By Bobby Ross Jr. | Religion Unplugged
Our big story this week concerns doctrinal battles by the Southern Baptists, not all of them in the South, and the United Methodists, who are not so united these days.
What to know: The big story
Back in the saddle?: Last year, the Southern Baptist Convention kicked out Saddleback Church, founded by Rick Warren, for appointing women as pastors.
Now Saddleback is appealing that decision, asking messengers to the SBC’s annual meeting in New Orleans next month to reverse it.
“The appeal extends the standoff between the nation’s largest Protestant denomination and one of its largest, most successful churches,” The Associated Press’ Peter Smith writes.
Read related coverage by Christianity Today’s Kate Shellnutt, Religion News Service’s Adelle M. Banks, The Tennessean’s Liam Adams and the Washington Times’ Mark A. Kellner.
Affiliation and disaffiliation: Don’t be surprised if those terms end up as the Methodists’ words of the year.
Amid the denomination’s growing schism, check out this news in Oklahoma, via The Oklahoman’s Carla Hinton:
Two brothers were ordained as elders in a new Methodist denomination while the retired United Methodist minister who raised them sat watching in the pews recently in the Oklahoma City metro area.
The family’s new reality of dual denominational affiliations reflected just how much the landscape of Methodism is changing across Oklahoma.
Elsewhere, 67 Arkansas congregations got permission to disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church.
In all, more than 100 churches in that state have left over “issues related to human sexuality,” according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Frank Lockwood.
This column appears in the online magazine Religion Unplugged.
Featured photo via Shutterstock
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