UMC Promotes First Gay Black Bishop After Franklin Graham Calls Out America’s Withering Faith

Read time: 3 minutes 48 seconds

According to data from the Pew Research Center, Christians across America are losing their faith.

Their research showed that if current trends continue, only 35% of Americans will identify as Christian by 2070, while 52% will be unaffiliated religiously.

To discuss this disturbing trend, “Fox & Friends” talked with evangelist Franklin Graham as to how this has happened in America.

“Well, first I think those numbers are here now. I believe there is just a very small percent of Americans that actually live for Jesus Christ. See, there is one thing to say you identify with Jesus Christ or identify as a Christian, there are people that will talk about God but as far as identifying with Christ, they are just not quite sure.”

This half-in, half-out attitude is so detrimental to the church, that Jesus addresses it in Revelation 3:15-16 in the letter to the church in Laodicea. Jesus will spit out those who are lukewarm, Christians in name only but not in deeds or faith.

Rev. Graham went on to address head-on the faith crisis in America:

“Christian faith has never been at a lower point than it is today,” said Graham. “But my concern isn’t ‘are you identifying with Christ’ but are you following Christ. And that’s the key, are you living your life for Jesus Christ.”

For many denominations in America today, their actions say that no, they are not. Instead, they are living for themselves and only following the parts of the Bible instead of the total Word of God.

This is evident in the United Methodist Church appointing the first openly gay Black bishop.

In the UMC’s Western Jurisdiction, which covers the western part of the United States and Alaska, Rev. Cedrick D. Bridgeforth of the California-Pacific Conference was promoted to the position of bishop through a vote within the denomination. He received 73 out of 93 votes to confirm this promotion, needing only 63. Bridgeforth is married to another man.

Upon his promotion, Bridgeforth said he was “grateful to God almighty” and “to my husband, Christopher.”

It is actions like this, which clearly go against what the Word of God commands, that have many leaving and no longer believing in a church that is without the power of the Holy Spirit.

There are those within the UMC who view this as a direct assault on their beliefs, since the UMC voted in 2019 to continue to ban members of the LGBTQ community from being ordained within their denomination.

Yet that has not stopped the Western Jurisdiction and other liberals within the UMC from blatantly ignoring the vote and commissioning openly gay clergy and officiating same-sex weddings.

Having such disregard for the Word of God, and cherrypicking the parts to follow, will lead to the eventual erosion of morality and faith within America today.

“…Jesus was God’s Son, that He came to this earth not to condemn us, but to save us, by giving His life on a cross and shedding His blood for our sins,” Graham said. “And God raised Him to life on the third day, and if we’re willing to repent, turn from our sins and believe on Jesus Christ, that God will forgive us of our sins.”

“I think as an evangelist, churches need to be doing more evangelism. Telling people how they can have a relationship with God.”

When asked what the “source” of this problem in America, Rev. Graham did not hold back on where he believes lies the root of the problems affecting faith in America:

“Well, people aren’t in church today like they were 100 years ago. And if you see where people are today, especially our education system, so many of our teachers are anti-God, anti-Christ,” Graham explained. “And so, we’re teaching young people today, not God’s standards, but more or less the world’s standards. And for years, when I grew up in schools, we still had God’s Ten Commandments on the wall of our school. And how important it is for our children to know the difference between right and wrong.

“We see our society is declining, a lot of this has to do with … I think our teachers, our teachers’ unions. Shame on them, for teaching this ‘wokeness’ instead of teaching people about God and His standards. And if we went back to God’s standards, back to the Ten Commandments, and put that on the wall and let kids see that, you know it would have an impact I think.” {eoa}

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James Lasher is Staff Writer for Charisma Media.