The United States’ second-largest Protestant denomination is the United Methodist Church, but in Arkansas, it just got a little smaller during the state’s annual conference in Hot Springs during the weekend. One area church, the Bellefonte United Methodist Church, was among 35 congregations throughout the state now able to break away from the denomination after members of the Arkansas Annual Conference to ratify disaffiliation agreements with the churches.
According to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the votes occurred during a seven-hour special session. In their disaffiliation agreements, the congregations reportedly cited “reasons of conscience” relating to “the practice of homosexuality or the ordination or marriage of self-avowed practicing homosexuals.”
A two-thirds vote is required by a congregation’s professing members to enter the disaffiliation process. The church in Bellefonte was one of 22 voting unanimously to disaffiliate.
Conference members rejected disaffiliation agreements from three other churches in Searcy, Jonesboro and Cabot.
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