A quarter of Methodist congregations in the U.S. are leaving the United Methodist Church as one of the country's largest Protestant denominations wrestles with issues of sexuality and gender identity.

More than 7,600 of United Methodist’s approximately 30,000 congregations had voted to leave as of this week, and the number could grow as the Dec. 31 deadline for departures approaches.

“It’s the biggest schism in any American denomination in the history of our country,” said Ryan Burge, an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston.

The United Methodist Church has been second among Protestant denominations only to Southern Baptists. A 2015 Pew Research Center study estimated about 9 million Methodists in the U.S., though the church’s online directory puts the number of professing members at just 5.7 million.

The Methodist Church grew out of the Anglican Church and in some ways is the stereotypical mainline denomination, more moderate on social issues with views that are less black and white and open to, for instance, female pastors.

“Methodism really took off in the U.S. more than it did in Britain,” said Matthew Wilson, an associate professor of political science at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “More than any other denomination, it has historically been the core of mainline Protestantism in the U.S., so what happens in Methodism is really significant for American Protestantism.”

What's at issue?

Controversies have been brewing within the church for several decades, particularly those dealing with LGBTQ issues, Wilson said.

Progressive factions within the church, he said, want to overhaul church teachings to, for instance, permit same-sex marriages and allow ordination of gay clergy.

“They want to essentially remove any reference to what we call 'traditional marriage and sexuality norms,'” Wilson said. “The traditional faction is deeply opposed to that. They say those moves are out of step with church teachings, and they’ve been at odds for some time.”

Similar debates have wracked nearly all mainline Protestant denominations, he noted, prompting rifts within Presbyterian, Lutheran and Episcopal churches as well. While Methodist traditionalists have usually won the vote on these issues, progressive churches have tended to ignore those rulings, he said.

“The sides within Methodism are deeply sick and tired of each other,” Wilson said. “They’re at an impasse.”

How did the actual split begin?

The debate kicked into high gear in 2016, when a number of Methodist clergy came out as gay. United Methodist delegates convened to discuss the topic at a special session of the General Conference in 2019, again conducting a vote that affirmed the church’s traditional policies.

Despite declining membership, the worldwide denomination has expanded globally – particularly in Africa, where adherents are much more conservative.

“The United Methodist Church has been trying to avoid the question of same-sex marriage for years, but they finally came to an understanding that they were going to have face this head on,” Burge said.

Church leaders brought in mediator Kenneth Feinberg, who oversaw the 9/11 victims’ compensation fund, to help the divided church reach a deal. From that stemmed the creation of the Global Methodist Church, reflecting the denomination’s growing African contingent.

“The UMC actually has to give money to the GMC to help with startup costs,” Burge said. “It’s a well-orchestrated plan. It’s not chaotic. It’s a controlled schism, which we don’t typically see, especially at this scale.”

Additionally, the agreement also included an exit plan to allow churches to break away “for reasons of conscience” regarding sexuality issues. Churches were given until the end of this year to request release.

 “That has really picked up steam in the last 12 months,” Burge said.

Is this a big deal?

The break is notable given the broad reach of the Methodist Church, which at one time enjoyed a presence in nearly every U.S. county, Burge said; while there are more Southern Baptists, they’re concentrated in the South.

“Most denominations do not have 8,000 churches to lose,” he said. “And with many of the churches leaving being larger in attendance, that might be half of church members once the dust settles on this.”

Wilson said it’s also the nature of the churches that are leaving that could have major reverberations.

“Some of the churches that are leaving are some of the most vibrant churches,” he said. “You have to look at where the energy and dynamism is…. By and large the energy and growth is in more conservative churches. So as they leave, that creates problems for the denomination, one that has been shrinking anyway.”

Mainline Protestantism has been in a state of American decline for decades as numbers grow among those who identify as nondenominational Christians or so-called “nones” – agnostics, atheists and those who describe themselves as “nothing in particular.”

What does mean for the church's future?

Wilson said the challenge for departing conservative Methodist churches will be determining whether they can – or even want to – coalesce into a meaningful denomination.

Churches wrestling with a denomination likely to embrace same-sex marriage in the future are conducting two votes, Burge said – the first on whether to leave the United Methodist Church and the second on whether to join the Global Methodist Church.

While some have joined, other splintering congregations have so far opted to remain independent.

“It’s not clear whether there will be a coherent, institutional traditionalist movement,” Wilson said.

For the largely progressive churches that remain, moving to the left will be easier with less resistance in the room, Burge said.

“But this hampers them bigtime,” he said. “They will have to downsize denominationally. They will have to cut missions. For a denomination that used to dominate U.S. cultural, political and religious life, it’s hard to grasp how big this shift is.”

Also up in the air is the future of Methodist-affiliated universities like Southern Methodist and Emory, as well as the seminaries where Methodist ministers are trained.

Burge expects the well-funded universities to emerge largely unscathed but says a pared-down Methodist Church will have to wrestle with what to do with its smaller entities, like seminaries.

“They will really have to rethink what they’re up to,” he said. “They can’t charge more tuition; there’s no money in being a pastor. The UMC will have to have a conversation about how many seminaries they really need.”