Skip to main content

Darwinism and the United Methodist Church

My father was a pastor in the Untied Methodist Church (misspelling intentional) for fifty years, but for some reason, he never accepted evolutionism to my knowledge. He had liberal theology and some old-earth views, but some owlhoots in the denomination were far too liberal for his standards.

Compromise on creation leads to rejection of the authority of Scripture. The United Methodist Church is very liberal and promotes Darwinism.
Original image before modification: Wikimedia Commons / San906 (CC0 1.0)

The UMC states that it has 12 million members, so it is not surprising that members have a variety of views. (One adult Sunday School class I attended was conducted by someone who was not even a member of that church, and was thought to be an agnostic. Good church decision making there, huh?) One of the first observed problems with compromise on creation is rejection of the authority of Scripture.

Years ago, I was giving creation science presentations to churches, and one of them was a UMC. That pastor believed in biblical creation, but one old boy refused to shake my hand or even look at me after the service. While the denomination is infested with Darwinism and liberalism, it is so large that many member believe in creation. Most of those in power, however, do not.

The United Methodist Church’s opposition to both creationism and intelligent design was reviewed. It was concluded that the membership is generally in support of the creation worldview, but the high-level leadership, especially the bishops, in general, support the Darwinian worldview and oppose the creation worldview. According to its website, the church’s official policy is that all life, including humans, evolved from a common ancestor by the accumulation of mutations selected by the survival-of-the-fittest mechanism called natural selection.

 To read the rest of this paper, see "A history of the United Methodist Church’s opposition to creationism and intelligent design".