The American Spectator

home
ADVERTISEMENT
Print Email
Text Size

Special Report

Lost and Foundry

Will the United Methodists discipline this famously liberal D.C. church for its wink at gay marriage?

(Page 2 of 2)

But reportedly Foundry’s new policy to honor same sex couple will be on the agenda of the denomination’s biannual meeting Council of Bishops next month. Late in April, the quadrennial governing General Conference also will meet. Thanks to the growing numbers of delegates from Africa, where United Methodism is growing, and fewer delegates from shrinking liberal regions in the U.S., the denomination almost certainly will reaffirm its official disapproval of same-sex rites and perhaps will tighten the rules even further.

In the now firmly liberal Episcopal Church, conservative congregations are departing, many of them seeking affiliation with overseas orthodox Anglicans. The opposite may become true in The United Methodist Church, 30 percent of whose membership is now outside the U.S.

Will liberal congregations like Foundry Church want to remain in an increasingly conservative denomination more and more governed by traditionalist Nigerians and Congolese and U.S. southerners? Like conservative Episcopalians, the convictions of liberal United Methodists eventually may lead them elsewhere.

Page:   12

topics:
Bill Clinton, Protestantism, Law, NATO, Africa, Unions

About the Author

Mark Tooley is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C. and author of Methodism and Politics in the Twentieth CenturyYou can follow him on Twitter @markdtooley.


Letter to the Editor View all comments (4) |

Related Articles

More Articles by Mark Tooley

More Articles From Special Report

http://spectator.org/archives/2008/03/18/lost-and-foundry

ADVERTISEMENT

SPONSORED LINKS

FLASHBACK TO: 1995

Clip of the Day

ADVERTISEMENT