Methodist Church Troubles

I'm reading in the news, and seeing on YouTube, etc, that the United Methodist Church (UMC for short) is undergoing great organizational disruption.

It's been decades since I left the church, so the present problems the UMC organization is facing does not affect me personally.

What is happening, to oversimplify, is that the UMC is tearing itself apart over how various clergy, and various parishes, handle the problems of same-sex marriage: officiating them, and tolerating same-sex couples in their congregations.

Every denomination has to have rules that govern the behavior of the members, the leaders, and how the property of the church is to be managed; after all, every Sunday a certain amount of money is collected in each church, and the members contribute financially to the church, and there are rules as to how much is sent to the central state or regional church office from each of its churches.

The members of the UMC are, like Americans generally, a diverse lot.  They vary from extremely liberal members---and clergy---who are impelled to welcome all descriptions of members; and members---and clergy---who are very strict in their attitudes towards LGBT++ folks; how much time must be given to congregations that vote to leave the denomination, and so on.

It is impossible to imagine that the members of any congregation could be united in their attitudes towards anything, let alone their attitudes towards people of alternate preference.  There could be extremely religious individuals seeking to continue their church membership, surrounded by quite intolerant members regarding them with hostility.  This is a tragic situation, because church is so often regarded as a spiritual refuge from an intolerant society.

In certain states, the central organization of the UMC (of that state) has been extremely impatient towards congregations that have become unable to make their payments to the mother ship.  This is unsurprising, especially if the majority of members are senior citizens, or poor people, and they have been closed down, which means that the church is shuttered, and the members have no place to meet on a Sunday.

To some extent, church real estate is becoming a major stumbling-block to the denomination holding together.  In situations like this, legal minds within the church leadership have to take control, to enforce church rules, and they are often draconian in how they do this.  Cruelty is inevitable, because legal action must proceed according to a schedule, which is difficult for a congregation that might be accustomed to only meeting on Sundays, and most of whom are elderly, and unaccustomed to fraught situations where quick decisions are expected.

So, despite my disinterest in the denomination from a philosophical point of view, thinking of Methodists in the abstract, it really appears that they are sheep without a shepherd.  The same goes for all the protestant denominations.  The exception is these mega-churches, each of which is a single congregation, where I expect that the çhurch is not at all run in a democratic way, which of course makes it easier on the leadership!  It is a sad time for Christians.

Arch.