On 30 June the Methodist Church’s annual conference voted to accept the conducting of same-sex marriages on its premises.
Just as seriously, the same conference also passed a resolution affirming the legitimacy of cohabitation outside of marriage. Both resolutions represent a denial of plain biblical teaching.
The vote to introduce same-sex marriage was carried by a large margin of 254 to 46. The decision was much influenced by a study document produced in the summer of 2019 entitled,‘God in Love Unites Us’. This document states: “The Methodist Church must engage with the reality of how people are living today”.
Here we observe the root of the problem within so many churches (and not just Methodist ones): a desire to conform to contemporary
society, and, in particular, to embrace the all-prevailing teachings of cultural Marxism, even though it is a fundamentally anti-
Christian creed.
There is nothing in the Bible about a range of gender and sexual identities
‘God in Love Unites Us’ refers to “the range of identities to be found among human beings, especially with regard to gender and sexuality”. This statement represents a craven capitulation to the LGBT lobby.
When God created mankind, we are told, “Male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27). There is nothing in the Bible about a range of gender and sexual identities.
In the 18th century Methodism, under God, helped to rescue this nation from a violent revolution
As one who is a minister in the historic Methodist tradition (independent of the main denomination), how I lament the Methodist Church’s departure from the faith of the Bible. To vote for same-sex marriage, rejecting the Bible’s clear classification of homosexuality as sinful, is to ignore what John Wesley taught about the authority of Scripture:
“My ground is the Bible … I follow it in all things great and small … The Christian rule of right and wrong is the Word of God, the writings of the Old and New Testament … This is a lantern unto a Christian’s feet, and a light in all his paths”.
In the 18th century Methodism, under God, helped to rescue this nation from a violent revolution such as occurred in France. The early Methodist preachers accomplished this, not by emulating the fashionable causes of a God-rejecting society, but by fearlessly calling upon sinners to repent and flee to the only Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Pastor Peter Simpson
Minister of Penn Free Methodist Church
High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire
Peter Simpson’s latest book, ‘When a Nation Prays’, features the 12 national days of prayer held during World War Two and can be ordered from https://pennfree.square.site