United Methodists reacted to their general conference’s third postponement—this time to 2024—with emotions ranging from outrage to relief. Many also expressed weariness with the uncertainty that has faced the United Methodist Church since before the pandemic.
The hope was that the denomination’s top lawmaking body would resolve the UMC’s longtime debate over LGBTQ inclusion and avoid costly litigation by adopting a formal separation plan.
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has responded to a plea from Ioan Sauca, acting general secretary for the World Council of Churches, that he use his influence to stop the war in Ukraine.
In a letter dated March 10, Kirill, who is known to have a close relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin, praised Sauca for being a “faithful steward of the Church of Christ and tireless worker in the field of education and formation of younger generations.”
One of the nation’s largest Black Protestant denominations has stopped making payments to retired ministers on its pension plan, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
The paper reported on March 10 that the African Methodist Episcopal Church, which has reported as many as 2.5 million members in the past, suspended payments to retirees after discovering possible financial irregularities involving the denomination’s pension fund. In a statement, the church told the Journal that it was working with law enforcement to investigate a possible crime.
Most Americans see Jesus as an important spiritual figure. More than 30 percent have decreased their participation in religious activities during the COVID-19 pandemic. And only one in ten thinks those who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, were associated with organized religion.
Those are some of the findings of a national study commissioned by the Episcopal Church and conducted by the polling firm Ipsos.
Many Nigerian Christian leaders have condemned a weekly sit-at-home order in the southeastern region of the country that is being enforced by the Indigenous People of Biafra, a group agitating for the creation of a separate state for Nigeria’s 40 million ethnic Igbo people.
The United Church of Christ has now paid off more than $100 million in medical debt for people across the United States.
The UCC announced on February 14 that it used $200,000 from one of its annual Giving Tuesday campaigns to purchase and pay off $33 million in medical debt for residents of Ohio, where the mainline Protestant denomination is based.
That brought the total medical debt the UCC has purchased and paid off since late 2019 to more than $104 million.
Saying he wants to spend his time focusing on racial reconciliation, Southern Baptist Convention president Ed Litton announced via video on March 1 that he would not seek a second term in office.
Litton will become the first SBC president in four decades to not seek reelection after his first one-year term. The last SBC president to do so was famed Memphis, Tennessee, megachurch pastor and radio preacher Adrian Rogers.
A pastor from Mobile, Alabama, Litton was elected in June 2021, narrowly defeating the more conservative Georgia pastor Mike Stone.
Cheyenne peace chief and Mennonite pastor Lawrence Homer Hart died on March 6 at age 89.
Hart, who was raised by his paternal grandparents Corn Stalk and Chief Peak Hart near Hammon, Oklahoma, converted to Christianity at age 17. He attended Bethel College, a Mennonite school in North Newton, Kansas, for two years before leaving in 1955 to realize his dream of flying fighter jets in the US Navy and Marines. He later became the first American Indian to become a US military jet pilot and instructor.
The pastor of one of Canada’s largest churches was forced to resign after an independent investigation found evidence of his sexual misconduct.
Bruxy Cavey, who grew the Meeting House into a megachurch with 5,000 people attending 19 campuses in the Greater Toronto Area, was accused of sexual misconduct by a woman who reported it to the church’s overseers board in December.
In 2015, Grace Pak was serving as president of the National Association of Korean-American United Methodist Pastors Serving Cross-Racial/Cultural Appointment. Pak was passionate in her efforts to help her community become effective and faithful pastors, and she knew there had to be a new way to facilitate that work.
“There were no learning opportunities, which were needed in the CRCC community even though there were plenty of experts who had gifts and talents in ministry,” Pak said.