rotten minister, so that choice in and of itself was probably not the worst decision anyone has ever made. But as it turned out that my spiritual fitness was not in question.
For a few weeks after being rejected, I was depressed. Ordination had been something I had wanted since college. But one Sunday, an older “supply,” or substitute priest, took me aside and told me not to take it personally. I found that to be a little glib. After all, I had been told I was unworthy to serve God, and that’s the kind of thing someone takes personally. But he continued, “Right now, the diocese is not accepting straight, white men for the ordination process. But if you hang in there, you might have a chance in a few years or so.” Strangely enough, it was liberating and made it much easier to walk away. Since then, I have watched Episcopal churches across the nation, (including the one in which I was baptized and raised) eviscerate themselves because they have chosen to follow the Will of the Woke instead of the Will of God. And it appears that the United Methodist Church may be heading down that same path.
The United Methodist Church lost a significant number of parishes over the weekend. According to The Christian Post, during a special Saturday session, the Alabama-West Florida Conference of the church voted to ratify disaffiliation voted by 193 churches across both states. This means a 38 percent reduction in the number of churches in the regional body and a loss of 39 percent of its membership. This brings the total number of parishes that have left the UMC to 233, dating back to last June.
The conference issued a press release noting that the majority of its churches have elected to remain with the UMC, and included the following stats:
The following statistics represent the 193 churches disaffiliating from the Alabama-West Florida Conference and the United Methodist Church.
-38% of the churches in the Alabama-West Florida Conference.
-39% of the membership of the Alabama-West Florida Conference.
-35% of the reported in-person worship attendance of the Alabama-West Florida Conference.
-Nine out of 193 Alabama-West Florida Conference churches with membership over 1,000.
-While an average of 42% of church members regularly attend worship, on average only 29% of membership was represented at the vote to decide the future of their church.
There was also a statement from Bishop David Graves:
Today is a somber day in the life of the Alabama-West Florida Conference. We grieve in saying farewell to the 193 churches disaffiliating from the United Methodist Church and wish them the best in ministry. Many of these churches have dedicated clergy and laity who truly desire to serve God and their communities. We pray for these churches as they navigate ministry in a new season. I especially want to thank those churches who have decided to remain United Methodist and those who heard my call to refrain from holding discussions around leaving the denomination until we have more information. I appreciate your faithfulness to your call and covenant all while leading your churches in a most difficult season. This has been a labor-intensive and emotional process for our cabinet and staff. In the most difficult of times I see so many signs of hope and renewal. Today we are turning a page in the Alabama-West Florida and will be focusing on life-giving and life-changing ministry. I’m excited to see the Kingdom work this conference and connection will accomplish with God’s guidance.
The release also mentioned 11 new church starts for the conference. So the conference has started 11 new ministries but has lost 23 churches. And I say this without any smugness: those numbers will not be easy to overcome. The Christian Post also notes that on the same day, the Western North Carolina Conference ratified the departure of 192 congregations from the UMC. All told, the tally since 2019 stands at 2,996 churches.
The drivers of this exodus? The blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of non-celibate gays and lesbians.
The bloodletting is not over for the Anglican Communion, either. While many of the Episcopal churches in the U.S. are flush with rainbows but short on communicants, many Anglican churches in other parts of the world are looking for the exit from the proverbial narthex as well. Writing for The Roys Report, Tom Osanjo reported that churches in the global south are fed up with the progressive drift of Anglicanism. Rev. Tom Otieno, who is the vicar of Saint Barnabas Anglican Church of Kenya in Nairobi, talked about the growing gulf between churches in places such as Africa, Latin America, the Pacific Islands, and parts of Asia, which might be characterized as third- and second-world countries, and the western portion of the Communion. Otieno said:
What this means is that we are now going to have two Communions of Anglicans going forward, the Global South Anglicans who are keeping to the teachings of the Scripture and the Global North Anglicans who are preaching and practicing a watered-down gospel. We no longer recognize the leadership of the Right Rev. Justin Welby as the head of the Anglican Church, and I believe we are soon going to announce the new headquarters of the Global South church.
Otieno’s comments come on the heels of the Global Anglican Future Conference, which was held in Kigali, Rwanda, back in April. Osanjo said that out of that conference came the Kigali Commitment. It reads in part:
We have no confidence that the Archbishop of Canterbury nor the other Instruments of Communion led by him (the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meetings) are able to provide a godly way forward that will be acceptable to those who are committed to the truthfulness, clarity, sufficiency and authority of Scripture. The Instruments of Communion have failed to maintain true communion based on the Word of God and shared faith in Christ.
All four Instruments propose that the way ahead for the Anglican Communion is to learn to walk together in ‘good disagreement.’ However we reject the claim that two contradictory positions can both be valid in matters affecting salvation. We cannot ‘walk together’ in good disagreement with those who have deliberately chosen to walk away from the ‘faith once for all delivered to the saints’ (Jude 3). The people of God ‘walk in his ways’, ‘walk in the truth’, and ‘walk in the light’, all of which require that we do not walk in Christian fellowship with those in darkness (Deuteronomy 8:6; 2 John 4; 1 John 1:7).
Again, the issues of contention are same-sex unions and the ordination of LGBTQ people.
It is interesting to note that the “poorer” churches in the Anglican Communion are the ones taking the “richer” ones to task. On one hand, it could be argued that people in developing countries don’t have the time or resources to worry about all of the superfluous garbage that fascinates and occupies the Communion members in the West. But that same situation, in which there are far fewer luxuries and much less free time, and in some cases less freedom, has kept these churches closer to God instead of permitting the distractions to water down the Gospel.
Let’s set aside the whole LGBTQ debate for a change. I have met people who have been placed in labor camps for their faith. In some countries, owning a Bible can get a person killed. In some Chinese house churches, people gather and someone will whisper the number of a particular hymn. And then the congregation silently mouths the words, lest someone overhear them and turn them over to the police. There are villages in Asia where there is one Bible for an entire village. The Bible is split into sections and the villagers then memorize their section, before passing it on to the next person. By the time all of the sections have been passed around, everyone has read and may not be able to recall every page word-for-word, but they know more of the Bible than your average American Christian. I’ve heard some believers in China say that a particular person was not a mature Christian because they had only been arrested once or twice. I once read about a pastor in Africa who has half a face. Why does he have half a face? So glad you asked. The non-believers in his area tied him to the back of a truck and dragged him around town. Then they stood him up and shot him in the face with a shotgun. His family fled and he has no idea where they are. He continues to work in his ministry but only comes out at night. If he came out during the day, someone might recognize him and finish the job.
Because they live their faith in the shadow of oppression and even in some places, under the gun, these don’t take faith lightly. Their faith may cost them everything and it is therefore precious. They know what it means to submit to God, and not expect God to submit to them. Jesus is their Lord, not their waiter. They have no time and no interest in fretting about gender or caterwauling about abortion or birth control. They don’t have awesome worship bands, t-shirts, fog machines, or light shows. They can’t afford those things, and besides, that could be a sure way to get themselves killed.
And of course, in much of the West, the reverse is true. In the West, specifically in the Episcopal United Methodist churches, it would appear that they have come to believe that the “I” in the great “I am” refers to themselves.
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