The Lancaster Mennonite Conference (LMC) had voted to leave the Mennonite Church USA (MC USA) in 2015, and the decision became effective January 1, 2018.

The LMC, comprised of 179 congregations in New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio, left over the definition of marriage and the sinfulness of homosexuality, according to a report from Religion News Service.

A pastor for one of the LMC congregations told NPR back when the vote to split took place it was actually the MC USA that had departed from Biblical teaching.

"We are in a sense not really leaving," said Steve Olivieri, pastor of Cornerstone Fellowship of Mill Run in Altoona, Pennsylvania. "They are the ones that essentially have left true Biblical Christianity in this respect."

"I don't want to do some of the things the Bible says sometimes, lot of times—but I still have to do it," Olivieri said. "We understand that whenever a passage says, ‘The following shall not inherit the Kingdom of God,' and it lists homosexuals, we believe that's a lifestyle choice that you make."

Mennonite teaching says homosexual activity is a sin, and also defines marriage as a lifelong covenant between one man and one woman.

The U.S. Mennonite Church has reprimanded and fired pastors who have defied the church's doctrine and conducted "LGBT weddings," a Daily Caller report said, but individual pastors have advocated for change. This push led the Mennonite U.S.A denomination to implement hiring and other official policies that the LMC saw as affirming LGBT lifestyles, resulting in the split...

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