Methodist church facing split; local churches react
As the United Methodist Church becomes fractured over LGBTQ rights, many individual churches are leaving the 12-million member worldwide church, leaving Butler County congregations with a decision to make.
The Global Methodist Church, a new, more conservative Methodist denomination, officially announced its formation in May. Its leaders disapprove of liberal churches’ continued defiance of UMC bans on same-sex marriage and the ordination of openly gay clergy.
The new denomination announced its plans on the same day the United Methodist Church postponed its General Conference for the third time, this time until 2024.
Bishop Cynthia Moore-Koikoi, leader of the Western Pennsylvania Conference’s 700 churches since 2016, said, “I want to make it clear the new denomination is not a United Methodist denomination.”
Moore-Koikoi said that while the United Methodist Church welcomes diverse perspectives, it operates under its Book of Discipline codified during the 2019 General Conference, the last one convened before the pandemic.
“The church believes homosexuality is a sin. Practicing homosexuals cannot be ordained or serve as pastors. Churches cannot allow same-gender marriages in their buildings, nor can pastors officiate at same-gender weddings,” Moore-Koikoi said.
Individual congregations may not want to go forward under this policy, said the bishop, so the 2019 conference also developed a way for churches to disaffiliate if they want.
The Rev. Jonathan Fehl, pastor of Cabot United Methodist Church, 707 Winfield Road in Cabot, said his church is undecided as to whether to stay with the United Methodist Church or join the new Global Methodist Church.
“We don’t know; our administrative board is having conversations. We have met with the Bishop (Moore-Koikoi),” said Fehl. “We wanted to see what our options are.”
Fehl added that the just-under 350 members of his church will enter a period of “discernment” to decide what, if anything, they will do.
Fehl said that while the issue of LGBTQ rights and the question of homosexual ordination and marriage are the presenting issue, there are significant theological differences across the spectrum of the church.
“We are, as a denomination, a big tent theologically that allows for a wide variety of differences,” he said. “But now we are facing the boundaries of that tent, I suppose.”
However, choosing to leave the church will mean a significant financial cost to the departing churches. Some churches may choose to remain because of financial, not theological, considerations, he said.
The deadline to complete disaffiliation is the end of 2023.
Fehl said today’s split can be traced back to the formation of the United Methodist Church from several smaller churches in 1968.
Disagreements on church policy became more evident during the 2016 General Conference when LGBTQ rights almost caused a split. The 2019 General Conference upheld the church’s teaching on human sexuality.
The Rev. David Janz, pastor of First United Methodist Church, 200 E. North St., said his 1,600-member congregation is remaining in the United Methodist Church, for now.
“We’ve chosen to stay the course until the General Conference in 2024,” said Janz, adding that both he personally and the congregation are conservative.
“With disaffiliation, the financial obligations are significant. We are investigating the financial obligation. It would be a significant burden for us,” he said.
Moore-KoiKoi said churches wishing to disaffiliate must pay the United Methodist Church the equivalent of two years’ worth of mission giving, a pension obligation for clergy and an obligation for church property.
“The disaffiliation law that was codified in 2019 with these obligations is still the law,” she said.
Janz said his church would be taking a survey of the congregation “to see where we are in severing the connection to the United Methodist Church.”
The core of the dispute, he said, is that while the United Methodist Church is still Christ-centered as well as being Wesleyan — relating to the teachings of John Wesley, who founded the main branch of the Methodist church — and “as conservative as we have ever been,” multiple churches and multiple bishops are choosing not to follow the church teachings on homosexuality.
“This is creating an underlying turmoil within the church and a real challenge within the congregation itself,” Janz said.
“We will be having a prayerful conversation on that as a local church,” in the near future, he said.
Janz has been a member of the United Methodist Church his whole life and a pastor for 38 years.
“It grieves me deeply that we have allowed this battle over homosexuality to hijack the mission of the church. So many people in Butler just need to know Jesus Christ,” he said.
Moore-KoiKoi said, “I believe that unity is a difficult thing or else Jesus would not have to pray for it for us.
“It personally grieves me that people feel that they can’t go forward with us,” she said.
