(RNS) — This week marks two years since the United Methodist Church voted to remove the last barriers to full equality of LGBTQ+ members. The removal of those punitive measures came in the wake of a schism that saw the departure of more than 7,600 congregations, or about a quarter of U.S.-based Methodist churches. Now comes the postmortem. Lovett Weems Jr., retired director of the Lewis Center for Church Leadership at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., has penned an analysis of the forces that led to the schism and how the denomination might recover. A lifelong United Methodist who has studied available data, Weems suggests a practical way forward for its 4 million U.S. members. He begins the book — released by Abingdon Press in March — on a note of mourning. He will be buried next to his parents in the church cemetery of the Mississippi congregation where he grew up. But that church has disaffiliated and is no longer United Methodist.…