Social Issues

Asbury Memorial Church in Savannah, Ga., is leaving The United Methodist Church in support of LGBTQ inclusion. The church, with more than 300 members, is the first since 2016 to leave expressly in opposition to the denomination’s bans on same-sex weddings and “self-avowed practicing” gay clergy. Photo courtesy of Asbury Memorial Church.

Church exits denomination for LGBTQ equality

The United Methodist Church has seen multiple disaffiliations lately, but a Georgia church is the first in recent years to leave expressly in support of its LGBTQ members.

Social Concerns

Members and supporters of the Coalition of Immokalee (Fla.) Workers pray in Nashville, Tenn., at the conclusion of a protest against the Publix supermarket chain's refusal to join a farm workers' rights labor program. The Book of Resolutions of the United Methodist Church demands that employers "treat farm workers and their families with dignity and respect.” Photo by Mike DuBose, UM News.

Ask The UMC: Does the church support workers' rights?

The United Methodist Church supports workers' rights in a heritage that goes back to early Methodism in England.

Evangelism

United Methodist clergywomen pray with patients and staff at Primary Health Care Center, a government-run maternity clinic in Karim Lamido, Nigiera, during an outreach visit in July. Photo by Ramson Danjuma.

Women clergy extend hand to patients, prisoners

Amid COVID-19 pandemic, female pastors in Nigeria bring gifts, messages of hope to two clinics and a prison in Karim Lamido.

Social Concerns

The Rev. Isaac Collins, a United Methodist pastor, co-leads a Bible study, “Swords into Plowshares: What the Bible says about injustice, idolatry, and repentance,” at the base of the Robert E. Lee statue on Market Street Park, Charlottesville, Va., on June 11, 2020. The steeple of First United Methodist Church is visible over the trees in the background. In 2019, Collins and the Rev. Phil Woodson first offered the Bible study using Confederate statues as sites and subject matter. Photo by Phil Woodson.

Seeing removal of statues as ‘doing no harm’

United Methodists in Virginia and North Carolina are among those calling for Confederate monuments to be moved away from public spaces.

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