The deadline for United Methodist churches to decide whether or not they'll leave to form a new denomination has arrived. About a quarter of the US churches will split off, although it has not yet become official for all of them.

An article on MSNBC got my hackles up because of the title: "The Bible verse proving anti-LGBTQ Methodists have not truly read the Bible."

I was a member of the United Methodist Church all my life and even served on multiple church boards and charge conferences. When we moved to Michigan, I found that all the nearby UMC congregations had turned progressive, and Progressive Christianity is the express train to Hell, in my opinion. It's a gateway out of Christianity. Congregations that go progressive are usually dead in about 10 years, a third of the congregation has become atheist, a third remains Christian, and the rest don't know what they are. Meanwhile, conservative congregations do well.

The article is a good example of what progressive Christians are up to. They simply disregard the parts of the Bible they don't like, that don't fit their lifestyle choices.

The minister who wrote the above had some mean and misleading things to say about Christians who don't go along with his progressivism. He implies that we "deny the full humanity of LBGT people." Nope, they are welcome in the Church. They are welcome in leadership positions, even. What they can't do is try to teach the congregation that a sin is not a sin.

He uses some common arguments to try to show that non-progressives are wrong about the Bible. One is to say that out of over 30,000 verses in the Bible there are only six that deal with homosexuality. The other point is to cite Galatians 3:28: “In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female." He then argues that Christ is setting aside sexual distinctions, so gays ought to be acceptable; we can just set those 6 nasty verses aside.

The trouble is that even if Christ accepts men, women, gays, or whatever, that does not mean that those people can't still be sinners. And the 6 verses that the pastor wants to throw out very clearly make homosexual practice a sin.

Beware people who use the Bible against the Bible. That's a trick with which only the Saints can get away. You can't use one passage in the Bible as scissors to cut out other passages you don't like. And the effort here is to claim that homosexuality isn't sinful by simply ignoring parts of scripture.

Hate the sin and love the sinner. Well, we'd better because we're all sinners. A homosexual lifestyle is no worse than other forms of sin like adultery or living in sin, but it's still a sin. People saved in Christ are supposed to repent of their sins and pray for God's help in becoming better. We all struggle with our sins.

Pastors who teach that sins are not sins are endangering the immortal souls of themselves and their congregation. It's very deadly when a person stops regarding a sin as a sin.

I wish the United Methodist Chruch many blessings, but, like I said, express train.