North American Religious News re: Women and LGBTIQ

The United Methodist Church membership has declined since they began ordaining women. The next step, of course, was ordained LGBTIQ clergy.

I don't know how to make the attached image appear for the chart that shows the decline. You may have to click to download it.


Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Doug Batchelor has already displayed this "image of the beast".

Is that supposed to be our teacher when Ellen White has so clearly told us that certain women are to be ordained?

Because the enemy fails, is that a reason why we should follow Rome and be disobedient to the call from our Lord?

The Presbyterian Church membership, after an initial boon, dramatically declined following their decision to ordain women.

Ordaining homosexuals did not rout their decline.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

The Episcopalian Church membership has declined since ordaining women. Ordaining homosexuals did not halt the decline.


Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

The Lutheran Church membership has dropped following its experiment with ordaining women and homosexuals.



Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

The Baptist Church membership has seen no sharp decline. It does not ordain women, nor homosexuals.



Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Seventh-day Adventist membership has consistently climbed, while not ordaining women nor homosexuals as pastors or elders.



Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

A very unscientific correlation.
There are a lot of variables at play as to why some churches are declining while others show growth.

Taking one variable out of dozens of possible reasons why churches are declining isn't really logical.

There are much more probable reasons for the decline-- like:

1. The decline of "Sunday school" (our equivalent of Sabbath School) The common practice in the 1950s was for children and adults both going to Sunday school and then to the worship service. This began to change during the 1960s and 1970s as churches began to drop adult lesson study period, and began scheduling children’s Sunday school during the worship service.

This had a two fold problem --
a. adults weren't studying scripture together on any regular basis, thus loosing the blessing such a habit brings.
b. children weren't being integrated into the worship service and when they grew up they stopped going to church.

Now do a study to see which churches did this and which kept a strong "Sunday" or Sabbath School going.


2. Ministers (these are male) began preaching on social issues rather than bible based sermons (the social gospel).

3. Ingrown churches, no longer actively reaching out to the community, focused only on their members and gradually found they had mainly elderly members left, due to lose of youth combined with declining birth rates robbing them of generational replenishment.

4. The general secularization and materialism in American (and Canadian) society, along with the abundant media and entertainment stimulus all around, causes many people to think of church as "boring".

There are numerous other variables that caused decline and most of them happened while male ministers were standing in the pulpits.

Two media report today that the Southern Baptist memership has now declined for the 7th year in a row.