Regionalization of the United Methodist Church

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, May 9th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

BROWN: Coming next on The World and Everything in It: African Methodists find a way forward.

The United Methodist Church is the last of the big mainline denominations to leave behind Biblical orthodoxy. For years, its American and European branches have increasingly promoted homosexuality, gay clergy, and other unbiblical behavior. Last week, the denomination’s General Conference formally approved many of those practices.

MAST: But the large contingent of United Methodists in Africa wants to stick to Biblical orthodoxy. Now they’re trying to find a way to stay part of the denomination without compromising their beliefs.

WORLD’s Elizabeth Russell has the story.

AUDIO: [Singing in African languages]

ELIZABETH RUSSELL: Four months ago, 150 people sang and swayed to the beat of a worship song in a huge whitewashed room in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.

They were a group of United Methodist pastors and laypeople from all over the African continent. For three days at the beginning of January, they met to hammer out plans for the denomination’s impending General Conference.

According to Zimbabwean pastor Lloyd Nyarota, their mission was to ensure the future of the United Methodist Church in Africa.

In Dar Es Salaam, Nyarota urged the delegates to support a plan to restructure the denomination along regional lines. That would give churches in different parts of the world the ability to set their own doctrinal standards. He believes it’s the only way African churches can stay in the increasingly divided denomination.

CHANTS: We were, we are, we will be UMC. Be UMC!

One version of that plan, called Worldwide Regionalization, passed its first hurdle on April 25th—during the denomination’s General Conference in Charlotte, NC. Delegates voted 586 to 164 for regionalization. Now that plan is headed to a wider group of lay and clergy voters for ratification.

If the plan passes, the UMC will restructure into eight regional conferences located in the United States, Africa, Europe, and the Philippines. Each conference will set its own rules for clergy ordination, marriage rites, and church courts. They can also revise some parts of the UMC’s Book of Discipline, the source of its doctrinal standards.

One UMC lay leader says regionalization might keep the denomination together, but it’s not worthwhile.

MAFUNDA: My name is Simon Mafunda. I am a Zimbabwean, born and bred in Zimbabwe. And I have been a Methodist since birth.

Simon Mafunda helped draft several propositions sent to the General Conference. He says regionalization sacrifices too much in the name of unity.

MAFUNDA: If we do regionalization, or allow certain geographical parts of the denomination, to change definition of marriage, for example, or to preside over gay marriages, or to you know, to do all those things that they're fighting for. We are actually regionalizing the Bible.

Mafunda believes there’s no future for Biblically orthodox churches in the UMC. He recommends that they leave as soon as possible. That’s what a quarter of American Methodist churches did over the past two years.

But many African Methodists want to stay. Why are they so committed to the denomination?

One reason is that African cultures place a high value on institutions and community. Here’s how Liberian pastor Jerry Kulah explained it.

KULAH: You have heard the word Ubuntu. I am because you are, you are because I am. So we live together, we watch one another's back, and we'll help you know, to develop one another. Your concerns are my concerns. Your children are my children.

Methodist missionaries to Africa have built and supported schools and hospitals there for over a century. So for many people, leaving the UMC means breaking with not just their church, but also other cornerstones of their communities.

Money and resources are another factor. 99 percent of the UMC’s ministry budget comes from its American members. Rob Renfroe is the president of traditionalist UMC advocacy group Good News. He said one African bishop recently approached him with a dilemma. The bishop said he was uneasy with the UMC’s shifting morals. But his country has a 30 percent literacy rate. And the UMC funds many schools in his area.

RENFROE: So there I can understand somebody who has traditional Biblical beliefs, saying, I've got the beliefs that I must uphold and defend. I also am a shepherd of these people whose lives and their futures depend upon some of the opportunities and ministries that are provided by the United Methodist Church. There, I can see a real moral dilemma.

But African churches that stay in the UMC may still have resource problems going forward. Jerry Kulah thinks Americans will stop sending money to regions that maintain Biblically orthodox policies.

KULAH: They will determine where it goes and where it does not go depending upon who agrees with their philosophy, uh and their practices.

And those practices are already changing. The General Conference delegates just voted to allow gay clergy and remove penalties for officiating gay weddings. They also quietly changed the denomination’s definition of marriage. It’s now called a covenant between “two people of faith.”

Regionalization would let the African churches maintain their own Biblical standards, but they’ll still be associated with the larger UMC. This is a huge problem because homosexuality is a crime in many African countries like Uganda.

Kulah thinks approval of gay marriage could be the breaking point that drives African churches out of the denomination.

KULAH: Many of the United Methodists across Africa are very angry for all the changes that liberalize the church.

But when I spoke to Zimbabwean pastor Lloyd Nyarota before the conference, he believed most Africans would stay in the UMC.

NYAROTA: I know there are some Americans who say we will leave the church, that's okay. Some of them have left already. But Africa has made the decision, we are not going to leave the United Methodist, we will stay and shape a denomination that accommodates everybody.

The weeks to come will determine if he’s right.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Elizabeth Russell.

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