Thursday, June 30, 2022

New Denomination Urges United Methodists to Walk Out of the Wilderness


The Wesleyan Covenant Association’s 6th annual gathering was broadcast live at dozens of local churches across the country and encouraged churches to move into a new denomination.

By Yonat Shimron

Fourteen United Methodists gathered in a sanctuary of a church Saturday (May 7) to watch a daylong broadcast of inspirational sermons from a group of Christians promising to lead them out of the wilderness and into the Promised Land.

The 6th annual gathering of the Wesleyan Covenant Association was broadcast live from Indianapolis to dozens of local churches across the country that are considering leaving the United Methodist Church for a new denomination they said is more orthodox in its adherence to Scripture.

The Global Methodist Church, a new theologically conservative denomination, was formally launched last week, emerging after decades of rancorous debate over the ordination and marriage of LGBTQ United Methodists. The liberal wing of the church would like to extend full rights to LGBTQ people; conservatives adamantly oppose it. Read More

Image Credit: Yonat Shimron, RNS
A similar appeal was made to delegates to the inaugural Provincial Assembly of the Anglican Church in North America by then-Archbishop-Elect Robert Duncan. It was darkly suggested that those who did not vote in favor of the proposed Constitution and Canons of the ACNA would be leading the "traditionalist" Anglicans back to Egypt. As evangelical Anglicans who were Protestant in their beliefs and practices would discover, the Promised Land to which Archbishop-Elect Duncan led them was not a land flowing in milk and honey for them, but only those self-identified Anglicans who were Anglo-Catholic in their beliefs and practices or who had a "three streams, one river" view of the Anglican Church and were receptive to Anglo-Catholic beliefs and practices. 

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