Get the Ricochet app
Ricochet will work fine in a browser on your mobile devices, but for the best experience please download our app.
My family and I were blessed to be members of First United Methodist Church in Elizabethton, TN, while our kids were growing up. Great people, great pastor, great children's programs - it was a wonderful church.
The split in the Methodist Church has led to our local church's division. More precisely, everybody left. Well, 70-80% of the congregation and choir left, setting up their own church that meets in a local funeral home on Sundays. I asked a friend of mine what this new church believed in. He said, "We believe in everything the Methodist Church believed in from the 1700s until about five or six years ago."
The establishment Methodist Church has released a new vision statement:
May 1, 2025 CHICAGO, IL – The Council of Bishops, in conjunction with the Connectional Table, is pleased to announce the unveiling of a new vision statement for The United Methodist Church. This vision reflects the Church's deep commitment to embodying God's dream for the world. The vision states:The United Methodist Church forms disciples of Jesus Christ who, empowered by the Holy Spirit, love boldly, serve joyfully, and lead courageously in local communities and worldwide connections. This vision statement complements the Church's longstanding mission statement, inspired by Matthew 28:1-20: "The mission of The United Methodist Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world." The vision encourages United Methodists to embody the following principles:
- Love Boldly: Passionately love God and, like Jesus, embrace and include people of every age, nation, race, gender and walk of life.
- Inspired by Matthew 22:37-39 and John 13:34-35
- Serve Joyfully: With a Christ-like heart, journey alongside the most vulnerable, offering care and compassion with joy.
- Inspired by Psalm 100:1, Nehemiah 8:10, John 13:14-15 and 1 Peter 4:10
- Lead Courageously: Follow Jesus’ example by resisting and dismantling all systems of evil, injustice, and oppression, striving for peace, justice and reconciliation.
- Inspired by Joshua 1:9 and Ephesians 6:10
“This new vision is not simply a statement or a plan, it is a catalyst for transformation,” said Bishop Tracy Smith Malone, President of the Council of Bishops. “It is a vision that will help the Church embrace the opportunities before us, to follow where God is leading us, and to more fully engage in our mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.”There are so many code words in there, and so much thinly veiled genuflecting before the altar of the modern Democrat party, that it's no fun to dissect it piece by piece. It would be depressing to me, and to you.
But what is the term "gender" doing in the mission statement of a church? That's a linguistic term, which was irrelevant to most people until it became politicized 10 years ago or so. And when they say that they want the Methodist Church to "resist and dismantle all systems of evil, injustice, and oppression, striving for peace, justice and reconciliation," what do they mean by that, exactly? That sounds a lot more like Barack Obama than it does John Wesley.
I looked up Bishop Tracy Smith Malone, President of the Council of Bishops, quoted in the article above. She, of course, is the first black female President of the Council of Bishops. Due to some oversight, she is heterosexual. Or perhaps that was a nod to the traditionalists out there. Or maybe she was the most diverse option they had. Who knows.
But she was clearly put in that position for one reason. And she has done her job. The split of the church was not an accident. It was intentional.
Bishop Tracy Smith Malone presumably expresses regret over the destruction of The Methodist Church. But how disappointed can she really be, now that she is free from her association with evil right-wing traditionalists? Imagine how fast The Methodist Church can move from 2,000-year-old customs to Pope Francis' style leftism, now that all the traditionalists have left? This will make her job much easier.
Our institutions are falling to the left. The Methodist Church is just the latest one to fall, fracturing the membership that, not long ago, was united by their belief in Jesus Christ. Now they've split up over arguments over gender, transsexuality, and other things that didn't exist until a few years ago.
You may wonder why the left is so interested in trans-sexuals all of a sudden. This is why. It's a handy tool to divide people. Whatever works.
Whatever.
The CDC used to be about disease control - now it's about promoting leftism. The education establishment used to be about teaching children to read and do math - now it's about promoting leftism. The Methodist Church used to be about saving souls - now it's about promoting leftism.
It all adds up. As the left gains control over one institution after another, it becomes less and less important who wins elections.
Which is a good thing for the left, because their views are very unpopular with most Americans. Elections are poison to the left. So this is a good strategy for them.
Bishop Tracy Smith Malone, President of the Council of Bishops sounds ridiculous. But I'm not laughing.
This post was promoted to the Main Feed at the recommendation of Ricochet's members.
Discussion (72)
CHARTER MEMBER
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Leaders boldly leading as the followers leave, not the flock, just the leaders. Insisting they possess moral authority to an ever-dwindling audience. That is not sustainable.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
The pattern is familiar and well practiced.
The United Methodist Church in 2022-23.
The Presbyterian Church (USA) about a decade earlier.
The Episcopal Church a decade and a half before that.
Universities at various paces over several decades.
People who reject decades or centuries, or even millennia, of teaching, experience, and wisdom of an institution insist that the institution change its fundamental elements to whatever the latest fad is.
They then divide the members of the institution by creating conflict within the institution for not immediately following their desired change, and calling derogatory names all people who have any interest in considering that the institutional teaching, experience, and wisdom should be kept, or at least given some value.
Those demanding change refuse on the stated grounds that the only acceptable answer is to jettison all that "fossilized" teaching, experience, and wisdom, and that those who don't agree with the instant changes are the hateful and divisive ones. Those demanding change will continue to make life miserable for the "traditionalists" until either the traditionalists capitulate or leave.
Because most people want to avoid conflict, those who are not immediately prepared to jettison all the teaching, experience, and wisdom of the institution leave.
Then the change demanders get to claim the mantle of the institution while transforming the institution that carries none of the fundamental characteristics on which the institution was built.
In the particular case of the United Methodist Church (UMC), the UMC set up a system in 2019 for congregations that wanted to reject traditional Methodist teachings and beliefs to leave the denomination with the facilities that the congregation had been using. But rather than taking that offer, the people who were demanding the church reject its traditional teachings and beliefs insisted they were going to stay in the church in order to make life miserable for the rest of the church until the rest of the church capitulated to their demands for fundamental change. So, the people and congregations that sought to maintain traditional Methodist teachings and beliefs ended up being the congregations that left the UMC denomination. And now the people running the denomination get to call themselves the "United Methodist Church" even as they reject almost all traditional Methodist teachings and beliefs.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Brilliant comment, Full Size Tabby.
So, so true.
And so, so tragic.
All these little losses add up over time...
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
The friend I spoke to said something interesting:
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Just like the episcopal church USA. Only the ECUSA threatened and sued the congregations who retired - they didn’t want to give up the valuable real estate and endowments from legacy traditional parishioners. The presiding bishop Katherine went scorched earth and mostly won and so the Church has the real estate but no one comes to services and those who do so don’t give.
You're seeing five of 72 comments. Sign in, or join for just $5 per month, to read them all and add your own.