Some Christians are worried that their churches will lose their tax-exempt status as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision declaring gay marriage a constitutional right. I’m worried that my church will cease to exist altogether, or at least in its present form.
The United Methodist Church is the largest mainline Protestant denomination in America. Following decades of steep membership losses across all these historic churches, that’s kind of like being the tallest building in Topeka. But only the Roman Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention have more U.S. members, and the United Methodist Church’s international membership is actually growing.
Almost alone among mainline Protestant churches, the United Methodists have remained committed to orthodox Christian standards of sexual morality. Clergy must be celibate when single and monogamous in marriage, which is defined as the union of a man and a woman. Methodist pastors are not permitted to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies.
As shown in the [url=http://juicyecumenism.com/2015/07/08/eastern-pennsylvania-united-methodists-call-for-accountability-invite-covenant-breakers-to-leave-umc/]Eastern Pennsylvania Conference[/url] of the UMC, “conservatism” isn’t limited to the South but exists throughout the church – except perhaps for the Far West. Liberal Bishops and a liberal bureaucracy are the greater problem in the UMC. Sound familiar?