Methodist conservatives to launch breakaway group in May
A group of theologically conservative United Methodists plans to launch a new worldwide denomination on May 1, impatient to get started after yet another pandemic-related delay to a formalized divorce agreement with their denomination.
The creation of the Global Methodist Church, announced Thursday, was long in the making, organized by conservatives who were fed up with liberal churches' continued defiance of the United Methodist Church's bans on same-sex marriage and the ordination of openly gay clergy.
Global Methodist Church organizers had originally expected to launch the denomination only after the next General Conference of the UMC. That legislative body is the only one that could approve a tentative agreement — unveiled in 2020 after negotiations between conservatives, liberals and centrists — to allow churches and regional groups to leave the denomination and keep their property.
But the General Conference, originally scheduled for 2020, was already delayed for two straight years by the pandemic. On Thursday, the United Methodist Church announced it was pushing off the next gathering yet again — to 2024 — due to long delays in the U.S. processing of visa applications. Nearly half the denominations' members are overseas, notably in Africa and the Philippines.
UMC officials said the visa process has been delayed as long as 800 days in some cases.
"The visa issue is a reality that is simply outside our control as we seek to achieve a reasonable threshold of delegate presence and participation," said a* statement by Kim Simpson, who chairs the denomination's Commission on the General Conference.
But the delay is hastening the breakup of the third-largest religious body in the United States, behind Catholics and Southern Baptists.
Already some conservative churches have left the denomination, and more are eager to do so, said a statement from the Global Methodist Church organizers.
"Many United Methodists have grown impatient with a denomination clearly struggling to function effectively at the general church level," said the Rev. Keith Boyette, chairman of the Transitional Leadership Council, which is organizing the Global Methodist Church.