by Steve | Sep 29, 2023 | In the News
Another Mainstream Misunderstanding
By Thomas Lambrecht
It is instructive to hear how others perceive what one is saying or doing. Having an alternative perspective often sharpens up the message and enables corrections to misunderstandings. Such is the case with the most recent Mainstream UMC newsletter. (Mainstream UMC is a self-identified “centrist” caucus group within The United Methodist Church.)
Mainstream’s newsletter accuses the Global Methodist Church and traditionalists of “abandoning” Africa. This charge comes in response to the note in last week’s Perspective that the 40 percent reduction in the UM denominational budget proposed for the 2024 General Conference means less funding for the church in Africa. In fact, information coming out of the Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters indicates that Africa is likely to receive only two of the five new bishops they were promised in 2016. And that comes over eight years after that promise was made. (The slowness with which the UM Church is able to respond to critical needs is one source of frustration leading congregations to disaffiliate.)
Our argument has been that United Methodists in Africa cannot depend upon financial support from the UM denomination at the same level as before, due to the loss of funds through disaffiliating congregations, closed churches, and rapidly declining membership. Those who would contend for African United Methodists to remain in the denomination to continue receiving important missional support may be disappointed in the future at the shrinking level of that support.
Will the Global Methodist Church have enough money to support Africa?
In response, the Mainstream newsletter compares apportionment funding in the UM Church with apportionment funding in the GM Church. They point out that, since the GM Church will have only 15 to 20 percent of the number of congregations as the UM Church, it will have only 15-20 percent of the apportionment funding. Furthermore, the GM Church has capped general church apportionments at 1.5 percent of local church income, which is a little more than half of what churches now pay to the UM denomination through apportionments.
Bottom line, Mainstream’s article says the GM Church will have an annual budget of around $10 million, while the UM Church had a pre-Covid budget of $133 million. It is premature to fix on a GM Church annual budget number at this point, but we can grant it for the sake of discussion. Of course, with the 40 percent reduction proposed in 2024, the UM Church’s annual budget would go to around $80 million. That still means the UM Church will have roughly eight times the apportionments of the GM Church.
But this conclusion only paints part of the picture. The GM Church is not the UMC 2.0. It plans to do mission and ministry and denominational funding differently from how the UM Church has done it.
A different way of doing mission
Apportionments in the GM Church are designed to support the structure of the denomination, which will be lean. This frees up more money at the local level to be spent on mission support for projects locally, nationally, and around the world. The pool of money devoted to missions will undoubtedly be much larger than the total of apportionments. So, one cannot measure the denomination’s financial capacity by apportionments alone.
The GM Church conceives mission as an equal partnership between various parts of the denominational family. To foster that partnership, annual conferences with financial resources will be linked to annual conferences with other resources but lacking in finances. Instead of local churches sending money off to New York or Nashville to be distributed by denominational bureaucrats, in the GM Church money will be sent directly to partner annual conferences with whom those churches will have a personal relationship. Such mission money will be over and above apportionments, based on the free-will giving of congregations, which tend to give more to missions than to denominational structures.
Missional partnerships enable the forming of relationships between people in one conference and another. Money is being given to people we know personally, not just a cause or a project described in a brochure.
The funding pattern of the UM Church has in some instances created unhealthy dependency and one-way relationships in the church. Missional partnerships recognize that there are more resources than just money. They enable people in conferences that do not have a lot of money to share the resources they do have, including time, love, prayer, faith, experience with God, ministry strategies, and ways of interacting with their culture. Such partnerships foster mutuality and respect, learning and sharing.
A different way to do denominational structure
The Mainstream article laments the fact that the GM Church will not have an Episcopal Fund paying bishops out of general church apportionments. Instead, annual conferences will pay their own bishops out of annual conference apportionments. Conferences unable to do so will be supported through the partnerships explained above. This is different, but can be just as effective.
The article criticizes the fact that the GM Church will not have a Board of Global Ministries, a United Methodist Committee on Relief, or a Board of Higher Education and Ministry. This amounts to saying that if the GM Church does not do things the way the UM Church does, they will not get done.
The GM Church’s approach is not to build large bureaucratic organizations that carry out ministry on behalf of the denomination. Instead, the GM Church will seek to partner with already established and effective ministries to accomplish the same goals. That way, the GM Church does not have to spend oodles of money building ministry infrastructure, being able to use organizational infrastructure that already exists. It will make the new denomination much more nimble to respond to evolving ministry contexts by simply changing the mix of partner ministries to favor ones that can more effectively meet the missional needs of the moment.
There will still be a missions board to vet potential ministry partners, guide the denomination’s mission strategy, and facilitate the partnerships described earlier. But that missions board will focus on facilitating ministry, not necessarily doing ministry.
There will still be a board of ministry that vets theological schools to identify those most conducive to equipping the ministry leaders of the future. But the denomination will be supporting students’ educational expenses, not subsidizing schools. And it will probably not be founding and supporting “official” denominational schools, unless there is simply no viable alternative. Again, the focus will be on facilitating quality, theologically compatible education, not on building infrastructure.
This is a new way of doing denominational structure. It is a repudiation of the heavy emphasis on institution building characteristic of the post-World War II generation. By getting the right people with the right equipping and the right process in place, the church can accomplish great ministry without having to first build an exclusive ministry and organizational infrastructure that then needs to be supported with high overhead expenses for the next 50-100 years. It is not the United Methodist way, but we believe it can be more effective and more cost-efficient.
Moving toward self-sufficiency
Finally, the Mainstream article ignores the reality that the current United Methodist system of funding has at times created an unhealthy dependency on other parts of the global church. Rather than always approaching the American church with a hand out to receive, there is a growing desire in the African church to become self-sufficient, to stand on their own two feet and utilize the resources that God has blessed them with.
The GM Church is working with African and other non-U.S. contexts to create a pathway toward the church becoming (in the words of the recent Africa Initiative statement) “a free, self-governing, self-supporting, self-propagating and self-theologizing church, that will take its destiny in its own hands.” This will not happen immediately, but the goal is to enable this self-sufficiency within a few years of implementing the plan.
The GM Church is not about subsidizing the African church, but about empowering the African church. That is not abandonment, as the Mainstream article charges. Rather, it is about moving toward a more healthy, mutually interdependent relationship between the different parts of the church. This may be a different approach from that taken by the UM Church, but we believe it to be healthier and more effective.
The Mainstream article says that the GM Church is not committed to connectional ministry. However, the article seems to define connectionalism primarily in terms of money and secondarily in terms of bureaucratic structures. The GM Church defines connectionalism as relationship – personal relationships between people and mutual ministry relationships between different parts of the church. We believe this is more connectional and more empowering to all involved than what could be considered a kind of paternalistic, denominationally dominated connectionalism espoused by Mainstream.
The distortions about the GM Church promoted by the Mainstream article are unfortunate and probably the result of ignorance and misunderstanding. It points out the need to fully understand something before one begins to critique it. On the other hand, responding to the distortions enables the GM Church to further clarify and define itself in the minds of readers.
Hopefully, this response has made it clear that the GM Church is fostering a new kind of connection, one that is based on mutuality, relationship, and empowerment. It is certainly not a connection built only for U.S. Methodists, nor one that abandons Africa. Rather, it is a connection that respects the voices and contributions of all parts of the church, both geographically and economically. After all, that is how one builds a truly global denomination.
Thomas Lambrecht is a United Methodist clergyperson and the vice president of Good News. Photo: Shutterstock.
by Steve | Sep 22, 2023 | In the News, Perspective / News
Divisions in Africa
By Thomas Lambrecht
Recent meetings have clarified a developing divide in Africa between some bishops and other leaders who want to remain in The United Methodist Church and other leaders who are seeing the need to disaffiliate. The question will be: which group is more in sync with the grass roots clergy and laity of the church in Africa. The answer is that it probably varies from one annual conference to another.
Africa Colleges of Bishops
For a number of years, the bishops from the three central conferences of Africa have been meeting as a single college of bishops, even though the Discipline provides for each central conference to have its own college. In recent years, the combined colleges have issued statements that may or may not reflect the viewpoint of all the bishops of Africa.
Following its meeting ending September 7, the African bishops issued a statement regarding where they stand on disaffiliation and regionalization. The main takeaways from the statement are:
- “Notwithstanding the differences in our UMC regarding the issue of human sexuality especially with our stance of traditional and biblical view of marriage, we categorically state that we do not plan to leave The United Methodist Church and will continue to be shepherds of God’s flock in this worldwide denomination.” The statement goes on to pledge that they will “continue to do ministry in our context as traditionalist[s] in Africa.”
- “We support the ongoing discussion for regionalism, which would ensure that Africans would be accommodated in the way and manners in which we want to worship the Lord.” Regionalization is the proposal coming to the 2024 General Conference creating a U.S. region, along with the seven other central conferences outside the U.S. It would enable each region to become mostly self-governing in many areas of church polity.
- “We support the decision by the Council of Bishops to request General Conference sessions in 2026 and 2028. This will be necessary for smooth transitioning as our denomination emerges from the disruptions of COVID-19 pandemic and the aftermath of disaffiliations.” The African bishops seem unaware that the Council of Bishops has asked the Judicial Council to reconsider its requirement that a 2026 General Conference be held.
It is not surprising that some African bishops would declare their intention to remain in the UM Church. After all, it is the UM Church that pays their salaries and benefits, along with providing money for many of the mission projects in their annual conferences.
However, expectations of continuing financial largesse from the general church may be disappointed in the future, due to implementing the proposed 40 percent cut in the denomination’s budget.
Additionally, four of the nine active bishops supporting the “remain” statement are heading into retirement next year. They represent the past of the African church, not necessarily its future.
It is also important to note that three of the 12 active bishops did not support the statement. Bishops Kasap (South Congo), Quire (Liberia), and Yohanna (Nigeria) did not make a commitment to remain in the UM Church. Information coming out of the meeting also indicated that only four or five of the nine remaining bishops actually voted for the statement. The rest were reported to have abstained from the vote and then were listed as approving.
Africa Initiative Statement
Not only was there disunity among the African bishops, but there is also disunity between the majority of African bishops and the Africa Initiative (AI), which is the largest organization of African UM leaders that has worked together for the past ten years to promote traditional, orthodox perspectives on theological issues and to empower African participation in the UM Church. Coincidentally, 40 Africa Initiative leaders also met at the same time as the bishops, but in a different country. Their statement indicates sharp differences with those who would remain in the UM Church.
The one thing both groups agree on is the traditional understanding of marriage and human sexuality. The AI statement reads, “Enlightened by the Word of God, we remain steadfast in our convictions that marriage is between one man and one woman, that sexual intimacy is rightfully shared in that context only, and that clergy and all members of the church should either be celibate in singleness or faithful within a heterosexual marriage.” While the majority of bishops purport to also hold a traditional perspective, there is some question whether that is in fact true. Bishop Wandabula presided at the dedication of a Reconciling Ministries church in Nairobi, Kenya. Bishop Mande Muyombo apologized to progressives meeting in Dallas, Texas, for the role African delegates played in passing the Traditional Plan at the 2019 General Conference.
Far from being lip service, Africa Initiative “invite[s] all delegates to join our efforts to raise the voice of the church in Africa against all attempts to liberalize the UM Church’s sexual ethics and ordination standards at the upcoming General Conference.” They intend to organize the delegates for active opposition to the many proposed changes to UM standards.
The AI statement rejects “the proposed regionalization plan, aimed at silencing the voice of the church in Africa. The effect of that plan would be to compartmentalize sin within the UMC and make the African church complicit in allowing the U.S. church to adopt unscriptural teachings and standards.” Some of the bishops see regionalization as a way to preserve African opposition to the practice of homosexuality within a broad church with varying beliefs and standards. In contrast, the AI leaders see regionalization as an unacceptable compromise that associates the African part of the church with teachings and practices in other parts of the world that are contrary to Scripture.
Given the changing situation in the UM Church due to significant disaffiliation of traditionalists in the U.S., the AI leaders are positioning themselves for disaffiliation on that continent, as well. Their statement points to “the current illegal practices within the church, evidenced by the ongoing conduct of same-sex marriages, ordination of LGBTQ persons, and the election and consecration of self-avowed homosexuals as bishops within the UMC [as] reasons why evangelicals/conservatives rightfully seek disaffiliation from the UMC.”
The AI leaders see as their goal “a free, self-governing, self-supporting, self-propagating and self-theologizing church, that will take its destiny in its own hands. In one spirit, conviction, and purpose, we will commit to preparing our annual conferences for separation from an increasingly progressive UMC that is regrettably leading the denomination to adopt teachings contrary to Scripture and the historic doctrines of the Christian faith.” They envision each annual conference making “the choice of whether or not to remain independent or affiliate with another Methodist denomination, including the Global Methodist Church.”
Until now, the biggest obstacle to the African church moving toward this goal has been the refusal of its bishops to allow African churches to disaffiliate. The AI statement notes, “We decry the injustice that the existing Paragraph 2553 is not being applied in the Central Conferences, despite the specific language in the paragraph making it effective in 2019. This arbitrary decision by some bishops seeks to prevent African United Methodists from exercising the same right of disaffiliation that our American brothers and sisters have.”
“To correct this injustice, and in view of the above strategic plan, the Africa Initiative has proffered two petitions to the 2020 General Conference [meeting in 2024].” Those petitions are:
- A new Paragraph 2553 that provides “a uniform pathway for local church disaffiliation that applies universally across the church.” This paragraph would enable local churches around the world to all use the same process and meet the same requirements for disaffiliation. It would address the inequities imposed by some annual conferences in the U.S., as well as provide for congregations outside the U.S. to disaffiliate, a pathway that has so far been denied them.
- A new Paragraph 576 that would allow annual conferences outside the U.S. to disaffiliate and align with another Wesleyan denomination. This proposal would streamline and shorten the current disaffiliation process for non-U.S. annual conferences that do not want to become autonomous, but rather join another Wesleyan denomination, including the Global Methodist Church.
There is growing African interest in the possibility of disaffiliation, as the AI statement indicates. Given that U.S. traditionalists will no longer be around in significant numbers to thwart the agenda of U.S. progressives, African leaders are seeing the direction that the UM Church is likely to take. Centrists and progressives alike would endorse the recent statement by Mainstream UMC that, “We are committed to removing the harmful language from the Book of Discipline that targets our LGBTQ siblings.” What they see as “harmful language” is simply upholding the clear, gracious, and comprehensive teaching of Scripture and 2,000 years of church history that sexual intimacy belongs only within the framework of marriage between a man and a woman.
It remains to be seen whether the grass roots of the African church are more in sympathy with the perspective of some of their bishops, who desire to remain United Methodist, or with the AI leaders who see disaffiliation as a matter of principle, disconnecting from a church that is abandoning biblical teaching on marriage and human sexuality. It also remains to be seen whether the General Conference will create equitable pathways allowing the African church to make its own decisions, or whether it would seek to keep Africans trapped in the denomination through economic dependency and heavy-handed rules. Time will tell.
Thomas Lambrecht is a United Methodist clergyperson and vice president of Good News.
by Steve | Sep 15, 2023 | In the News
Marks of a Methodist 1: Experience –
By Thomas Lambrecht –
My wife is a marriage and family therapist. One of her recommended questions as a discussion starter to help couples remain emotionally connected is, “How am I changing and how have I stayed the same.” Methodism is in a period of upheaval right now, with the liberal evolution of United Methodism, structural separation, and the formation of the Global Methodist Church. Looking back over the nearly 300 years of Methodist history, it is helpful to ask the question, “How is Methodism changing, and how has it stayed the same.”
Two-hundred-eighty years ago, John Wesley (Methodism’s founder) wrote The Character of a Methodist to describe what he considered the essential qualities of a Methodist. I blogged about it in June. Just 63 years ago, Methodist Bishop Gerald Kennedy did a take-off on Wesley’s work in The Marks of a Methodist (1960). It is instructive to see what changed and what stayed the same in the intervening 220 years, as well as how Kennedy’s perception of Methodism fits with today’s church.
Gerald Kennedy would be called a centrist in today’s theological taxonomy. He was friendly and fair toward evangelicals, speaking at the very first Good News national Convocation in 1970. But he would not have classified himself in that historical category. Raised in California, Kennedy served as a pastor and college teacher (Pacific School of Religion) in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Elected bishop in 1948, he served four years in the Pacific Northwest, then an unheard-of 20 years as the bishop of Los Angeles. He was widely respected as a great preacher and authored nearly two-dozen books. He holds the distinction of being the only United Methodist bishop to serve as an active bishop and a local church pastor at the same time, when he appointed himself to First UMC of Pasadena.
Experience
In his book, Kennedy begins with the “distinguishing sign” of Methodism being experience. By this, he means a personal experience of the love, relationship, and power of God in one’s life. John Wesley’s father, Samuel, is quoted as saying, “The inward witness, son, the inward witness – this is the proof, the strongest proof of Christianity.”
This experience in Kennedy’s mind is birthed in conversion as an essential aspect of God’s working in a human life. “When [one] has it and knows it, the most natural thing in the world is to proclaim it to others and then watch it happen. Yet, … this first mark of a Methodist is often missing from our preaching.”
Kennedy laments that, “There is no room for something unplanned entering into the sanctuary and shaking [people’s] lives. It is all under control – our control. One of the main questions facing us today is whether formal churches can find room for the Spirit to move in the hearts of the congregation.” He maintains that such is possible in a “Gothic sanctuary with robes, processionals, and ritual,” but that it must be intentionally cultivated.
“This generation is as much in need of being converted as any in history,” writes Kennedy. He calls for “a thousand [people] who will receive the live coal from off the altar and set the fires of expectation to flaming in our Church.” Do we cultivate the experience of conversion in our worship? Do we testify to our own personal experience of God and invite others to share it?
Happiness
Kennedy cites Wesley’s words that the one who has had this experience “is therefore happy in God.” “The consciousness that God had accepted him as a son and forgiven his sins put a song in the heart of the Methodist convert,” writes Kennedy. This joy is available to anyone, regardless of circumstances or past. “This happiness was not found at the price of reality. Sin was not just a theory to the Methodists, for many of them had come up out of degradation and immorality. They had been rescued from the hopeless part of society which the Established Church assumed was beyond the reach of sanctification.” Whom do we consider to be “beyond the reach of sanctification” today? How are we imitating Wesley and Kennedy in carrying the good news of God’s transforming love and forgiveness to those very souls? That is a distinguishing mark of Methodist mission and ministry.
Kennedy diagnosed his own time (1960) as a time of undue and unbalanced pessimism. “Theology that emphasizes human hopelessness, uselessness, and worthlessness, in order to emphasize God’s sovereignty, is unbalanced.” One could say the same of our time, when many feel hopeless and powerless in the face of intractable societal problems and our divisive polarization.
The antidote to this pessimism is the Christian experience of conversion and redemption, which leads us to testify to the reality of a God more powerful than problems. “We must bear our witness that Christianity is the restoration of joy. Nature looks different to the Christian and so does history. People become new creatures and life becomes the great adventure. Life after [our own personal] Aldersgate may not be easy, but it will never be meaningless, and it will never be sad.”
Worship
Worship is often the venue for conversion, as happened to Francis Asbury, the “American Saint” who led the early Methodist Church in the U.S. Kennedy notes, “The mark of a Methodist service is its singing, its sense of the immediacy of Christian redemption, its warmth of fellowship, and its enthusiastic invitation to salvation. The cold, lifeless, formal services, which are the marks of so many of our churches, bear sad testimony to our apostasy. This is not our way, and these are not our gatherings.”
One is struck by the boldness and bluntness with which Kennedy confronts the shortcomings of the churches of his day. Such therapeutic honesty is lacking in many of our leaders today. Unfortunately, the same diagnosis of “cold, lifeless services” might be levied against many Methodist congregations today, whether they are formal or informal, traditional or contemporary in style, singing hymns or the latest praise music.
Worship is to be an embodiment and overflow of our experience of Jesus Christ. “Methodists sing their theology. … Theology ought to be sung, for, if it is real, it is a part of a person’s emotional life.” Charles Wesley’s over 6,000 hymns expressed Methodist belief in a way congregations could internalize. Songs sung on Sunday are often the soundtrack playing in our head throughout the week. Unforgettable are those experiences of singing with other believers joined together in a common faith and a common experience of God’s redemption through Christ. There is a power in such worship that sets the table for the Holy Spirit to work in the lives of all who are there.
Kennedy sums up the Methodist mark of personal experience in this way: “The Methodist preacher without an experience is a fire that smokes but never flames. The Methodist [layperson] without an experience may be a [salesperson] for an institution, but who wants to live in an institution? We believe in a wide variety of experiences, and we do not assume that God deals with all [people] alike. But we believe that God reveals Himself to every [person], and, if we will allow Him, He will find us, and we will know it.”
Are we structuring the ministry of our churches in such a way as to encourage people to seek the Lord in a personal way and come expecting to experience him? This is an essential mark of Methodism that needs to be recovered in the church today. It was the hallmark of the Wesleyan revival in the 1700’s, was lacking in much of the church of Kennedy’s era, and is often absent in our congregations today. Authentic Methodism cultivates the presence, love, and power of God in a real and tangible way. Absent that experience, we have nothing to share with a world hungering for God.
Thomas Lambrecht is aUnited Methodist clergyperson and vice president of Good News. Photo of Bishop Gerald Kennedy (1907-1980) courtesy of Abilene Library Consortium provided by the McMurry University Library to the Portal to Texas History. Kennedy was the feature speaker for the 1967 McMurry College Willson Lectures.
by Steve | Sep 11, 2023 | In the News, Perspective / News
Notes from Africa
By Thomas Lambrecht
As I write this, I am in the middle of a three-day meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, with about 40 leaders of African Methodism. Most are United Methodist, while a few have already joined the Global Methodist Church because they were evicted from the UM Church.
The devotion this morning was led by a pastor from the Democratic Republic of Congo. He talked about the passage of Scripture in I Kings 18 when Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal on the top of Mount Carmel. He illustrated from the passage that those who speak prophetically for God are often viewed by people in authority as “the problem.” When Elijah confronted King Ahab, he addressed Elijah as “you troubler of Israel.” Elijah replied, “I have not made trouble for Israel, but you and your father’s family have. You have abandoned the Lord’s commands and have followed the Baals” (I Kings 18: 16-18).
When people challenge those in authority for speaking or acting contrary to God’s will as outlined in Scripture, the challengers often are put down as the ones causing problems. The story was shared here in the meeting about a pastor who raised questions to the bishop during the annual conference session. The next day, the pastor was removed from his appointment and evicted from the parsonage. At 8 PM the pastor was asking a colleague to borrow his truck because he had to move all his family’s possessions out of the parsonage by midnight and move in with his brother to have a place to live. I turned to Good News president Rob Renfroe, who is also at the meeting with me, and said, “And I thought we had it bad in the U.S.!”
The last Perspective told the stories of an African leader arbitrarily and illegally removed from the Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters and about a U.S. pastor summarily suspended from his church, even though the church’s disaffiliation vote failed. We are grateful for the bishops who have acted with measured wisdom and fairness. Unfortunately, some bishops are increasingly exercising autocratic power in ways never envisioned by the Book of Discipline. They have become a law unto themselves. Stories of punishments and persecution are common in Africa, aimed at traditionalists who are not willing to go along with the One Church Plan agenda of their bishops.
From Small Beginnings
The episode of Elijah on Mount Carmel ended with God bringing rain after three years of drought. God promised Elijah he would bring rain, and Elijah began to pray on the top of Mount Carmel. Periodically, he would send his servant to look for signs of an approaching rain. Time after time, the servant would return, saying, “There is nothing there.” But on the seventh time, the servant reported, “A cloud as small as a man’s hand is rising from the sea” (I Kings 18:41-45). Within a short time, “the sky grew black with clouds, the wind rose, a heavy rain started falling.”
The African leaders here sense the coming of the rain of revival. They believe that, despite the difficulties posed by the ongoing schism in the UM Church, God is bringing spiritual revival to the continent of Africa.
Just over a year ago, the Global Methodist Church officially launched in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Churches there were not allowed to disaffiliate by the bishop. Instead, over the past several years, two of the four bishops have steadily cast out of the church pastors and lay leaders who attempted to promote a traditionalist position. The good news is that, since launching a year ago, there are now over 160 churches that have been planted in homes and other meeting places in the two episcopal areas in DRC where the outcasts are. God is using the hardships to birth a new church that is unfettered by corruption or abuse of power, focusing on the Gospel, evangelism, and serving others in the name of Christ.
Just last month, for the first time, churches successfully disaffiliated in Africa. During the Kenya-Ethiopia Annual Conference meeting, 58 out of 91 churches in Kenya voted to disaffiliate and join the Global Methodist Church. Sixteen more that were planted in the last year have also joined, making for 74 total GM churches now in Kenya. More congregations may join them. You can read more about the details here in the GM Church’s blog.
The African leaders take great hope from these developments. They believe out of small beginnings – a cloud no larger than the size of man’s hand appearing on the horizon – God will bring great revival and rain down his Spirit to quench the spiritual thirst in a dry land.
Neo-colonialism?
Some progressives and centrists are working very hard to marginalize the voices of Africa. They believe the African delegates to General Conference can be persuaded to support the regionalization plan endorsed by the Connectional Table and the Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters. This plan would isolate the various regions of the church from each other, allowing each region – and most especially the U.S. part of the church – to enact its own agenda, unhindered by input from other regions of the church.
However, there is no support for such regionalization among these African leaders who represent the majority of grass-roots United Methodists. Some African bishops are reportedly withholding all information from their people about the conflict in the church, hoping to keep them in ignorance and thereby direct the course of their annual conference without questions or hindrance from their people. Pastors and lay leaders who share information are penalized, keeping others in fear of similar punishment. All of this occurs outside the prescribed processes of the Book of Discipline and contrary to the fair process of church accountability. There is still no way in our Discipline to hold such bishops accountable.
Again, despite persecution and hardship, these African leaders are standing firm. They will not compromise the principles of our faith. They see through the attempts of the bishops to manipulate them. They understand that the point of regionalization is to free the U.S. church from hearing or heeding the traditionalist voices of Africa, which now constitutes a majority of the worldwide United Methodist Church. They continue steadfast in their contention that they cannot remain part of a denomination that goes against Scripture by affirming same-sex marriage and the ordination and consecration of non-celibate gays and lesbians as pastors and bishops of the church.
The bishops have prevented churches outside the U.S. from using Par. 2553 for disaffiliation, claiming it only pertains to churches in the U.S. (Churches that have successfully disaffiliated in Bulgaria, Slovakia, Estonia, and Kenya used other strategies to accomplish their goal.) That is why African leaders have submitted petitions to the 2024 General Conference to reinstitute a revised Par. 2553, as well as a streamlined process for annual conference disaffiliation, both of which would apply to conferences and churches outside the U.S.
Not only does the bishops’ interpretation fly in the face of the actual language of Par. 2553, but it also represents a resurgent neo-colonialism in the way that many U.S. UM leaders treat United Methodists outside the U.S. and particularly in Africa. Their experience of this resurgent neo-colonialism has often been mentioned by African leaders in the meetings here this week.
Many African delegates have been asking for months for the Commission on the General Conference to send them their letters of invitation to General Conference, so the delegates may schedule their interviews to obtain a U.S. visa. Despite repeated requests, many delegates have not received the invitation letters. Time is running short, as some U.S. embassies in African countries are now scheduling visa interviews six to nine months from now. Soon, it will be too late for some African delegates to receive their visas. An unusually high number of African delegates are at risk of not being able to attend General Conference. Perhaps, if African delegates cannot be converted to support regionalization, their presence at General Conference can be compromised, forming just another way to reduce the traditionalist voices and votes from Africa.
The African leaders in this meeting are not discouraged. Despite the obstacles, they see the hand of God working here in Africa, bring people to Christ and multiplying concrete expressions of God’s love to be experienced by thousands. They believe in the power of prayer and in the ability of a wonder-working God to overcome all barriers to bring about the growth of his kingdom. As diverse parts of the Body of Christ, U.S. Christians could use more of that confidence and faith. Judging by the tenor of this meeting and my previous experiences with these anointed leaders, the African church stands to contribute much to the future fruitfulness of global Methodism.
by Steve | Sep 1, 2023 | In the News, Perspective / News
A Collapsing “Big Tent”?
By Thomas Lambrecht
Throughout this season of disaffiliation, many United Methodist bishops and leaders have attempted to convince traditionalists to remain in the denomination. They have assured traditionalists that there is a place for them in the UM Church and that their views would be respected. Some annual conferences have developed a culture of inclusion that enables traditionalists to participate equally. Other annual conferences – not so much.
Two current examples illustrate the eagerness of some bishops and conference leaders to exclude or punish traditionalist leaders.
Traditionalist Leader Removed from Standing Committee
On August 19, Simon Mafunda, a layperson in Zimbabwe, Africa, received an email notifying him that the (East) Africa Central Conference College of Bishops (the five bishops serving in eastern and southern Africa) had removed him from membership on the Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters. Mafunda has been a General Conference delegate and a member of the Standing Committee since 2016. He also served as lay leader of the Zimbabwe East Conference, elected as such by the annual conference members.
Bishop Daniel Wandabula, president of the College of Bishops, alleged in the email that Mafunda no longer represented the interests of the (East) Africa Central Conference because he is serving as the Vice President for Africa Strategy for the Wesleyan Covenant Association. Wandabula gave no specific example of how Mafunda has failed to represent the central conference in his work on the Standing Committee. Mafunda was removed from the committee and a replacement named by the College of Bishops in time for the next meeting of the Standing Committee, which took place the same day Mafunda received the email.
There is no provision in the Book of Discipline allowing a College of Bishops to remove someone from a committee of the church. Mafunda was named to the Standing Committee by the Council of Bishops (all the bishops serving in the denomination) and ratified by vote of the General Conference. The College of Bishops had no official role in naming Mafunda and has no official role to remove him from the committee.
The Standing Committee itself has the authority under Par. 711 “to remove and dismiss at their discretion any member, officer, or employee thereof:
- Who has become incapacitated so as to be unable to perform official duties.
- Who is guilty of immoral conduct or breach of trust.
- Who for any reason is unable to or who fails to perform the duties of the office or for other misconduct that any council, board, committee, or commission may deem sufficient to warrant such dismissal and removal.”
It is notable that the Standing Committee did not take this action to remove Mafunda. They did not find his participation on the committee to be a “breach of trust,” nor did they find him unable to perform his duties on the committee.
The College of Bishops does have the authority to fill a vacancy on the Standing Committee (Par. 712), but they did not have the authority to create the vacancy in order to fill it.
It is surmised that the bishops removed Mafunda from the Standing Committee in order to smooth the way for approval of the petitions for regionalization. Mafunda had been an outspoken opponent of the Christmas Covenant and other regionalization proposals. His removal allowed the Standing Committee to approve the latest version of the regionalization petitions without opposition.
The (East) Africa College of Bishops seems very selective about what they consider the interests of the central conference. They removed a strong traditionalist leader who has been an advocate for the current Book of Discipline. At the same time, they had nothing to say about the fact that Kenya now has two Reconciling Congregations, one of which was personally dedicated by Bishop Wandabula himself. The designating of a congregation as a “Reconciling Congregation” has been illegal under church law since 1999 (Judicial Council Decisions 847 and 871). Yet, Wandabula was allowed to promote something that is illegal, while at the same time also violating church law in removing a member of the Standing Committee.
It seems that the traditionalist position is not welcome in the (East) Africa Central Conference among its leaders.
North Georgia Vindictiveness
North Georgia Conference leaders were already in a questionable position after “pausing” the disaffiliation process for all churches at the end of 2022. Only a court ruling in response to a lawsuit filed by 190 churches forced the conference to reopen the process for disaffiliation. At this point, some 250 churches have voted to disaffiliate in North Georgia.
The First United Methodist Church of LaGrange, Georgia, failed its disaffiliation vote by 13 votes. The conference pulled out all the stops to keep that church in the fold. They sent in the conference chancellor, five former pastors of the congregation, three college presidents of LaGrange College, and others to advocate for the church to remain United Methodist. Despite the pressure, 64 percent of the 535 ballots cast favored disaffiliation. It missed the required two-thirds vote by 13 ballots.
The week after the vote, a prayer meeting was held to promote healing and unity in the congregation. The district superintendent recruited another pastor to attend the prayer meeting and video record it. At the conclusion of the prayer meeting, that pastor verbally and publicly confronted both the senior and associate pastors of LaGrange First, yelling, “If you had any integrity, you would resign from The United Methodist Church.”
The following Sunday, the senior pastor, the Rev. Dr. John Beyers, preached a conciliatory sermon indicating his hope that the church could continue its ministry and that it could be a strong traditionalist voice within the North Georgia Conference. At the same time, nearly 250 members of the church met in a Baptist Church gym to start a new Global Methodist congregation.
This past Sunday, it was announced that Beyers had been suspended by the bishop and conference board of ordained ministry. One of the former LaGrange College presidents was appointed as the interim pastor. In keeping with the suspension, Beyers was forbidden any contact with church members and barred from the church campus.
Highly unusually, all administrative committees of the church were also suspended from meeting. This included the church council, Staff-Parish, Finance, Trustees, and Nominations Committees. All non-essential expenditures of money were also frozen. There is no provision in the Book of Discipline allowing the annual conference to shut down the operation of lawfully elected leaders of a local church, unless the conference has declared “exigent circumstances” and is closing the church. So far, that has not been the case here.
Chris Ritter reports that “Dr. Beyers is a distinguished member of the World Methodist Council, a trustee of the historic Epworth Rectory, and widely respected as a center-right presence in the UMC.” He has served in ministry for 35 fruitful years. Beyers had also recently been hospitalized for a serious medical condition. He serves as a member of the Good News board.
It is unknown what would prompt North Georgia leaders to treat a respected traditionalist leader in such a callous way, or what would justify the conference’s illegal and heavy-handed attempt to wrest control of a local church away from its elected leaders, especially in a church where the conference won the vote! The church is remaining United Methodist, and there is nothing its traditionalist members could do about that. Yet the conference still came down hard on that congregation.
The interim appointed pastor, The Rev. Dr. Stuart Gulley, had advocated for the congregation to remain UM by stating, “Ten years from now, I fully expect that positions on homosexuality, like with slavery a century ago and women’s ordination over a half century ago, will have evolved to the point that few people will hold that homosexuality is contrary to biblical teaching.” Gulley certainly reflects the direction conference leaders want to take the church in North Georgia. Based on the conference’s actions, it appears there is no longer any room for a traditionalist voice in that conference.
In her announcement of Beyers’ suspension, the church’s Staff-Parish Relations Committee chair said, “Doctor Gulley is prepared to lead you, in his own words, on ‘the right side of history.’ But as for me and my household, we shall serve the Lord.” She then walked out of the service, accompanied by about a dozen other members.
Sadly, power plays by bishops and annual conference leaders will make many traditionalists believe they, too, have no longer any place in the UM Church. It makes one question whether the “Big Tent” approach to Methodism is sustainable.
Thomas Lambrecht is a United Methodist clergyperson and vice president of Good News. Image: Shutterstock.
by Steve | Aug 29, 2023 | In the News, Perspective / News
Contrasting Views of Scripture
By Thomas Lambrecht
The essence of the conflict currently roiling The United Methodist Church is a disagreement over the teaching and authority of Scripture. This disagreement is manifested in the church’s attitude toward same-sex romantic relationships. But the reason that traditionalists are unwilling to compromise on the historic teaching of the church on the definition of marriage and the proper sphere of human sexual expression is that such a compromise seems to us to violate the clear teaching of Scripture. In the progressive view, either Scripture does not mean what it says about these issues, or there is another authority that is higher than Scripture for what Christians should believe and how we should live.
A recent blog post on the progressive United Methodist site, UM Insight (edited by Cynthia Astle), featured a ten-point summary of a progressive view of Scripture. Written by Ashley Anderson, otherwise unidentified in the article, the summary outlines a series of “revelations” in response to her “reading the sacred scriptures of the world’s religions,” as well as “conversations with people who belonged to other faiths.” The points she pens apply to all the various sacred writings of the world’s religions, including Christian Scripture.
All progressives may not share Ashley’s perspective on Scripture. But I have heard and read similar ideas often enough that I believe there is a common viewpoint held by many progressives that aligns with Ashley’s summary. The virtue of Ashley’s summary is that it puts the points in a very clear and succinct way that enables us to contrast this particular progressive view with the traditional understanding of Scripture held by the church through most of its history.
What is Scripture?
The summary begins, “All religious scriptures are the words of humans about God, not God’s words to humans. They were written by humans no holier than you or I” [sic].
This poses the basic question, “Is the Bible the self-revelation of God (God’s Word) or simply a record of what people thought were their experiences with God?” If it is the latter, then the Bible carries only the weight of authority we might give to the advice of a good friend. It certainly would not bear the weight of forming the basis for a whole religious and theological system, let alone being a reliable guide as to how to live and have a relationship with the living God.
The EUB Confession of Faith, one of our doctrinal standards, says this about the Bible, “We believe the Holy Bible, Old and New Testaments, reveals the Word of God so far as it is necessary for our salvation. It is to be received through the Holy Spirit as the true rule and guide for faith and practice.”
Most traditionalists believe the Bible not only reveals the Word of God, but it is the Word of God. Some would go so far as to say the Bible is without error in all that it teaches. Others would allow for inconsequential errors in things like numbers or limited historical data. All would agree that the Bible is the infallible guide to the way of human salvation, including who God is and how we can relate to him in a personal way.
Some traditionalists would say that every word of the Bible was dictated by God. Certainly, there are large chunks of Scripture that purport to quote God’s exact words, including in the law of Moses and in many of the prophets. The Gospels purport to record the words of Jesus. These sections undoubtedly are the exact words of God/Jesus. Many traditionalists would say that the rest of Scripture, while not directly dictated by God, was inspired by God, so that the human authors, working out of their own culture and experience, conveyed the truth from God in the language and idioms they were familiar with.
The key verse traditionalists point to is 2 Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.” The early church designated which books are considered part of the Bible. All these 66 books are inspired by God. While their authors may not be perfectly holy, they were used by God as instruments to convey his truth to the world. (And some of them were very holy and righteous people!)
Is the Bible authoritative for how we are to live?
Ashley Anderson’s progressive summary says, “Not all the advice given in scriptures is worth following and not all the rules given in them are worth obeying.”
The UM Confession of Faith says, “[The Bible] is to be received through the Holy Spirit as the true rule and guide for faith and practice.” It goes on to say, “Whatever is not revealed in or established by the Holy Scriptures is not to be made an article of faith nor is it to be taught as essential to salvation.”
Does that mean that every word or command of Scripture is to be obeyed now in our time in the Christian church? No. The real question is, how are we to know which parts of the Bible still apply to us today?
The UM Articles of Religion, which are also part of our doctrinal standards, says, “Although the law given from God by Moses as touching ceremonies and rites doth not bind Christians, nor ought the civil precepts thereof of necessity be received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding, no Christian whatsoever is free from the obedience of the commandments which are called moral.”
The church distinguishes between ceremonies and rites of worship commanded in the Old Testament, civil precepts that governed the nation of Israel, and moral teachings and commandments. The death and resurrection of Jesus made the Old Testament sacrificial system unnecessary. And the church is not a government, so it need not follow the rules laid out for how the national government of Israel was supposed to function in the Old Testament. Jesus himself abrogated the rules about kosher foods (Mark 7:19). Therefore, the church no longer follows the ceremonial, civil, or food laws of the Old Testament. Even so, however, these laws often contain principles that can be instructive for Christians, and we should not just ignore them.
The church does acknowledge the continuing authority of the moral commandments, those teachings that lay out the “principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior,” as the Oxford dictionary puts it. The laws about marriage and human sexuality unquestionably fall into this category.
The point is that individuals are not equipped to go through the Bible and pick and choose which “advice” or “rules” apply to us. The church has established guidelines about which types of teachings are still applicable, and there is a long tradition of how these teachings are to be applied in our lives. Coming to a conclusion about whether a certain teaching is still applicable today is a determination made by the church as a whole, informed by biblical scholarship and theological reasoning. And it has to be rooted in the various categories listed above. The Ten Commandments are still in force!
Is the Bible to be trusted?
Anderson’s progressive summary states, “People who claim to have been chosen by God to give final and definitive messages to humanity should not be trusted, especially with children.” Leaving aside the snarky humor in that point, I guess that leaves Jesus out of the equation.
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” And, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:6, 9). Jesus was pretty clear that he was sent by God the Father to reveal him to humanity. As the writer to the Hebrews says, “Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways through the prophets. And now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son. … The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God” (Hebrews 1:1-3). As Paul put it from the ancient Christian hymn, “Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.”
The essence of the Christian faith is that Jesus is the way to the Father (not just one way among many). He teaches and embodies the truth about God and about humanity. He gives us life in the here and now, as well as throughout eternity.
How do we know these things? How do we know what Jesus said? In those hackneyed words, because “the Bible tells me so.” If we do not trust the Bible, there is no way we can trust Jesus. We have no way of reliably knowing Jesus outside the written words of Scripture. The good news is that the Bible has been proven true time after time. Whether it is an archaeological confirmation of some recorded historical detail, or the wisdom of finding salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, the Scriptures are trustworthy.
Ultimately, to not trust the Bible is to instead trust our own wisdom and understanding. It is we who would determine what we believe from the Bible and what we would reject. It is we who would decide what we think God is like, who Jesus is, and how we can please God (if we think we even need to do that!). It becomes the religion of me, instead of the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ that has been proclaimed and lived for 2,000 years and has transformed countless lives and changed the course of human history. In the end, it is to put ourselves in the place of God, making our understanding of God match our own image. Surely, that is the ultimate idolatry.
The progressive tendency to downplay the reliability and authority of the Bible and elevate human wisdom and experience (“follow the science!”) has proven to be a blind alley throughout human history. The contrasting perceptions of Scripture are the real issue at stake in our Methodist separation. This is why most traditionalists believe we are dealing with bedrock issues of faith, not simple disagreements about peripheral issues. It is why it was found necessary to separate from United Methodism, despite the cost and the conflict, and to begin the Global Methodist Church founded explicitly on the foundation of an infallible, trustworthy Bible and a consensual tradition of its interpretation throughout church history.
Thomas Lambrecht is a United Methodist clergyperson and vice president of Good News.
