Fast growing African Christianity, both evangelical and Catholic, is transforming global religion and affecting American Christianity, particularly its debates over homosexuality. The U.S. Episcopal Church, of course, has been prominently roiled by controversy since its 2003 election of an openly homosexual bishop, now joined by a newly elected openly lesbian bishop. African Anglican bishops, overwhelmingly conservative, have steadfastly encouraged the global Anglican Communion to sanction U.S. Episcopalians for their heterodoxy. But the Anglican Communion’s authority is mostly symbolic, and the Episcopal Church governs itself. A new communion, the Anglican Church in North America, is largely for orthodox former Episcopalians, many of whom have placed themselves under the authority of African bishops.
Considerably less publicized but no less significant is the United Methodist Church, which now almost uniquely among liberal-led, old-line denominations continues to affirm orthodox teachings on marriage and sexual ethics. The traditionalist stance, dismaying to its liberal elites, is thanks partly to the denomination’s growing African membership. Unlike the U.S. Episcopal Church, which is almost entirely U.S. members plus some small dioceses from Latin America and Taiwan, United Methodism is more fully international, with about one third of its members in Africa. Amid growing United Methodist churches in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria, among others, and a U.S. church losing about a 1,000 members weekly, the 11.4 million denomination likely will soon be majority African. At the church’s next governing General Conference in 2012, probably 40 percent of the delegates will come from outside the U.S., even further diminishing liberal hopes.
That’s a good thing for the UMC. I didn’t know that about their Developing World membership being so large and powerful.
Yes, #1, the American part of the UMC doesn’t have the autonomy of TEC in the worldwide AC (or the ELCA in the LWF). But it remains to be seen if the UMC will actually hold together as an international denomination. Time will tell. Meanwhile, the explosive growth of Christianity in subsaharan Africa remains an inspiration to those of us in the global north.
David Handy+
You mean the Methodists left behind the colonialistic imperialistic method of Western hubris employed by EcUSA/TEc and the western minority of the Anglican Communion! They actually preach and practice the equality that EcUSA/TEc makes a sham pretense to and the ABC, too? Do tell! The Wesley’s would be proud.
The UMC is on a downward arc no matter what the Methodist renewal groups say. They are in a state of denial, much like the TEC members who just cannot bear to leave, no matter what TEC does. I love hearing people say “why my family has been Methodists for 7 generations, and I’ll never leave.” The UMC bishops and bureaucratic hierarchy control all the levers of power, and they will not give it up.
Many of them are socialist parasites feeding off the UMC as their host and destroying it in the process. With the impending demise of guaranteed appointments for ordained elders, but not the appointment system that says you go where and when the bishop says, the ecclesiastical tyrants will wield even more power over the clergy and make them toe the UMC inclusive, socialist line or risk losing their salary, pension, and health benefits for them and their families.
They love to wax poetic about their Wesleyan heritage and the fact that there is no personal holiness without social holiness, but some historical research will show the U.S. branch of Methodism as rife with committed socialists and communists for most of the 20th century.
The best thing that could happen would be for the formation of something analogous to ACNA. Say what you will, but the U.S. branch, their bishops, political lobbyists, MFSA (Methodists for Social Action) and the associated GLBTQ lobby groups will never give up, much like TEC. I have seen it all from the inside as a lay leader and with relatives and close friends who are UMC clergy. Believe me, it’s ugly and getting uglier all the time.