I see a growing (2-3 families) number of folks coming to our church from the Methodist Churches. Now I already know of that denomination's problem today, either in USA (Modernism i.e. LGBTQ+) and the East (Charismatic leaning), with the Western side being infected worse.
After listening to some of these folks sharing their views in the Bible studies, I find that something's off, something's missing. One love to use the phrase "don't sell your soul to the devil", or "pride is the root of all evil", etc. These are far from reformed and have connotation to modernist and Catholicism.
After googling for "When did the United Methodist Church split" and reading this article, I'm now certain that I was right, that this denomination, incorporated heavily with the holiness movement in the 19th century, wasn't well prepared to deal with the attach of Modernism in the early 20th century. Unlike the Presbyterians and the Baptists, who vigorously challenged the Modernist movement in the 1920-30, Reformed on the Presbyterian side, and Fundamentalist on the Baptist side, the United Methodist church gave in to Modernism. Perhaps due to the holiness movement was seemed very legalistic and though the denomination could be credited for being more active than other denominations in humanitarian works, such as abolition of slavery, their pharisaical movement caused them to surrender to the Modernist movement when their leaders and lay leaders failed to meet the high legalistic demand. Until 1966, Rev. Charles Keysor sparked the Good News movement, a sort of fundamentalist, evangelical movement, attacking the Modernist movement with the 5 famous points (Inerrancy of Scripture, Virgin Birth, Jesus' deity - it seems that Keysor replaced this with the Lord's second coming instead?, sacrifice for sins, resurrection) that the fundamentalists back in the 1930s had already dealt with. I think 1966 is just too late. Just like Rome, with their 2nd Vatican Council in 1962-1965 (Vatican II), against Modernism, Relativism and Neo-Paganism.
I think this would blow their minds, the folks that came to our church. I doubt they were aware of their history. Had they known, they wouldn't be sharing how shocked they were that their old denomination had fallen away doctrinally. For all they know, they think they've inherited the faith of the great Evangelists the likes of John Wesley.
I shall begin to be harsher when threating their denomination as I did last Sunday speaking to a couple, of whom the wife grew up in the Methodist church. I flatly told her that it was leaning towards heresy, to which she seemed surprised, even though she was already aware of the basic bad doctrine detection. I had to bring up LGBTQ+ issue every time just to get them to agree with my stand against their former denomination. Thus, this is my conclusion, that they were not aware of their former denomination's history, which at this point, is a no brainer for me. Maybe not so, the me 30 years ago - besides I was dealing with a different kind of Methodists (the Eastern more Evangelical Pentecostal leaning kind), but not anymore now.
