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News Analysis
Mixed signs at Global Ministries meeting
By John Lomperis

The signs were mixed at the spring meeting of the directors of United Methodism's missions board. Expressions of left-leaning political activism continued unabated, even as there were new gestures of respect for evangelicals and interest in evangelism. Meanwhile, the budget and missionary force under the General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM) remained on a downward slope. The semi-annual meeting of the 90 GBGM directors took place from April 11-14 in Stamford, Connecticut.

Bishop Joel Martinez of San Antonio, the GBGM president, opened the meeting by honoring the late evangelical leader Bill Hinson for his contributions to the board. Hinson, who was also president of the Confessing Movement, was starting his second term as a GBGM director when he died last December. At last year's General Conference, Hinson aroused an uproar by suggesting an "amicable separation" between conservatives and liberals in the United Methodist Church.

Martinez praised Hinson's television ministry (of which Martinez's Roman Catholic aunt was a devoted viewer), his "open[ness] about his human frailties," and his being a "spokesman for a variety of issues in the life of the church." Hinson had tried to move the traditionally liberal GBGM in a more evangelistic direction.

Another evangelical leader within United Methodism was appointed to a leadership position within GBGM. Former Asbury Seminary president Maxie Dunnam, also a leader in the Confessing Movement, will chair the board's newly formed "Seminary Task Force for Mission." Dunnam was elected as a GBGM director last year.

According to GBGM general secretary Randy Day, the Dunnam-chaired task force will respond to concerns from United Methodist professors of mission "that we do not always provide the understanding of mission for clergy in our own seminaries." The task force will work to strengthen how clergy are trained to value missions.

The appointment of evangelical leaders within GBGM was once very unusual. For decades, evangelicals have criticized the board for its preference for political and social advocacy instead of traditional evangelism and charitable work. Perhaps in part because of that critique, GBGM's income has been declining in recent years. Its budget in 2004 was $143 million, down from $156 million the year before.

There are now 867 people serving in all of the GBGM's various domestic and foreign missionary programs-about 100 fewer than six months ago. Day reported that this decrease was due in large part to "our continuing financial inability to replace as many persons as retire or voluntarily leave mission service."

Director Guy Ames from Oklahoma noted that United Methodists give just 2.1 percent of their income to the church. That figure is one of the lowest rates in American Protestantism, despite the fact that United Methodists are relatively wealthier than members of many other denominations.

Directors also learned about United Methodism's continuing membership decline in the United States. Between 2002 and 2003, the denomination lost 269 congregations and 65,000 members-a steeper decline than in earlier years. Among the U.S. jurisdictions, only the Southeast gained members.

John Southwick of GBGM's Office of Research stressed the need for local congregations to be more actively and effectively engaged in evangelism. His office has conducted exhaustive demographic research on the communities around local United Methodist congregations. That research reveals, among other findings, that three-fourths of U.S. United Methodists live in "red" counties where a majority of voters supported President Bush. This demographic fact contrasts with the liberal bent of the national United Methodist leadership.

One example of GBGM's political activism was its sponsorship of a two-day seminar in January in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The seminar for Methodist young adults from around the world was held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the leftist World Social Forum, which defines itself as a network of "organizations opposed to neo-liberalism [free markets] and a world dominated by capital or by any form of imperialism."

David Wildman, the GBGM's Executive Secretary for Human Rights and Racial Justice, told GBGM directors that the forum is based on three "deeply biblical" commitments: pacifism, "that greed should not be the basis of decision-making" in economic policies, and opposition to "any form of fundamentalism." Wildman did not discuss how these commitments comported with the facts that: the United Methodist Church is not a pacifist denomination (the Social Principles recognize that "many Christians believe that, when peaceful alternatives have failed, the force of arms may regretfully be preferable to unchecked aggression, tyranny, and genocide"); Methodists, historically and currently, are not hostile to capitalism (John Wesley advised his followers, "Gain all you can, save all you can, give all you can"); and many traditional Methodists are accused, correctly or incorrectly, of being "fundamentalists" (Wesley himself declared, "Yea, I am a Bible bigot. I follow it in all things, both great and small.").

In other examples of GBGM political activism, a distributed report disclosed that the board recently awarded grants to the following groups:

. Center for Constitutional Rights ($1,400)-advocates taxpayer-funded abortions, removing the phrase "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, and honoring U.S. Army deserters.

. Greensboro Justice Fund ($5,000)-funnels money to left-wing activist groups, like the North Carolina Lambda Youth Network (a homosexual youth network) and the American Civil Liberties Union.

. The National Farm Worker Ministry ($3,000)-opposed the Iraq War and advocates a controversial amnesty program for some illegal immigrants.

. Middle East Research and Information Project ($2,500) -opposed "a U.S. military response" to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and advocates a more pro-Palestinian American foreign policy.

. Latin American Working Group ($500)-supported leftist insurgencies against U.S.-backed governments during the 1980s and currently opposes "right wing" efforts against illegal immigration.

. Washington Office on Latin America ($500)-opposes U.S. economic sanctions against Fidel Castro's Cuba, while also condemning U.S. support for the democratically-elected Colombian government in its fight against narco-traffickers and Marxist guerrillas.

. Interreligious Foundation for Community Organizing ($2,500)-called for President Bush to be voted out of office in 2004 and also opposes the economic sanctions against Cuba.

. Washington Office on Africa ($500)-opposes free trade agreements and supports the international treaty to ban all landmines, whether offensive or defensive.

. Africa Action ($1,500)-lobbied African governments against the Iraq War and advocates U.S. taxpayer funding for overseas abortions.

. Women of Color Resource Center ($1,000 "to support training workshops in human rights monitoring")-opposes the U.S. war on terror and "heterosexist family values."

. Center for JustPeace in Asia ($10,000)-denounces the allegedly "expansionist and imperialist tendencies" of the United States.

Much of the literature table for directors was taken up by books from the GBGM Women's Division 2005 Reading Program. Among the books that the Women's Division recommends for spiritual growth are Women of Sufism: A Hidden Treasure, which promotes a mystical strand of Islam, and Joseph Sprague's Affirmations of a Dissenter, in which the retired bishop denounces as "idolatry" foundational Christian teachings on Christ's virgin birth, full divinity, atonement for sin, and bodily resurrection.

Still other books on the table suggested that "interfaith" interactions can be "sacramental," asserted that there are "no easy answers" to such questions as whether non-Christians are being saved in their own religion, argued against the United Methodist Church position on homosexuality, and promoted taxpayer-funded abortion for the sake of "human rights."

Other Women's Division-endorsed books include War, Racism, and Economic Injustice: The Global Ravages of Capitalism, by Cuban dictator Fidel Castro; When Religion Becomes Evil: Five Warning Signs, which denounces belief in absolute religious truth as "evil"; and Pigs at the Trough, a polemic by liberal activist Arianna Huffington.

Not all of GBGM's work is focused on political activism and controversial theologies.  The directors approved grants for evangelism and church growth projects in the United States, Mongolia, Honduras, Cameroon, Nepal, Cambodia, Laos, Latvia, Lithuania, Senegal, Vietnam, Zimbabwe, Congo, and Sierra Leone.

In a brochure distributed at the GBGM meeting, General Secretary Day asserted that "the last fifteen years form the most active period of mission since the United Methodist Church was organized in 1968." He reported that over 300 new United Methodist "congregations or communities of faith" had been established "in 11 countries where our Church is either entirely new or is being renewed after years of communist rule."

At the commissioning service for the GBGM's twenty new missionaries (all of whom had U.S. assignments), Bishop Øystein Olsen of Northern Europe noted the rebirth of United Methodism in Lithuania, where the church has grown from zero to ten congregations in the last ten years. GBGM staffer S.T. Kimbrough spoke about a prison in Russia in which many inmates were being led into a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and joining the United Methodist Church.

Meanwhile, United Methodism continues to grow in Africa. Irene Kabete told fellow directors about how her church in Zimbabwe thoroughly involved both pastors and laity in the work of evangelism and new church planting. The Rev. George D. Wilson, Jr., of the Liberia Conference told of his ambition to expand a ministry to teenagers caught up in substance abuse, crime, and violence. The directors voted to establish the United Methodist churches in Senegal and Cameroon as missions under GBGM's care. The Book of Discipline describes this action as "the initial stage in moving toward the formation of a provisional or missionary conference." There are currently 35 United Methodist congregations in the two countries.

Directors heard from Don and Minnie Cobb, who were retiring after 33 years of GBGM missions in Africa, Malaysia, and Tonga. Cobb stressed that "it's not that we love God, but that he loved us enough to send his son to die for us, that we might love him." He recalled an instance when their agricultural training in Malaysia resulted in an entire village converting to Christianity.

Another important agenda item was the work of the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) in areas such as war-torn Darfur in Sudan and hurricane-damaged islands in the Caribbean Sea. Through the end of March, UMCOR had raised $32.4 million for tsunami relief in Indian Ocean nations. This total surpassed that raised by any other American denomination, according to director Guy Ames.

GBGM's most powerful unit is the Women's Division, whose directors met immediately prior to the full GBGM directors gathering. Leaders of the Women's Division issued a statement "appealing to United Methodist Women to speak out against the United States government's use of torture in the 'war on terror.'"

In response to the Women's Division statement, GBGM director Ran Loy from the New Mexico Conference asked if the Women's Division could also express appreciation for U.S. service men and women, lest the Women's Division be perceived as being anti-military. The Rev. James Mooneyhan, a director from North Georgia, called on fellow church leaders to be balanced in making public statements and to consider carefully the effects of such pronouncements on the entire denomination. The text of the Women's Division resolution was not changed; however, General Secretary Jan Love promised that she would take such concerns into account.

John Lomperis is a research assistant with UMAction, a committee of the Institute on Religion and Democracy.



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