CHICAGO — More than 1,800 Methodists recently banded together to launch a new group aimed at taking the United Methodist Church (UMC) in a theologically conservative direction. The Wesleyan Covenant Association (WCA), a newly formed evangelical group of clergy and laity, held its inaugural one-day conference in Chicago on Oct. 6, according to The Christian Post.
In recent years, the UMC has seen an increasingly passionate debate manifest over the denomination’s position on homosexuality. Unlike other Mainline Protestant denominations, the UMC states that homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching” and refuses to bless gay “marriages” or allow clergy to be in same-sex relationships.
While some regional bodies have called for open defiance of the UMC’s rules, during the summer conservatives within the UMC announced the formation of WCA.
Keith Boyette, pastor of Wilderness Community Church, Spotsylvania, Virginia, and one of the organizers of WCA, told Christian Post in an earlier interview that the group’s formation comes in response to the pro-LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) activism within the denomination.
“I became involved in the WCA because of concerns about continuing and escalating dysfunction in the United Methodist Church, with whole regions of the Church within the United States declaring their intent … to no longer conform to portions of our doctrine and polity,” Boyette said. (TAB)
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