Schuyler Beckwith and Thomas Lambrecht were eliminated with the least amount of votes. Voters will decide on four of eight candidates in the Nov. 8 general election.
A lawyer who is representing Methodist churches trying to split from the mainline denomination told Fox News Digital that the contentious fracture gets down to finances.
The rift within the mainline Methodist denomination has become more heated as a church conference in Georgia has temporarily prevented churches from severing their ties.
Nearly one-third of the churches in the North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church disaffiliated from the denomination in a special session on Nov. 19.
Leaders in the United Methodist Church explained the deeper reasons behind the widening gulf within the third-largest Protestant denomination in the United States.