Standing on Graves: Why Conservatives Aren't Welcome in Mainline Churches Anymore 

Hello from West Virginia. I so appreciate your ministry and all you are doing. Praying for you and your ministry and for the world. Please continue to pray for the churches who are still being held captive by the UMC❤🙏

pure slander "those people want me to kill myself" - No. No we don't. We don't hate his daughter. And his letting that sit without correction is pure slander. It's hate. And it sure isn't loving your neighbor as yourself. Likely, she hasn't had any meaningful conversation with an actual theological conservative. Vile.

God's heart breaks for what breaks ours. All of this sin sickness is breaking my heart. I have two prodigal sons who have completely walked away from the faith we raised them to follow and live. The want nothing to do with church any longer. All I can do is pray for them. They won't even speak to us any more. Please pray for my fractured family. I have two grandchildren. Our son and his wife won't allow us to see them. Their mother says she doesn't want them exposed to "proselytizers" I have never forced my faith on anyone. It's a personal decision to follow christ. But if I choose not to live like a disciple of hell, and my son and wife consider that proselytizing, there is nothing i can do. I am not turning my back on my Wesleyan faith.

I heard one pastor speaking at a UMC meeting telling the congregation about General Conference. During the question and answer session a member asked the scripture that talks about homosexuality. He said that the language changed in 1946 that the Greek word used did not mean homosexuality. I googled and found what he was referring to. I just can’t wrap my head around this. I believe that practicing homosexuality and other sexual acts outside of marriage between a man and a woman is sin. Thank you for your ministry!

What it comes down to is whether we want young children to be presented "role models" that many of us consider to be perverts.

I had a friend who asked me why I left. I told her it was because I could read.

Clearly, Methodism is based on the precepts of men, not the precepts of God.

I wonder how Turing would feel about his genius being attributed to his homosexuality. I see him as a brilliant person that happened to be homosexual.

This was excellent. Thank you and may God bless you for your courage, faithfulness and yes, love, to speak the truth when it's uncomfortable.

Yes, we in beautiful West Virginia need prayers. 🙏

"Lives are precious" unless it's an unborn life, then you can throw it away......

Thank you , Jeffrey, for having the courage to address this thorny issue. In my opinion, the failure to address this properly in many churches in the past, is the reason we’re now having to deal with it. I personally don’t think it a mystery on why up until recently, here in the West, we didn’t face much hostility from our surrounding culture. Our past supportive culture was the result of the merger of church and state back in 313 AD with the Edict of Milan. Western culture and Christendom are practically synonymous. What concerns me now is the fact that the Institutional Church was a product of that merger as well, and now with the decline of Western civilization and Christendom, many churches seem to be oblivious the the fact that we’ve experienced a serious paradigm shift, and now will face a culture hostile towards Biblical Christianity. The way the progressive church is handling it is to lower the bar, to accommodate the spirit of the age. The orthodox/traditional church, I feel may not be adequately prepared to face what is sure to come. I believe that your type of programming is a step in right direction.

Apostasy continues just as a sin addict keeps picking up new addictions. Disorder breeds more disorder. If the roots are sick, the branches die and the trunk rots from the inside. Eventually insects find a home there and then it is reduced to compost. All churches borne of schism end that way. Don't be good, Jesus did not say to be good. Be Holy as His Father is.

Former member PC(USA) here, but did attend UMC growing up. Spot on. Throughout 2022-23, I noted numerous times on IRD that conservative members of the UMC on the fence about leaving should understand that the opposition to your continued participation in the denomination will not end once the Book of Discipline is changed. The leadership at all levels of the PC(USA) since the Book of Order was changed in 2010 and 2014 have continued to demonize and misrepresent what the remaining conservative membership believe on nearly ever issue. It seems to have worsened under former Stated Clerk J. Herbert Nelson II, who was head of the Washington Office, immediately prior to being selected as the denomination's head, and the late Tim Keller once referred to the PC(USA) in one of his final articles wriiten in the fall of 2022 as part of "the religious arm of one of the two major political parties in the United States". Furthermore, while the PC(USA) officially has a polity of "diversity of thought", its leadership at numerous levels do not really believe it, when you look at what is put out. Again, at least as far back as Mr. Nelson's tenure, the denomination quit making any accomodating statements on any area where people should at least be able to find common agreement, because the far leftist activists running things wouldn't allow it, and either the moderates were in general agreement and thus chameleons, or had no spine to stand up to them. All that to say, a decade of continued pressure by these false Christians who have taken over, for I do not know what else to call them, has resulted in Overture 1 at this year's General Assembly which if passed, even as amended and in its broken up component parts, will more than likely result in no conservatives being ordained as ministers in liberal presbyteries, while in more liberal churches, there more than likely will not be any conservative deacons or elders, because the effect will be to disregard that polity. I honestly believe that if these activists could have their way, they would change the governance structure to give the presbyteries the level of power that UMC conferences have to unilaterally take over a local congregation that refuses to get with the program. I pray that conservatives who are able, leave as soon as they can, for we know thatbin some conferences, they were lied to, and no longer can, other than by simply walking away and leaving everything behind.

Most of the UMC churches in my part of Michigan decided to stay in the apostate denomination. There were some votes but it's tough to get that 67% vote to leave. Now that it's 2024, the MICH Conference has closed the doors for allowing more local church dissafillations. For conservative people in the MI Conference it's time to leave, and find conservative bible believing congregations that will take us theologically conservative refugees in! What a sorrowful time for traditional Methodists in Mich. Almost makes me wish I lived in the south were the GMC is more numerous. 😢

I am conservative I left the PC USA several decades ago. My parents stayed and the wokeness really went off the rails in 2020 after the BLM riots. They were members of the denomination until they passed away.

Yes, Mr. Turning did do a lot in WWII. The code-breaking project involved thousands of people. He was a critical person, but one of many. He alone did not break the code.

It’s hard enough for me as a Christian to deal with my own sin let alone try and be the judge and jury of others sin. Prayers for you brother

So the proper way to show the love of Christ is to allow people to remain in their sins? Jesus sent to sinners and told them to repent, go and din no more. He never left sinners in their sins by condoning the sins. The liberal position is filled with such flawed logic it makes your head spin. Stay strong brother, keep teaching the truth in love.

Dude. I am so disappointed. (and yeah I know that no one says "dude" anymore. I do and I see no reason to conform to LGBTQwhatever or "what people are supposed to say." Maybe that is why I like your show. But if you do a commentary you need to ensure that you read what you think you read at first glance. I know you are not a scholar. Perhaps it is my background as an investigator (rather than my background as a pastor,) that makes this a point for me. HOWEVER, if you want to explain why we cannot ever get along with the heretics in the UMC (and the non-heretics who simply 'want to get along' with the apostates - I do have some good friends who I fear may not make it because of their mushy views but we'll see when I get there. I have a feeling that I may see a lot of folks that surprise me and not see others that equally surprise mem) you need to be clear on your premise and you're reading. She didn't say these good people "want me to kill myself," she said these "those good people MADE me want to kill myself." That does not mean that "those good people" want a "sexual genocide" of gays. He didn't say that. Even if he thinks that. And I really think that they DO think that about us. Between Trump and my Biblical views my stepdaughter said she wouldn't let me near her children. "I won't let strangers who think like that near my kids why should I let him." We are baby-killing (ironic that,) homosexual torturing fanatics to these people and, according to them, we are inhuman and have no redeeming traits and are monstrous. This view is not new. Liberation Theology and Leftist Religion is grounded in Neo-Marxism not fascism (fascism is nationalist Neo-Marxist is internationalist and hates nationalism and distinction - again you are not a political scientist but don't be sloppy with your language. As I have pointed out many times on my website Marx favorite saying was "everything that exists deserves to perish" a quote from Satan in Milton...again "how fitting." This rage against everything God has created is masked in Liberation Theology, but everything grounded in Marxism is ultimately grounded in rebellion against God and hatred for creation. They actively seek to warp and destroy everything good, or they are the useful idiots that the Marxists use to destroy things by manipulating their emotions and naivete. Again, I like your teaching and your input. But those who teach are held to a higher standard, according to Paul.

Amen

Hello I'm from NC. Was involved not a member of a UMC for three years prior to the pandemic. Grew very depressed about what I was seeing in the UMC. From 2016-2019, I saw a lax attitude toward sin in general. I saw crackhead junkie mothers who did not show any sign of transformation, getting baptized. I saw a known drug dealer and his wife take Holy communion and both got baptized. Once these people were baptized, I never saw them in church again. The drug dealer and his wife were arrested for selling heroin, and murder when a pregnant girl overdosed in a hotel room. Their 6 kids were placed into foster care when they went to prison. The junkie girl that was baptized was also pregnant. she gave birth to a blind, half dead baby that ended up in foster care. It was literally making me sick. I felt like the church, the preacher (who I was in music ministry with) was making a mockery out of communion and baptism. It was like, if it feels good do it, anything is allowed and they were throwing that phrase Rethink Church all over the place. When the churches locked down during the pandemic, our local UMCs remained closed for 2.5 years when all the other churches remained open. That's when I made my exit. I started attending a Wesleyan church plant in my county where my son serves on the praise/worship/production team. I never left. The Wesleyan Church brought me out of the depression I was battling in the UMC and the pandemic. Looking back, I think the reason the churches remained closed for that long was because they were engaged in back door dealings trying to grab property, power, and political panhandling to get ready for the church split we see now. I appreciate what you are saying about the LGBTQ controversy and what it is doing to people's souls and minds. I really believed, and I am a retired nurse, not a conspiracy theorist, that we are going to see a mutation in the HIV in the future that will be resistant to treatment. I do not trust these new commericals for drugs that allow a patient to be "undetectable." There is something wrong with those words. I am not comfortable. yesterday I saw back to back ads for two of those drugs. We are being brainwashed by those ads. It's subliminal advertising. I believe undetectable does NOT mean virus free. It's going to encourage gay men and bisexuals to have unprotected sex. Even tthe Red Cross has quit asking about HIV status for blood donations. we are on the edge of a pharmacology cliff and like the story in the Bible, Jesus commanded the demons to leave and the pigs ran over a cliff to their death. I don't know, maybe I'm the only one who believes this, but I trust my instincts.

Come out from among them and be ye separate.

Amen. Thank you for your ministry.

Why? Because the leadership of the denomination is filled with unregenerated people.

Does this particular Individual speak for All or most United Methodists?? I doubt it.

What's the phrase at 13:23-13:26? He seemed to slur through it.

Jeff, are you sure you wouldn’t be a better fit as non-denominational?