PAGE 4A
THE JACKSON HERALD
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 2023
Opinions
“Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost
omnipotent. Henry Ward Beecher
Mike Buffington, editor • Email: Mike@mainstreetnews.com
What does Methodist church split foreshadow for the nation?
The slow-moving break-up happening within the Unit
ed Methodist Church could just be another chapter in a
multi-chapter book of minor religious schisms, or it could
be the harbinger of darker days to come in the country.
As both a reporter and a lapsed Methodist, I find the
UMC controversy both fas
cinating and troubling.
The size of this UMC
splintering depends on
whom you ask. Technical
ly, only around 6% of UMC
churches in the nation have
decided so far to splinter
from the mainline church
since the national body of
the church created a path
for individual churches to
disaffiliate a few years ago.
But that number may just
be the tip of an iceberg. In
some regions, the percent
age of disaffiliated church
es is much, much higher.
To stem that flow of out
bound churches, some UMC conferences (essentially, geo
graphic regions that represents groups of churches) have
made it difficult for individual churches to disunite, putting
in requirements that are financially untenable.
This area’s conference in North Georgia has gone a step
further by recently halting any further approval of church
es that want to leave the conference. That action has led
to a massive lawsuit that a number of local area churches
have signed on in support.
All in all, it’s a pretty messy divorce. How the UMC will
look at the end of all this remains to be seen.
• ••
Historically, this isn’t the first time Methodists have frac
tured. Since its official founding in the late 1700s, Method
ists have splintered a number of times over theological and
structural issues.
War has played a part in some of those divisions. The
Methodist movement began as an outgrowth of the English
Anglican Church, which itself was an outgrowth of the
Catholic Church (but then came Martin Luther and Henry
VIII, if you recall your high school history class.)
All of that revolved around religious fractures, some
times for theological reasons, other times over political
issues.
Following the American Revolution, the American
Methodist church was officially founded since the nation
had split from England and the Anglican church. (But
Methodist roots as a sub-part of the Anglican Church go
much deeper, especially in Georgia.)
As the decades passed, several splits of Methodists hap
pened as the church grew in the early 1800s.
Then the big split came just before the Civil War when
Southern Methodists split from their Northern brethren
over the issue of slavery. A Methodist bishop’s wife in
Georgia owned slaves; he declined to free them and that
set into motion the North-South split. (But not all Meth
odists in the South supported slavery. In Banks County, a
group of anti-slavery Methodists, led by the Ragsdale fam
ily, split from the historic Mt. Pleasant Methodist church
and formed Mt. Olivet. Last Saturday, a lay leader from
Mt. Pleasant reportedly spoke at the monthly Mt. Olivet
service, a notation that not all splits become enemies.)
While other spits occurred over the ensuing decades, the
North and South Methodists divisions reconciled in 1939.
But as part of that union. Southern Methodists required
that Black Methodist Churches be in a separate, segregat
ed. conference.
Other unions and divisions over the years eventually led
to the creation of the United Methodist Church in 1968,
which is the church we know today in communities all
across America.
• ••
For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, issues over
slavery and race was a major factor in the various Meth
odist divisions. But it was also larger than that — issues
of church structure and other internal policies were also
involved.
And it wasn’t just Methodists who were doing all this
splintering. Baptists and Presbyterians also split in the
1800s over slavery and other issues. Today, a slew of var
ious affiliations continue to exist in both of those large
mainline church denominations. (Not to mention the doz
ens of other smaller Protestant churches that exist.)
While race was a historical a factor in much of those
divisions, today the large issue is about human sexuality.
The issue of gay clergy and gay marriage appears to be at
the heart of the current Methodist controversy.
Officially, the UMC is against gay clergy and gay mar
riage. That’s interesting because many of the churches that
have, or want, to disunite from UMC appear to believe the
denomination is too liberal on those issues. But there’s
some thought that if the more conservative Methodist
churches leave, the current UMC would be free to change
its current anti-gay marriage policy.
In a larger sense, however, the current UMC split seems
to have a conservative vs. liberal undertone. Some of that is
perhaps theological, but it also echoes the broader national
left vs. right political divisions we’ve seen in recent years.
• ••
It’s that quasi-political echo that is starting to garner na
tional attention outside the church’s walls. Several recent
national articles question whether today’s UMC split fore
shadows a deeper civil division in the nation the same way
the church’s split foreshadowed the Civil War.
“The United States is not likely staring down the barrel
at a second civil war, but in the past, when churches split
over politics, it was a sign that country was fast coming
apart at the seams,” said a recent article in Politico Mag
azine.
The article goes on to note that there are differences be
tween today and the mid-1800s: The biggest difference is
that in the 1800s, churches were often the building blocks
of community. They played a huge social and cultural
role across American society in that era, not to mention
religious indoctrination. Today, churches are much less
socially powerful across the broad swath of the American
cultural landscape.
• ••
Which brings us to an even bigger story than the slog
ging Methodist split. Overall, mainline church affiliation
across the country is in a steep decline.
A 2021 article in Christianity Today (online magazine)
notes that in the 1970s, the religiously unaffiliated were
around 5% of the population; today, it’s over 30%. A Pew
Research article projects that by 2070, that number could
grow to over 50% of the population being unaffiliated with
a religion.
Mainline churches, including Methodists, have lost a
huge number of adherents over the past decade. Method
ists, for example, are down 15% between 2009-2020.
That kind of data may be difficult to believe in an area
where churches still play a key role in rural communities.
In the more suburban areas of North Georgia, the rise of
mega-churches seems to counter the idea of churches in
decline. (Indeed, Georgia’s share of unaffiliated is lower
than that 30% national trend and is around 18%.)
• ••
All of which begs this question: Why amidst this down
ward decline in membership have Methodists — and some
other mainline denominations — decided to fight a debili
tating internecine war?
The outcome of this can’t be good. Internal divisions over
gay rights and the ongoing national debate about abortion
are happening at a time when a majority of Americans hold
more liberal views about both topics. Most people really
are moderate on abortion and on gay rights, but it’s the ex
tremes that have come to define both issues. And it’s those
extremes that seem to be driving the UMC controversy.
Some of those who want to keep the UMC intact say
much of that controversy is being fueled by misinforma
tion and misrepresentation from those who want to create a
splinter Methodist denomination. That seems to echo what
we’ve seen in our political culture as well where misinfor
mation has become part and parcel to a feeling of national
disunity.
But you would think that of all our major social and cul
tural institutions, churches would be a place where people
of all kinds of personal beliefs could gather in a spirit of
love and understanding.
Or maybe not. Fights over religion can be nasty, and
sometimes petty.
It remains to be seen if the Methodist splintering gets
large enough to be called a true “schism.” So far, the raw
numbers suggest a smaller breakup.
But the internal fight might, in the coming months, grow
larger and eventually lead to the collapse of the modern
UMC as it’s been known for the past 55 years.
With Methodist churches in just about every community
across the nation, this downward spiral will be felt deeply
within American culture, a stark reminder of the nation’s
broader cultural war that continues to rage around us.
Mike Buffington is co-publisher of Mainstreet Newspa
pers. He can be reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com.
Biden administration ‘accomplishments’
Dear Editor:
Week after week, almost without fail,
I encounter disparaging remarks about
those deplorable Republicans in the edi
torial section of The Jackson Herald. Un
fortunately, the same editorial section is
so focused on those dastardly Republicans
that it somehow fails to extol the accom
plishments of the Biden Administration.
As a service to the Herald’s readers, let
me encapsulate these remarkable accom
plishments:
Afghanistan Pullout Accomplishments:
Bequeathed the Taliban with $70 billion
in military equipment; 175 Americans
still being held in Afghanistan according
to State Dept.; left behind unknown num
ber of Afghan allies to a suffer a dismal
fate; created 13 gold star families; whet
ted Russia’s appetite to start a devastating
and costly war with Ukraine; China now
threatening to invade Taiwan.
Southern Border Accomplishments:
Obliterated our southern border in record
time; handed operational control of the
border to Mexican cartels; enriched the
cartels by billions of dollars; saddled lo
cal communities with the financial burden
of providing social services and medical
treatment for approximately 5 million il
legals from over 140 countries; virtually
ignored the fentanyl problem which is
killing close to 100,000 Americans a year;
subjected our country to possible terrorist
attacks due to 900,000 known gotaways
and who knows how many unknown got
aways; having taxpayers shell out $47 mil
lion a year to store unused border wall ma
terial; record number of immigrant deaths;
human trafficking at record levels. North
ern border now suffers a record number of
illegal entries.
Foreign Relations Accomplishments:
Relations with Russia and China resem
bling a new cold war; relationship with
Mexico is souring; Saudi Arabia now part
nering with China and their recent adver
sary Iran; North Korea testing underwa
ter nukes that create radioactive tsunami;
Russia putting tactical nukes in Belarus.
Economic Accomplishments: Inflation
the highest in 40 years; IRA and 40IK val
ues sinking like a rock; cost for gasoline,
heating fuel and food much higher than
the unacceptably high core inflation rate;
bank failures starting to occur and likely
to increase in numbers with additional in
terest hikes.
Energy Independence Accomplish
ments: Energy independence obliterat
ed quick as a whistle; Keystone pipeline
killed while sanctioning the Russia-Euro-
pean pipeline; 26% of the strategic petro
leum reserve has been raided for political
purposes rather than actual emergency
with no appreciable effect on prices and
no plan to replace.
Other Assorted Accomplishments: Po
liticized the Justice Dept, and FBI; some
how won a presidential election without
venturing forth from his basement; pre
sented “Most Courageous Woman” award
to a biological male; supports a teacher’s
union that thinks it is a dandy idea to have
pornographic books in school libraries;
possessed classified documents as a sen
ator and Veep; America’s crime rate soar
ing; wokeness and critical race theory now
part of training for our military.
Premier Accomplishment: Managed to
have his son’s lap top contents quashed
prior to the election. It revealed massive
influence peddling by the Biden fami
ly, which has since been corroborated by
bank records and business partner, Tony
Bobulinsky.
You’ve got to hand it to this administra
tion so many accomplishments in just
two years.
Sincerely,
Jim Siegendorf
Jefferson
We should fight back
Dear Editor;
Last year, the American people rejected extreme election de-
niers in key races. But we were unable to win every fight, and a
tremendous threat to our democracy remains: the new Speaker
of the House, Kevin McCarthy and the MAGA extremists he
leads.
According to the Washington Post, over 70% of all House Re
publicans are themselves election deniers—and these extrem
ists now have McCarthy in the palm of their hands.
McCarthy had to give up tremendous concessions to appease
the most outlandish members of his party to win the gavel. Ex
tremists like Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, and Jim Jordan will
have all the power they need to enact their agenda: sow chaos,
waste taxpayer dollars on sham investigations, and ignore their
constituents.
In their first act, Speaker McCarthy’s MAGA majority gutted
the nonpartisan Office of Congressional Ethics—hamstringing
future investigations into corrupt members like the serial fabu
list George Santos. That speaks volumes.
It’s up to us to call out this new MAGA majority and fight
back against their extreme agenda. I hope others will join me.
Sincerely,
Irene Budoff
Athens
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Founded 1875
Merged with The Commerce News 2017
The Official Legal Organ of Jackson County, Ga.
Herman Buffington, Publisher 1965-2005
Mike Buffington
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Alex Buffington.
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