The United Methodist Church has been undergoing a major upheaval as more than 7,000 congregations across the country decided to leave the denomination. That's one-quarter of the U.S. churches in the denomination. This splintering resulted from a long-simmering debate over theological differences and the role of LGBTQ people in the church.
FILE - A gay pride rainbow flag flies along with the U.S. flag in front of the Asbury United Methodist Church in Prairie Village, Kan., on April 19, 2019. A quarter of U.S. congregations in the United Methodist Church have received permission to leave the denomination during a five-year window, closing in December 2023, that authorized departures for congregations over disputes involving the church’s LGBTQ-related policies.
But amid increased defiance of those bans in many U.S. churches, several conservatives decided to launch the separate Global Methodist Church.who remain in the UMC are expected to advocate for removing the bans at the denomination’s next General Conference, in the spring of 2024.The departures began in 2019 but ramped up during this year’s just-completed round of regular and special meetings of the denomination’s annual conferences, or regional governing bodies.
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