We are all familiar with the term “oxymoron,” meaning a figure of speech that combines words with opposing meanings, such as bittersweet or jumbo shrimp, freezer burn, or pretty ugly.
Here’s a new one to add to the list: United Methodist. The Methodist Church, the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination, is about as united these days as a flock of chickens in a henhouse with a rooster on the loose.
As of this writing, 193 churches in the South Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church have voted to leave the denomination.
Still to come is a decision by churches in the North Georgia Conference, one of the largest in the nation with 700 churches and some 320,000 lay members, on what churches and how many may also pull out.
The North Georgia Annual Conference has scheduled a vote on the process known as disaffiliation for Saturday, Nov. 18. Churches that are disaffiliating will have to meet certain financial obligations as part of the agreement.
One of the primary reasons cited for disaffiliation concerns the ordination of gay clergy as well as the performance of same-sex marriage.
Cobb County Superior Court Senior Judge Stephen Schuster recently ruled in favor of 186 North Georgia churches that had filed suit in March wanting to disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church and asking to be allowed to proceed with the move to leave the denomination and become independent or join the more conservative Global Methodist Church.
The lawsuit named the North Georgia Conference, former Bishop Sue Haupert-Johnson, current Bishop Robin Dease, and the conference’s board of trustees among others, as respondents.
At issue was a “pause” the North Georgia Conference had initiated, temporarily halting requests to leave the