Email to our church leadership and others on 6May2024:
Our hearts and souls did not arrive at this somber decision overnight, as attested by multiple emails and in-person conversations since March 2022; with our church’s and annual conference leadership, and other church members; by various means expressing concerns that the United Methodist Church (UMC) was moving in a disobedient direction.
Therefore, effective immediately, we revoke membership in the United Methodist Church and leave our church home; immensely saddened to depart our Sunday School class of 28 years; people whose love we cherish.
Any number of you may have stopped reading after the sentences above, but if you continue then I will do my best to describe why we decided to depart from our church home and denomination:
Before UMC General Conference (GC) 2024 began, our hope was that GC delegates would leave traditionalists a spiritual thread, a vestige of biblical tradition, onto which we could hold and therefore remain within the denomination.
Instead, GC 2024 delegates stripped seminal tenets of Christian faith from the UMC Book of Discipline (BOD) and Social Principles; decimating tradition by resounding vote margins which left us reeling; left us pondering; are our traditional beliefs no longer valued by UMC leaders?
GC delegates removed any doubt about traditional belief not being valued by:
I. Establishing ‘Regionalized’ Central Conferences for the purpose of manipulating and contextualizing interpretation of God’s Word while advancing a lie (yes, a strong word) that adhering to different scriptural interpretations and effectively different gospels, on different continents; that this would somehow ‘unite’ the worldwide UMC despite clear theological differences
II. Removing language from the UMC Social Principles that ‘homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching’
III. Removing the UMC BOD’s prohibition on clergy being a “Self-avowed practicing homosexual” (¶ 304.3), clergy being in a homosexual ‘marriage’, and clergy conducting same sex ‘marriages’
IV. Contextualizing the biblical definition of marriage to, according to GC 2024 re-definition, ‘two people of faith‘
V. Denying an extended timeline for a congregation to disaffiliate beyond the now-expired 31Dec2023 deadline, thus negating our church and other ‘wait and see’ congregations a post-GC 2024 opportunity for a churchwide disaffiliation vote
Our responses are, respectively:
I. Christian faith is based not on regions, nor on context or circumstance, nor ‘identity‘ of any sort, but on Christ who reconciled us to Himself on His terms, not ours.
GOD THE FATHER, JESUS CHRIST HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, AND THE HOLY SPIRIT CONTEXTUALIZE NOTHING
The Holy Bible is not a contextual account of God’s Word
We were appalled at our church delegate’s GC 2024 debriefing on 5May2024 to hear the phrase “neutral language” being inserted into the BOD by GC 2024, as neutral language is not to be found in the Holy Bible
II. Homosexuality is contrary to Old and New Testament scripture:
- Leviticus 18:22 – ‘You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.’ (RSV)
- Romans 1:26-28 – ‘(26) For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, (27) and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error. (28) And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct.’ (RSV)
- Homosexuality fundamentally contradicts Holy Scripture because it renders impossible the first articulated law of Torah in Genesis 1:27-28 – ‘(27) So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (28) And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it. . .” ‘ (RSV)
- Holy Scripture’s interpretation was contextualized at GC 2024 for the purpose of yielding to the fleshly passions, circumstantial desires, and ‘identities’ of mankind instead of humble obedience to God
III. UMC clergy who are a “Self-avowed practicing homosexual” live a life of contradiction to God’s Word
The UMC Book of Discipline (BOD) expressly forbade Karen Oliveto’s ordination as bishop in the Western Jurisdiction, yet no action was taken to annul that ordination nor revoke her credentials as UMC clergy as called for in the governing BOD at that time; thus rendering the BOD empty paper and the UMC Judicial Council a toothless entity by virtue of their excluded middle decision which permitted the Western Jurisdiction’s Mountain Sky Episcopal Area to effectively thumb their nose at the Judicial Council’s ruling.
The staggering silence of UMC bishops lent tacit approval to Oliveto’s ordination.
Have United Methodists learned nothing from the 20th & 21st century history of our brothers and sisters in faith Catholics; of the same-sex assaults by priests which have forever scarred the lives of thousands of young men across the breadth of the Catholic world; United Methodists now moving headlong to not only rationalize but officially codify abominable behavior of this nature into the UMC Book of Discipline?
Therefore, to UMC bishops, clergy, and GC 2024 delegates; How dare you invite this abomination into the Church’s pulpit!
IV. Those who know me are aware of my conviction that words are divinely ordained; recall God’s endorsement of the man assigning names to each animal in Genesis 2:19 – ‘(19) So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.’ (RSV)
God’s ancient endorsement of assigning an enduring name also holds fast as it pertains to the definition of marriage; as is read in Jesus’ words from Matthew 19:4-6 – ‘(4) He answered, “Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, (5) and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? (6) So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” (RSV)
Jesus’ straightforward Words from Holy Scripture are a statement but also a tacit warning; as not only our response here but others long before us have warned, “Beware!” when confronted by dissemblers who would fracture ancient truths in order to advance their devious schemes, beginning with these prescient words from Isaiah 5:20 – ‘(20) Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!’ (RSV).
Therefore, when you hear UMC bishops or clergy or delegates speak to ‘diverse biblical interpretation’; in the matter of marriage now redefined as ‘two people of faith‘ consider:
- ‘The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language.’ (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, 1836)
- ‘Here begins the assault upon definition: if words no longer correspond to objective realities, it seems no great wrong to take liberties with words.’ (Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, p.7, 1948)
The UMC has been warned by God, prophets, and many who have come after that invidious actors employ devious words and schemes to undermine our Christian faith; GC 2024 ignored the warnings; then celebrated their disobedience.
V. This greatly troubles me: A seminal churchwide discussion never took place within our walls prior to the 31Dec2023 disaffiliation deadline because a few within our church decided to not offer the full membership a forum to register their collective voices, and now it’s too late. An announcement at the delegate’s debriefing that our annual conference might extend a facsimile of post-GC disaffiliation is so many specious words because any effort to now pursue disaffiliation will be couched within different constraints of the now-revised BOD; and the BOD has been proven to be either empty paper or selectively enforced, as has been made manifestly evident by ad hoc bishops’ actions.
I asked at a pre-GC 2024 informational meeting about accountability given vote anonymity accorded GC delegates since they are not regarded as representatives, though the UMC has a ratified constitution patterned by John Wesley after the US Constitution which, after ratification, was made durable not by delegates casting secret ballots but by representatives held to public account by their respective constituents.
The response to my question, heard by all in the room was, “Delegates are accountable to God”.
Our belief is that God will indeed hold UMC GC 2024 bishops, clergy, and delegates accountable for defying His Word and Will; for legislatively empowering fleshly human passions, desires, and identities to transcend humble obedience to the ONE Transcendent God.
It is not given me(us) to judge, but to discern life and good from death and evil; to discern blessing from curse. . . then choose,
Therefore, we have solemnly chosen to leave our church and the UMC.
To our Sunday School class and my Wednesday night Bible study class, please forgive me(us).
We do not know if our decision is correct or right, but for us it is spiritually necessary.
Respectfully. . .
the SPIRITUAL RETURN
Two months passed; it’s early July 2024: We were wandering. Lost. Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights were empty; self-imposed spiritual dismemberment.
During lunch with two men respected for their wise council, I shared my spiritual wrestling match between conviction to dissociate from my church and an apostate denomination essentially defended by an unaccountable church delegate, opposite a spiritual void resulting from love set aside for those in my Sunday School and Wednesday night classes.
While dining, one of the men asked, “Do you love your Sunday School class more than you hate what the denomination’s leadership and our church leaders have done?”
That was it. Clarity. My answer was an unambiguous yes; a realization that I and we desperately missed the people we loved; more than any offense, any apostasy, any betrayal by church leaders and delegates.
My wife and I talked and decided to return, but do so as non-members of the church and denomination, as was stated to the Sunday School class leader the day after lunch with my friends.
However, returning became an exercise in perseverance, because while I was ready to immediately return as Sunday School and Wednesday night Bible study teacher, my stated intent to do so as a non-church member became a sticking point. During a meeting which felt more like an adversarial interview, there was pushback about resuming my teaching role as a non-member, resulting in delayed feedback from the Sunday School class leader. A promised “decision by next weekend” became two weekends, and on a Monday morning after the second non-response weekend I resolved that hearing nothing meant “no”, so I removed my name from consideration.
Word got back to me in a phone call the next afternoon from a class member, conveying disappointment that I had simply rescinded my request to resume as Sunday School teacher.
“No, that was not the reason. I did not just back out; but had been strung along after being told that a decision was forthcoming, and when that decision never came after two weekends, in conjunction with felt and vocal pushback, I decided ‘enough’, and set aside the notion of returning.”
I did not ask why, nor was I even curious as to what was said, but on Wednesday I took a phone call from our Sunday School class leader, asking me to become our class’s “permanent guest teacher”; a role resumed for almost fifteen months now. There was no sense of resentment or tension the Sunday we walked back into the classroom, nor was there reluctance by our church’s small groups director about me resuming Wednesday night Bible study classes once the Fall 2024 semester started.
I remain firm that UMC leadership has become apostate, has refuted Holy Scripture by celebrating flesh over the spirit; that our church’s leadership misled and even deceived the congregation.
Therefore, you might ask me why, then, did I and we return. Simple.
Love rose above everything.