This round of disaffiliation brings the total to 330 churches that have left the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church since December, after 198 left on Dec. 10.
The departing churches had all voted by 66.7 percent or more to leave the denomination, either to become independent or join more conservative denominations where traditional Christian bans on same-sex marriage are not up for debate.
Although the United Methodist Church still holds its traditional stance banning same-sex marriage and ordaining openly gay clergy, decades of fighting on the issue prompted many conservatives to leave when a door was opened clearing the way for them to take church property with them. The North Alabama Conference had 638 congregations at the start of the day on Dec. 10, and 440 at the start of the day on May 11. The departures on Thursday night left 308 churches still in the North Alabama Conference, but the bishop has announced plans to start new churches in many of the places where churches are disaffiliating.
Earlier in the week, the Alabama-West Florida Conference finalized the disaffiliation of 193 churches, 160 in Alabama and 33 in the Florida panhandle. The Methodist churches that are leaving the denomination have either remained independent or joined more conservative denominations such as the Global Methodist Church, formed last year to welcome new conservative Methodist congregations, or the Free Methodist Church, or the Foundry movement, a network of affiliated churches in the Methodist tradition.
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