Hundreds of Texas Methodist churches vote to split from denomination after years of infighting over gay marriage and abortion

Lakeridge Methodist Church in Lubbock on Dec. 3. (Credit: Trace Thomas for The Texas Tribune)

LUBBOCK — The Northwest Texas Annual Conference of United Methodist Churches started like a regular church service. Participants sang, took communion, then prayed before voting to split from the United Methodist Church, the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination.

“We are a broken body,” Presiding Bishop James G. Nunn said as he explained to his hundreds of congregants how the communion bread represented both the broken body of Jesus Christ but also the tension within the faith. “But it teaches us that the breaking is not the end.”