Conservative leaders within the United Methodist Church unveiled plans on Monday to form a new denomination, the Global Methodist Church, with a doctrine that does not recognize same-sex marriage.
The move could accelerate the long-awaited dissolution of UMC in different approaches to LGBTQ inclusion. For now, UMC is the largest Protestant church in the United States and second only to the Southern Baptist Convention, an evangelical denomination, among all the Protestant churches in the United States.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the UMC General Conference – at which the schism would be debated – has been postponed for two consecutive years, and is now scheduled to take place in Minneapolis beginning in late August 2022.
Rev. Keith Boyette, a Methodist elder from Virginia who chairs the Global Methodist initiative, said he and his allies do not want to wait that long to formally leave UMC. They asked for the topic of schism to be added to the strictly limited agenda of a special one-day General Conference to be conducted online on May 8.
“The church is basically paralyzed now,” said Boyette. “We don’t believe that another year will be useful to anyone.”
However, Louisiana-based Bishop Cynthia Fierro Harvey, who heads the UMC Council of Bishops, said the schism debate would involve “delicate deliberations” and trying to conduct them online in May “does not seem wise or ethical”.
If the issue is not addressed on May 8, Boyette said he and his allies would be willing to postpone until the 2022 General Conference, but only if UMC’s centrists and progressives remain committed to previous separation agreements. Any reduction in these commitments could lead conservatives to bring the new church into existence, Boyette said.
Differences about same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBTQ clergy simmered for years at UMC and peaked in 2019 at a conference in St. Louis, where delegates voted 438-384 to strengthen prohibitions on inclusive LGBTQ practices . Most delegates based in the United States opposed this plan and favored LGBTQ friendly options; they were defeated by US conservatives in conjunction with most delegates of Methodist strongholds in Africa and the Philippines.
In the aftermath of that meeting, many moderate and liberal clerics made it clear that they would not accept the prohibitions, and several groups worked on proposals to allow UMC to divide along theological lines.
The most prominent plan, the Protocol of Reconciliation and Grace through Separation, has some high-level support, including from the Council of Bishops and the Global Methodist group. Under the protocol, conservative congregations and regional bodies would be allowed to separate from UMC and form a new denomination. They would receive $ 25 million in UMC funds and would be able to maintain their properties.
On a new website launched on Monday, Global Methodist organizers said the new denomination would allow women to serve at all levels and seek membership that is “ethnic and racially diverse”.
Regarding LGBTQ issues, organizers said the denomination would adhere to “the traditional understanding of Christian marriage as a pact between a man and a woman and as the intended environment of God for human sexual expression”.
Bishop Karen Oliveto of UMC’s Mountain Sky region – who in 2016 became UMC’s first openly lesbian bishop – said in an e-mail that “it is heartbreaking when the Body of Christ is fragmented”.
“I pray that those who are called to the Global Methodist Church will be free to be the people that God calls them to be,” she added.
Formed in a merger in 1968, the United Methodist Church claims about 12.6 million members worldwide, including nearly 7 million in the United States.
UMC’s demography is illustrated by the distribution of voting delegates for the 2022 General Conference: About 56% come from the United States, 32% from Africa, 6% from the Philippines and most of the rest of Europe.
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