Wait a minute. The crucial language that the “practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching” was just approved this past February? That hasn’t been the language in church discipline documents for many years before 2019 and affirmed in multiple votes?

But here is the most crucial point. What, precisely, are the “fundamental differences” that the United Methodists involved in these negotiations — leaders from left and right — cited as the cause of the upcoming ecclesiastical divorce? Was it really LGBTQ issues, period?

Consider this commentary from David French (an evangelical Presbyterian) of The Dispatch:

The secular media will cast the divide primarily in the terms it understands — as focused on “LGBT issues” — but that’s incomplete. The true fracturing point between Mainline and Evangelical churches is over the authority and interpretation of scripture. The debate over LGBT issues is a consequence of the underlying dispute, not its primary cause. …

Thus, at heart, the disagreement between the Evangelical and Mainline branches of Christianity isn’t over issues — even hot-button cultural and political issues — but rather over theology. Indeed, the very first clause of the United Methodist Church’s nine-page separation plan states that church members “have fundamental differences regarding their understanding and interpretation of Scripture, theology and practice.”

Ah, there’s the rub. Who wants to put “Scripture, theology and practice” in a news report — especially at NBC Out and similar structures in other newsrooms — when you can blame the whole denominational war over conservatives refusing to evolve on LGBTQ issues?

Read it all.

After decades of fighting, United Methodists avoid a visit from Ghost of the Episcopal Future? https://t.co/o1OptQUJJ9

— GetReligion (@GetReligion) January 6, 2020

–Milwaukee, WI, October 21, 2013

Over the last decade there has been a steady exodus of the faithful out of The Episcopal Church, USA. One congregation, Holy Cross Anglican Church, was one of those. And, after two years of meeting in a classroom for Sunday Worship, Holy Cross is now meeting at 550 N 95th St. Milwaukee 53226.
Holy Cross is growing and helping other grow as followers of Christ as well.
From one of the newer families that have joined us since Spring, 2013 says this about Holy Cross,

Holy Cross is a great place for families to worship together. When our family visited Holy Cross for the first time, we were delighted with how welcoming the congregation is. They didn’t mind that we had our baby with us, or even that she wasn’t perfectly quiet the whole time. In fact, having small children participating in worship is regarded as a blessing by the congregation. At Holy Cross, you will find generations of families worshiping together, being fed by the faithful preaching of the gospel and by the sacraments. For this reason, and for many others, I really believe that the spiritual life of our family is greatly nourished by our involvement at Holy Cross and that it is a great place for our little one to grow in the knowledge and love of the Lord. ”“ Caleb Evans

Holy Cross Anglican Church
Exists to
Make disciples of Jesus Christ,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,
And teaching them to observe all that Christ has commanded us. Matthew 28:19-20

If you would like more information about this church, please contact Fr. Patrick Malone at (262) 207-4113 or email at HolyCrossAnglicanWI [at] gmail[dot] com.

Once home to St. Edmond’s Episcopal Church, an empty building at 14625 Watertown Plank Road in Elm Grove serves as a reminder of an emotional church split that ended in a lawsuit over property disagreements.

The 125-member congregation was the first in the state to announce its split with the Episcopal Church in the United States in 2008 and joined the Convocation of Anglicans of North America, part of the more conservative Anglican Church of Nigeria.

The split was prompted by theological differences, including the Diocese of New Hampshire’s consecration of an openly gay bishop in 2003.

Read it all.

A Waukesha County judge has ruled in favor of the Episcopal Diocese of Milwaukee in a dispute over church property taken by an Elm Grove congregation when it broke away over theological differences in 2008.

The decision, by Waukesha County Circuit Judge J. Mac Davis, means members of St. Edmund’s Parish who left the Episcopal Church to align with a new, more theologically conservative Anglican province must relinquish all church property and vacate the building at 14625 Watertown Plank Road.

Read it all.

Take the time to read it all as well as looking at the pictures and there is a lot more there.

The presiding bishop of the U.S. Episcopal Church warned the Church of England not to foment schism in America, responding to a threat made over the possibility that the U.S. church will start ordaining actively gay bishops.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said Sunday, in response to questions from The Washington Times, that calls by conservatives in the Church of England for recognition of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) over gay-related issues would wound her church, already split by the secession of conservative dioceses and congregations to form the ACNA.

She urged Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to remember the “pain of many Episcopalians in several places of being shut out of their traditional worship spaces, and the broken relationships, the damaged relationships between people who have gone and people who have stayed.”

“Recognition of something like ACNA is unfortunately likely only to encourage” further secessions, she said, reminding the Church of England that “schism is not a Christian act.”

Read it all.