Dear Friends,
I trust you had a meaningful Memorial Day and that you’re experiencing a blessed Pentecost or “Ordinary Time,” however your church recognizes or celebrates the Church calendar and season.
As promised, below is Part II of “The Divided United Methodist Church,” with a detailed look at the “new thing” God is doing in the Global Methodist Church. If you are a member of the GMC, please comment if you note any errors in my observations.
Speaking of errors, humblest apologies for my chubby fingers writing “A Heart Strangler Warmed” vs. “A Heart Strangely Warmed,” which I emailed to some of our new subscribers in the Global Methodist Church. I know “circumcision of the heart” was central to Wesley’s teaching, but I don’t recall “strangler” ever being mentioned in his journals, unless as a passing reference to a highwayman fleecing the itinerant evangelist of a few farthings as he travelled to his next town.
Enjoy, friends, this beautiful springtime. I am thankful for you. You encourage my heart.
As always…
Pressing On!
D. Paul
The Divided United Methodist Church—out of the UMC’s brokenness, the Global Methodist Church emerges.
Every Christian knows from experience that God is always doing a “new thing” within our broken lives. It is his nature. When we are “born again,” not of the flesh but of the Spirit, we are made new “in Christ”—literally—becoming “a new creature,” where “…old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17, KJV).
And, as in broken lives made anew, so is something being made new out of the brokenness of The United Methodist Church. Flagrantly rejecting God’s Word that defines biblical marriage as “between a man and a woman,” John Wesley’s once great and glorious Church has imploded, leaving in its destructive wake a divided body with dwindling numbers and resources. God has not been content to sit on the sidelines, passively watching how things play themselves out. As is often the case, the Holy Spirit has been working behind the scenes, knowing beforehand all the principal players and where the dramatic through lines are headed. And now, Christ has taken center stage, working out God’s great and good will through his faithful followers in the emerging Global Methodist Church.
Here are some facts about the GMC: it was founded on May 1, 2022; its number of congregations are approaching 5,000; it has over 4,500 ministers. Those congregations leaving the United Methodist Church to help create the Global Methodist Church are committed to upholding a “theological and ethical Christian orthodoxy”—an orthodoxy opposed to same-sex marriage and the ordination of non-celibate gay clergy.
Already, Provisional Annual Conferences are flourishing throughout the US, with international PACs in Bulgaria, the Philippines, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Korea, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, and more on the way, no doubt. The Global Methodist Church is not a token title, but purposeful in name and logo, exemplified by their convening 2024 General Conference being held in San Jose, Costa Rica (September 20-26). “So the WORLD will know” is the conference’s grand theme, harkening back to it founder, John Wesley, who in 1739 declared in his journal: “I look upon all the world as my parish.” Well, friends, I may not be able to make it down to Costa Rica, but I do hope to journey up from Indianapolis to Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, IN, where the 2024 Great Lakes Provisional Annual Conference is being held, June 5-7, with EMPOWERMENT its theme, drawing upon that Pentecostal promise: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
Pleased by their spirit of humility and obedience, might God be positioning the Global Methodist Church as a major conduit to a sweeping, world-wide revival? For sure, He is doing a new thing in the GMC and, anointed by the Holy Spirit, its Mission and Vision statements herald a bright future. They write, in part: Our “…Mission is to make disciples of Jesus Christ who worship passionately, love extravagantly, and witness boldly.” Continuing from the title page of their website (globalmethodist.org): “Our Vision is to join God in a journey of bringing new life, reconciliation, and the presence of Christ to all people and to helping each person reflect the character of Christ.” The amplification of that Vision is heartening: “The Global Methodist Church is committed to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, the inspiration and authority of the Scriptures, and the work of the Holy Spirit in conveying God’s truth and grace to all people.” A hearty hallelujah to that, and another shout-out hallelujah for its “sound doctrine” counter to the UMC’s revisionist teachings. The GMC’s position on marriage could not be clearer: “We affirm the sanctity of the marriage covenant that is expressed in love, mutual support, personal commitment, and shared fidelity between a man and a woman,” stating further, “Ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions shall not be conducted by our ministers and shall not be conducted in our churches.”
Desiring a welcoming door that is open to all, an inclusive invitation can be found in the GMC’s transitional Book of Doctrines and Discipline: “We are saddened by all expressions of sexual behavior…that represent less than God’s intentional design for His children. While affirming a scriptural view of sexuality and gender, we welcome all to experience the redemptive grace of Jesus and are committed to being a safe place of refuge, hospitality, and healing for any who may have experienced brokenness in their sexual lives” (Genesis 1:27, Genesis 2:24, 1 Corinthians 6:9-20).
Knowing that there are now thousands of churches in America who perform same-sex marriages and ordain LGBTQ clergy, one might hope for an ameliorating voice coming from the LGBTQIA activists within the Church. Sadly, many will find the GMC’s inclusive invitation above repugnant. At our “finest” seminaries, we are grooming a like-minded herd of militant ministers whose antipathy for the the traditional view of marriage and human sexuality is relentless. I quote from a Union Theological seminarian, Bekah Maren Anderson, a current director of Pastoral Care in the UCC (the United Church of Christ), who self-identifies “as a cisgender queer woman.” Her article, Beyond rainbow flags: what it means to make church safe for LGBTQ people, can be found at christiancitizen.us, July 19, 2023. Two “highlights,” if you will:
“I’m tired of it. I’m tired of churches who learned how to affirm lesbians and gay men, but aren’t interested in wrapping their brains around bisexuality, transness, non-binary genders, and the beautiful array of identities under the LGBTQ umbrella.” In her response to “an angry, transphobic email from a church member, taking me to task for daring to speak about the trans community,” Ms. Anderson writes: “…I could have easily spent the entire sermon arguing that God is trans, or connecting queer sex and spirituality, or making a scriptural case for polyamory. Sir, you haven’t seen me being radical; you saw me passing for moderate.”
Wow, how cool— “a scriptural case for polyamory.” I can see the senior-high youth department really getting behind that one. Apologies for my deflective humor; it is that, or weep—or perhaps both. We need be under no illusions: Bekah Maren Anderson speaks for thousands of activist seminarians. As pastors and priests, they will be ill-equipped emotionally to embrace the conservatives within their congregations until they conform to their progressive thinking—the right thinking—oblivious that their own “…thinking has become futile and their foolish hearts darkened” (Romans 1:21).
It is not without reason that I wrote two weeks ago, “Eventually, the conservative churches remaining in the UMC will bow to the…radically revised definition of marriage or be sacrificed upon the high altar of full inclusion.” As if right on cue, I received the picture below from a subscriber who attends a United Methodist church in Kansas City—the heart of the chancel draped with an LGBTQ flag—serving as the dominant backdrop and colorful accent to the Lord’s table. Knowingly or unknowingly, one way or another, you will be pressured to bow under that flag and, in so doing, symbolically, at least, declare your allegiance.
Like the faithful of the Global Methodist Church, it is past time, dear saints, to let the United Methodist Church go: let them go in love, yes, wishing them no harm, wishing them protection from animus and rancor; let them go in prayer, always extending that welcoming invitation “to experience the redemptive grace of Jesus.” And while the divided United Methodist Church goes on its way praising the virtues of diversity and inclusiveness, I hear another chorus—a chorus singing the sweet praises of redemption and holiness and of Him who is “Love divine, all loves excelling, Joy of Heav’n to earth come down!”
My brothers and sisters in Christ, “Do you hear them coming?”
“Do you hear the stirring anthems
Filling all the earth and sky?
'Tis a grand, victorious army,
Lift its banner up on high!”
“Tis a glorious Church without spot or wrinkle,
Washed in the blood of the Lamb.
'Tis a glorious Church, without spot or wrinkle,
Washed in the blood of the Lamb.” (Words & music by R. E. Hudson, 1892)
Thousands of churches have left the United Methodist Church. There will be more. May God continue to bless and lead the emerging Global Methodist Church!
Amen & Amen
The logo for the Global Methodist Church.
“The Church’s One Foundation is Jesus Christ Her Lord!”
Podcast #27: The Divided United Methodist Church, Part II