Religion · Dallas-Fort Worth, TX Metro · October 16, 2026
Highland Park UMC Council Recommends Leaving United Methodist Church
According to Dallas News, the administrative council of Highland Park United Methodist Church — one of the denomination's largest and most prominent congregations — has voted to recommend disaffiliation from the United Methodist Church. The recommendation comes amid the UMC's ongoing denominational split over biblical authority and sexuality; the congregation's final membership vote and timeline were not specified, and further details are still emerging.
Source: Dallas News
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Why Bible-Believing Christians Should Care
Highland Park UMC's move follows years of UMC turmoil since the denomination's 2024 General Conference removed longstanding restrictions on same-sex marriage and the ordination of practicing homosexual clergy, reversing positions the UMC had held for decades. For a flagship congregation to recommend leaving signals that even large, historically influential Methodist churches no longer believe they can remain under a denominational structure that has redefined biblical sexual ethics. This matters because disaffiliation is not merely administrative — it is a congregation declaring that it will not operate under a hierarchy that has departed from Scripture's authority on marriage and holiness, even at the cost of property, pension ties, and institutional identity.
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears. — 2 Timothy 4:3
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From the book
Once installed, the new clergy use Rule 4 to reframe the institution's values, turning the church's own vocabulary against it. The activist takes a biblical term like justice or inclusion, strips its scriptural definition, which is conformity to God's law and hospitality to sinners, and refills it with a secular political definition, which is equity of outcome and affirmation of identity. Then when a traditionalist opposes a radical policy, the activist accuses him of opposing justice itself. The church drops into a defensive crouch, terrified of appearing hypocritical.
— Chapter 17, “The Mainline Model: Bureaucratic Infiltration”
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