United Methodist Church

Sand Point Community United Methodist Church, Seattle, Washington, picture by Joe Mabel.
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American Council of Christian Churches
82nd Annual Convention, October 24-26, 2023
Faith Baptist Church, Kittery, ME
Resolution on the United Methodist Church

In 1738 John Wesley’s heart was “strangely warmed” at a gospel meeting on Aldersgate Street in London, where a group of Christians was reading Martin Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans.[1] Following his conversion, God used Wesley to spark a revival that spread throughout England. Inspired by Wesley, men such as George Whitefield and Francis Asbury travelled to America to spread the gospel. Eventually Methodism became a denomination of its own, which grew rapidly.

Controversy eventually split the Methodist Church in America before the Civil War. In 1939 the Methodist Episcopal Church—South reunited with the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Protestant Church to form The Methodist Church.[2] Almost 30 years later, in 1968, The Evangelical United Brethren Church and The Methodist Church united to become the United Methodist Church (UMC).[3]

From its beginning, the UMC has been a member of the apostate National Council of Churches.[4] With liberal United Methodist seminary graduates filling pulpits, the UMC has drifted even further toward the theological left since its founding.[5]

Although the UMC’s governing document, the Book of Discipline, officially condemns homosexuality and same-sex marriage, individual conferences, churches, and pastors have been endorsing these sins without repercussions from the denomination.[6] For this reason, many United Methodist churches are leaving the denomination. A small window of opportunity has been provided to these churches, through a vote of the Special Called General Conference of the UMC held on February 23-26, 2019, which allowed churches to exit the denomination, but which failed to preclude severe financial penalties on local churches.[7] Many of the disaffected congregations have joined the newly organized Global Methodist Church. Although claiming to be orthodox, this new group still holds to some of the erroneous positions of the UMC.[8]

Therefore, the American Council of Christian Churches at its 82nd annual convention, October 24-26, 2023, at Faith Baptist Church of Kittery, Maine, resolves to admonish local churches to come out from the UMC (2 Cor. 6:14-18) and commends those who already have done so. This call comes as the UMC is about to be fully given over to the abominable sin of homosexuality (Rom. 1:24-28). We further resolve to encourage local churches that come out of the UMC to seek out biblically faithful fellowship rather than the compromised Global Methodist Church.[9]

Download this resolution:

[1] https://www.ccel.org/ccel/wesley/journal.vi.ii.xvi.html. John Wesley testified of that night, “I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

[2] https://www.umc.org/en/content/glossary-methodist-episcopal-church-south-the.

[3] https://www.umc.org/en/who-we-are/history/our-roots.

[4] https://www.umc.org/en/content/did-you-know-umc-partners-with-national-council-of-churches.

[5] https://juicyecumenism.com/2022/09/14/united-methodist-seminaries/.

[6] https://www.wnccumc.org/files/websites/www/PDF+of+Healthy+Conversations+Toward+the+Way+Forward+PowerPoint.pdf; https://www.unitedmethodistbishops.org/person-detail/2463386.

[7] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/07/06/united-methodist-church-disaffiliation/70387779007/.

[8] https://globalmethodist.org/about/#about-leadership-section. The Global Methodist Church continues to allow for the ordination of female elders/pastors which is in direct violation of many Scriptures, including 1 Tim. 2:9-3:5.

[9] One such biblically faithful group associated with the American Council of Christian Churches is the Evangelical Methodist Church (https://evangelicalmethodist.org/).

Author: American Council of Christian Churches

Since 1941 the ACCC has sought to PROVIDE information, encouragement, and assistance to Bible-believing churches, fellowships and individuals; to PRESERVE our Christian heritage through exposure of, opposition to, and separation from doctrinal impurity and compromise in current religious trends and movements; to PROTECT churches from religious and political restrictions, subtle or obvious, that would hinder their ministries for God; to PROMOTE obedience to the inerrant Word of God.