Born Catholic, and Methodist-by-Proximity (i.e., the neighborhood church is Methodist), I've always counted myself part true believer, part interested observer.

 

Usually I feel like the priest in the movie Rudy, who declared that after decades of advanced religious study, he was only sure of two things:  there is a God, and he's not Him.

 

I also happen to think that whites aren't getting out of their present mess without faith in God, for what that's worth.  

 

Anyway, what I'm observing now is the impending break-up of the United Methodist Church, which was at one point one of the largest Protestant denominations in America.  Figures as diverse as Rush Limbaugh and Hillary Clinton called themselves Methodist.

 

Of course, it's not Methodism breaking up, or even only Christianity declining, it's Western Civilization.  Methodism is just a deck chair on the Titanic.

 

Aggressive incursions have turned the Methodist church into a "woke joke."  The Liberation Methodist Connection, an ultra-left new denomination, is demanding slavery reparations and the freeing of Methodism from "white supremacy," among other "sins." 

 

Here's  a quote from the "Rev." Janet McKeithen:  "There are no doctrinal litmus tests in the movement.  We are moving beyond the supremacy of a single belief system."  [New Liberationist Denomination? , by Thomas Lambrecht, Good News magazine, Jan./Feb. 2021].

 

Um, isn't the "supremacy of a single belief system" the very definition of a religion?  Why not just call yourself a social club? If there are no "doctrinal litmus tests," couldn't you join up as an atheist?

 

On the other hand, those white Christians who believe in racial difference might just find themselves scrambling for their own liberation from doctrinal litmus tests, since even the most "conservative" Christian denominations deny racial difference absolutely.

 

A Methodist-wide meeting called "General Conference" is scheduled for August.  On the table will be something called "The Protocol for Reconciliation and Grace through Separation."  It's designed to break up the Methodist church into conservative, centrist and liberal chunks.

 

I get a "conservative" Methodist magazine called Good News, whose publisher, Rob Renfroe, predicts the protocol will pass.

 

I don't know how the technicals would work, like who'd own which buildings and who'd get what bank accounts.  I do understand each church might have a say in which direction they go.

 

I'm personally alarmed by how little information has been provided, either by my own church, the bishop that church is under, and so on.  This seems to be part of a pattern.

 

But of course, you can't hear "The Protocol for Reconciliation and Grace through Separation" without your mind wandering to other possibilities for grace and reconciliation.