More than 400 Texas Methodist churches vote to leave denomination

AUSTIN (KXAN) — More than 400 Texas churches voted this weekend to cut ties with the United Methodist Church (UMC) after decades of disagreements over stances on issues like same-sex marriage.

Members of the Northwest Texas Conference of The United Methodist Church gathered Saturday for a special session, where 145 congregations agreed to leave or "disaffiliate" from the denomination. This includes churches stretching from Abilene, Amarillo and Lubbock.

On the same day, the Texas Annual Conference met at a church in Houston, and that ultimately resulted in 294 of its 598 member churches across east Texas deciding to officially leave, too.

These breaks hardly surprised Texas religious scholars, who largely anticipated such moves to happen. The divisions seem to center on the denomination’s bans on same-sex marriages and ordaining openly LGBTQ clergy. The denomination has repeatedly upheld these bans at legislative General Conferences, but some U.S. churches and clergy have defied them.

KXAN's Will DuPree is gathering local reaction to these disaffiliation votes and the impact they may have for a story airing Monday on KXAN News at 6 p.m.