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More than 100 SC churches will leave United Methodists after conference approves exodus

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More than 100 South Carolina churches will separate from one of the state’s largest denominations.

At its statewide conference in Florence on Tuesday, the United Methodist Church approved the “closure” of 113 churches across the state, allowing those local congregations to disaffiliate from the United Methodists and potentially affiliate with other denominations.

Tuesday’s decision is the culmination of a months-long process during which each local church considered whether it should leave the denomination, including a vote among each church’s members.

“We pray for these churches that have chosen a different journey,” Bishop Jonathan Holston said after the vote in a statement on the conference’s website that addressed Jesus Christ. “May we also acknowledge that that which binds us will never leave us. In the midst of our separation, may we show each other the grace and love that you demonstrated through your sacrifice on the cross and your resurrection from the grave.”

“For those who are leaving us, we bless you and send you on your way,” he continued. “For those who are remaining, we pray that God gives us a new will to do what God has called us to do.”

Some 1,500 clergy and laity at the annual United Methodist conference voted “overwhelmingly” to approve the separation, the denomination said.

Those who are leaving celebrated the decision.

“We praise God for this opportunity to move forward in faith — continuing to be a church where all people can connect with the saving love of Jesus, grow in His love, and share His love freely with each other and the world,” Chapin Methodist Church pastor Jody Flowers said in an email. His church is one of several in the Midlands now cleared to leave the United Methodists.

The move comes as the national United Methodist church is split between those who want the denomination to move in a more accepting direction for LGBTQ members and more conservative congregations that are seeking to move away from the denomination for the same reason.

At least 50 South Carolina churches had publicly announced their plans to leave the denomination before Tuesday’s vote, according to a list compiled by the S.C. United Methodist Advocate.

One of them is the largest Methodist church in the state. Lexington’s Mt. Horeb church can boast former governor and presidential candidate Nikki Haley among its more than 5,000 members. The church also says the gulf between its leadership and the national leadership of the United Methodist Church has become too vast, including “disagreement regarding Christology, biblical authority and interpretation, sexual ethics, and the definition of marriage,” Mt. Horeb says in a separation guide posted to the church website.

More than 97% of Mt. Horeb’s members voted to separate from the United Methodist Church in February, as they and other churches take advantage of a window being offered by the national denomination that will allow local churches to leave the denomination and take church property with them.

The departing churches will owe the United Methodists a 10% tithe based on the value of the property, plus any unpaid apportionment giving, 12 months’ worth of additional apportionment and a “withdrawal liability” equal to the church’s proportion of any unfunded pension obligations.

Many issues highlighted by the departing churches center on LGBTQ issues. The split is similar to those in other major Protestant churches in recent years that have faced internal struggles over whether and how to welcome LGBTQ people into the church. As some churches have named openly LGBTQ clergy or blessed same-sex marriages, other believers have peeled away from established denominations they feel no longer share their values.

“We believe in celibacy in singleness and fidelity in marriage, with marriage being defined between a man and woman,” Mt. Horeb says in its separation guide. “Mt. Horeb relies on the Scriptures and what orthodox Christians have always believed about God to guide all matters of human relations, including sexual ethics.”

The statement on the United Methodists’ S.C. conference website notes that “The UMC Book of Discipline prohibits performing same-gender weddings and the ordination of ‘self-avowed practicing homosexuals’” but also acknowledges the departing churches “firmly believe that the denomination has not consistently upheld its stated doctrine on issues of human sexuality.”

Conservative critics have claimed the national denomination has inconsistently enforced those prohibitions. One jurisdiction has elected an openly gay bishop, for example, and the church has made other moves supportive of LGBTQ rights more broadly. Supporters say the ongoing split will allow remaining United Methodist churches to be more inclusive.

Christianity Today reports that more than 1,800 churches across the United States have already disaffiliated from the United Methodist Church since 2019.

Other churches in the Midlands that are leaving the United Methodist Church include:

Bethel UMC in Sumter

Beulah UMC in Camden

Columbia Korean UMC

Concord UMC in Bishopville

Chapin UMC

Dalzell UMC

Ebenezer UMC in North

Lebanon UMC in Eastover

Limestone UMC in Orangeburg

McLeod Chapl in Rembert

Pond Branch UMC in Gilbert

Rehoboth UMC in Batesburg-Leesville

St. John in Rembert

St. John in Sumter

St. Mark’s UMC in Sumter

St. Matthew UMC in Bishopville