Abandoning a Sinking Church

John Lomperis, director of the United Methodist Action Program at the Institute on Religion & Democracy, doesn't believe in quitting a denomination over its departure from biblical orthodoxy.

In a column published on The Christian Post's website, Lomperis referred to the tendency of many American evangelicals of leaving mainline churches as being "profoundly unbiblical."

"The New Testament presents us with a number of responses to such church problems: Teaching that explicitly refutes false beliefs. Church discipline. Patient endurance. 'Contending for the faith' – and note that when Jude gave that command, he was talking about fighting unfaithfulness within the church itself," wrote Lomperis.

"But what I do not see in Scripture is this idea that when the false teachers have gained a small foothold in or even overwhelmed a local church, we have any right to just surrender everything to them, give them full, unchallenged leadership over the local flock, just run away and quit, and maybe try to rebuild everything from scratch somewhere down the road."

Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/left-behind-in-the-mainline-witnessing-within-the-united-methodist-church-131848/