Life Will go on after The Methodist Split

That the Methodist denomination is splitting into to two denominations follows the historical trajectory of Christianity perfectly. Denominations have split up repeatedly as times have changed. In this way it is healthy for Christianity. As we all know it is splitting into a gay friendly denomination and a gay-hating one.

I suppose some individual churches will be hurt because members will be split about 50-50 on which way to go. Smaller churches will have a tougher time hanging in there. A few mega churches will go with the gay hostile branch. The most immediate impact will be on the employees of the home office. Many will lose their jobs. From the economy's perspective they may find work that contributes more to health, shelter and feeding of the general population. It may well those employees will find more satisfying work.

It seems most likely that as the oldest generations of any denomination die off those remaining will be more gay friendly. Denominations founded on a gay-is-sin tenet will die with their members. Until that happens they may thrive but this will be an illusion of success.

The splitting of Protestant denominations is quite different than what is happening in the Catholic denomination. Sites with follow such things say there are 100 gay friendly Catholic colleges in the U. S. and universities and 200 gay friendly parishes. I did not follow up to see how many of these remain under the formal corporation run by Rome.

Many times it has been noted here that Christianity is about sin more than any other topic. The split of Methodism illustrates how true this generalization is.




Comments

  1. Matt NoahJanuary 18, 2020 at 7:03 AM

    Gay-loving: A church or person which proclaims God's teaching and love towards anyone with a tendency towards acting out their homosexual tendency.

    Gay-hating: A church or person which does not proclaim God's teaching and love towards anyone with a tendency towards acting out their homosexual tendency.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Matt NoahJanuary 18, 2020 at 12:51 PM

    If Christianity is about sin, i.e. avoiding sin, then what can be said of atheism? How many branches of atheism exist? As atheism does not espouse a central, moral authority, it is prone to the ultimate split; everyone has their own 'personal' morality, whatever that is. To me, it means no common morality. One atheist might believe in abortion, another against abortion. One may believe in homosexual marriage (sic), the other only in heterosexual marriage.

    It is fair to say that Jon is his own god. He determines what is moral for him but not for his wife, kids, grandkids or anyone else. He would like to impose his morality but it just doesn't work. The number of people who read his blog is small. Those who agree with him have moved on for the most part. Those who oppose him don't really feel a need to oppose him - like me - but do so to help him repent, sharpen our apologetic skills and hear bizarre theories about religion, politics or spaghetti.

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