Back in 1969, approximately 11 million believers belonged to the United Methodist Church, making it the third-largest religious body in the United States after Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists. Yet over the following decades, the denomination—like many others in America—dwindled. Then, between 2019 and 2023, the church split, largely due to disputes over its teachings on gender and sexuality.  Leaders of the United Methodist Church are gathering this week and next in Charlotte, North Carolina, for the international General Conference. They will almost certainly liberalize the church’s teachings on the very topics that led to its schism. But while it will continue to lose members, the decline of the United Methodist Church isn’t just indicative of trends in American liberal Protestantism. Rather, it’s a telling sign of a wider institutional demise of denominationalism across the nation. For decades—as mainline Protestant denominations like the Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church (USA) liberalized their policies to affirm same-sex marriage and gay clergy—United Methodist traditionalists won all the legislative votes regarding its teachings on sexuality. But their victory was in part due to their church’s unique international membership: Delegates from growing congregations in Africa consistently sided with U.S. traditionalists. In 2019, at a special governing General Conference, 53 percent of United Methodist delegates reaffirmed the church’s affirmation of sex only within marriage between a husband and a wife. Those legislative wins did not change the overwhelmingly progressive bent of the United Methodist leadership, including among bishops, church agencies, seminaries, and most clergy. So after the 2019 General Conference victory, traditionalists realized their best option was to take advantage of a temporary policy allowing them to leave the church after a two-thirds congregational vote and an often-hefty exit fee. Then in December 2023, the United Methodist Church concluded a four-year process that allowed conservative congregations to quit the denomination without forfeiting their property (which the denomination typically holds). Over 7,600 congregations—25 percent of the U.S. total, or about 1.5 million members—left. When taking their departure into account, the United Methodist Church now likely has approximately 4 million members. (Read rest of article here.) The post What’s United Methodist General Conference Impact? appeared first on Juicy Ecumenism.

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