A United Methodist pastor contends that the contentious split in his denomination – while publicly attributed to differences over human sexuality – really boils down to three things: money, power, and “twisting of scripture.”
The exodus from the United Methodist Church is picking up steam. Last week 70 churches in Georgia left the denomination over its abandonment of scripture and God’s design for marriage when the North Georgia Conference voted to allow its churches to disaffiliate from the UMC.
As Fox News explained in a Sunday story, the UMC adopted a disaffiliation agreement during a special session in 2019 that would allow churches to leave the denomination through the end of 2023 “for reasons of conscience regarding a change in the requirements and provisions of the Book of Discipline related to the practice of homosexuality or the ordination or marriage of self-avowed practicing homosexuals as resolved and adopted by the 2019 General Conference, or the actions or inactions of its annual conference related to these issues which follow.”
However, the UMC was unable to hold its annual General Conference in 2020 and 2021 because of COVID. Dr. Ray Rooney, an ordained UMC pastor and online editor of The Stand, offered Monday on American Family Radio that had it not been for the pandemic, the split would have been a lot friendlier.
“Gotta have money to leave,” Rooney emphasized. “If the other plan had gone through in 2020, churches would’ve left and it wouldn’t have cost them a dime. Now they’re still going to get some money. That’s what this boils down to: this is a money power play.”
The issue that’s being blamed for the split is homosexuality and same-sex “marriage,” but Rooney argues the real reason is much more fundamental.
“This isn’t as much about human sexuality, gayness, and the rest of it, as it is about scripture,” he stated. “[It’s about] trying to legitimize the twisting of scripture as if to say That’s not what God meant.
“This is about the clergy,” he continued. “This is about trying to make it where it’s okay for self-avowed, practicing homosexuals to be ordained as clergy and to practice gay marriage.”
Most of the churches disaffiliating will move over to the newly formed Global Methodist Church, which Rooney says is keeping the best parts of Methodism.
“The only difference that I can tell in reading the documents of the Global Methodist Church (GMC) is there is no ‘trust clause’ – every church is going to own its own property,” he explained. “And I assume there’s going to be a retention of what the current Book of Discipline says about homosexuality” … which says (in part):
The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. Therefore, self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be certified as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve ….
In a follow-up question from AFN to Rooney regarding that latter comment, he references a section of the GMC’s “Transitional Book of Doctrines and Disciplines,” which states:
We believe that human sexuality is a gift of God that is to be affirmed as it is exercised within the legal and spiritual covenant of a loving and monogamous marriage between one man and one woman (Exodus 20:14, Matthew 19:3-9, Ephesians 5:22-33).
“I guess the implication is that if it is outside ‘monogamous marriage between one man and one woman,’ it is outside of the GMC’s beliefs,” Rooney concludes.
Editor’s Note: The Stand is a division of the American Family Association, the parent organization of the American Family News Network, which operates AFN.net.
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Copyright American Family News. Reprinted with permission.
Psalm 12:6-8
6 The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.
7 Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.
8 The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted.
Deuteronomy 4:2
2 Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.
Revelations 22: 18-19
18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
So why the surprise when AIDS, COVID, wars and school shootings are visited upon a people who seek to play God to distort the words and purpose of his creation? The book of life is a lot smaller because people choose the path and book of death. Free-will when misused always turns a blessing into a burden ,and life into lethal. Someone should hit them where God split them for a real awakening.
49 “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! 51 Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. 52 From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
Interpreting the Times
54 He said to the crowd: “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does. 55 And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is. 56 Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?
Luke 12:49-56