African delegates and one African bishop joined in a protest after General Conference delegates voted to revise the church’s position on marriage, for the first time approving same-sex couples who choose to wed.
At the opposite end of a plaza outside the Charlotte Convention Center, members of the Queer Delegate Caucus and allies celebrated the same decision.
This General Conference has embraced full LGBTQ inclusion through a number of votes, including on May 2 affirming “marriage as a sacred, lifelong covenant that brings two people of faith (adult man and adult woman of consenting age or two adult persons of consenting age) into a union of one another and into deeper relationship with God and the religious community.”
After the marriage language decision, about 65 Africans, with a smattering of others, sang hymns and prayed together, while also making clear their view that the Bible does not sanction same-sex marriage and The United Methodist Church shouldn’t either.
“We do not believe we know better than the Bible,” said the Rev. Jerry Kulah, a General Conference delegate from Liberia, coordinator of the traditionalist Africa Initiative and leader at the rally.
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Virginia Bambur, a delegate from the Central Nigeria Conference, also disapproved of the General Conference action.
“I’m not happy about it,” she said. “You cannot change the word of God.”
Bishop John Wesley Yohanna of Nigeria joined the protest and criticized the General Conference’s more expansive language on marriage.
“Marriage is between a man and a woman, period,” he said.
Most African United Methodist bishops have expressed strong support for the traditional definition of marriage, while also saying they are committed to The United Methodist Church, provided church policies can be adapted to the African context.
But Yohanna has long made clear that he would have to leave the denomination if it in any way endorsed same-sex marriage.
He said after the protest that he is nearing the end of his episcopal term and wants to stay long enough to help bring reconciliation among United Methodist factions in Nigeria. He said he was still weighing whether he would eventually join another denomination.
Yohanna predicted that the new language on marriage will come at a cost to United Methodism.
“I’m very sure this will affect the membership of the church in Africa,” he said.
Kulah echoed that while speaking at the protest.
“We return to Africa with important decisions to make regarding the future,” he said.
Kulah also said that more than 70 African delegates never made it to General Conference and blamed the Commission on General Conference for lack of communication and lateness in sending letters of invitation necessary to get a visa.
“It felt as if we were not valued or wanted,” Kulah said.
This General Conference’s credentials committee has reported on absentee delegates but without specifying the number of Africans. The committee’s chair also has noted the challenge the staff faced in verifying properly elected delegates from Africa.
Maybe 30 yards from the Africans’ protest, supporters of the change on marriage language gathered, including Bishop Karen Oliveto.
Oliveto, a lesbian whose 2016 election as bishop by Western Jurisdictional Conference delegates caused major controversy in the denomination, spoke to the crowd.
“You are the love child of God,” she said. “The church looks a lot more like heaven today.”
Justice Mitchell, a graduate student studying for a divinity degree, had driven to Charlotte from Durham, North Carolina, the morning of May 1, after finishing finals the previous day.
“I’ve been a Methodist my whole life, and I’ve been in the ordination track for the past three or four years,” he said. “A lot of the stuff that we’re voting on has very huge impacts for my future in the next three or four years.”
Katelyn MacDonald, another observer from Durham, said she was “excited that the church structurally is moving in a more inclusive direction.”
“We’re trying to get our church polity and structures to catch up to what God has already been doing in the world,” she said.
Jan Nelson, a lay delegate from the Oregon-Idaho Conference, said her life has started to revolve around the church more since her retirement.
She said that this General Conference’s decisions on LGBTQ inclusion are a big positive.
“This means that this fight can be set aside and we can keep working for eliminating poverty and eliminating racism and all the other things that the church needs to be about,” she said.
This article originally appeared at UM News.
Hodges and Patterson are writers for United Methodist News.
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16 Responses
Thanks much for the full reports on the United Methodist decisions. In my small congregation we are now missing some dozen or more who actually grew up in this church body. That to me is the terrible thing in the division. Those left believe strongly in seeing God’s inclusive spirit at work. We can reaffirm what United Methodists declared in years past, “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors.”. Dr. John W. Crawford, Southwest Arkansas
The desire to open fellowship to everyone, is in line with scripture. The desire to change scriptures requirements is in line with the serpent in the garden. “Has God really said?” has been uttered before, and will be again. It doesn’t end well for the “open minded.”
Exactly. It’s a broad way that leads to destruction, as someone called Jesus Christ says in Matthew 7:13…
The UMC is officially an APOSTATE CHURCH
I am sure the vestment colors will remain the same; while focusing on gnats of minutia and swallowing camels of immorality they are not going to grow. Perhaps their buildings can house Bible believing congregations as the UMC dies a slow death.
“Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. “Everything is permissible for me”-but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me”-but I will not be mastered by anything. “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food”-but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit. Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” – 1 Corinth. 6:9
It’s amazing to me that people are so certain that they are “right” that marriage is ONLY between one man and one woman, when 1.) scripture has a vast number of examples and commands about what marriage is based on the context of the time, many even conflicting with each other because they were written to different people in different contexts, and 2.) we are so willing to understand contextualization when it comes to other issues, like slavery, and women being silent in church.
It indicates to me that most people are culturally christian, and haven’t really read or studied to understand their bible, but we’re so indoctrinated into what-has-always-been, and haven’t looked at Who God is and what God is doing. The God of the bible is always bent on opening the gates wider, bringing more folks in, even “scandalous” folks, and not pushing folks out, which is what today’s “church” seems to be intent on doing. Jesus upset people in his context by who he invited in, and not just to “convert” but into full fellowship. We would do right to follow that lead.
Matthew 25 is pretty clear about how Jesus will sort the sheep from the goats, and it’s not based on believing all the right things, or even teaching and prophesying in his name- it’s not about being the “right”est, but loving the most. You WILL be a goat, unless you are loving, serving, and welcoming those that society (and the church) has pushed out.
This quote pretty much says it all: ““This means that this fight can be set aside and we can keep working for eliminating poverty and eliminating racism and all the other things that the church needs to be about,” she said.” Note that seeking the lost and fulfilling the Great Commission is missing.
Eric – addressing the ills of poverty, racism, and the like is HOW you can seek the lost and fulfill the Great Commission. That is how you demonstrate God’s love for all people – regardless of income level, race, or whatever. You think people believe the gospel when it comes out of the mouths of those who ignore, downplay, deny or even “hide behind the Great Commission” as a reason to not address poverty, racism, and the like?
Jesus literally calls us to help the poor and the marginalized, but we have Christians who say “I’m too busy saving souls to do that” – and they fail to see the irony.
Seeing justice for people on the margins is exactly how the great commission is fulfilled. We get it wrong when we think it’s about teaching people propositional truths- that’s not what Jesus came here to do, nor what he actually did. He came to enact his kingdom of justice for all- and as we’re going to “make disciples”, THAT is what we should be discipling them into. We’ve changed the terms to make it far easier for ourselves- that somehow telling people about Jesus is enough- and throughout history, telling them while exploiting and taking their resources. That is the OPPOSITE of the gospel. Jesus came to set captives free, not enslave them to new, different religion.
the methodists got this one exactly right.
I appreciate your comment. I can’t bring myself to reply to the comments affirming the decision. Simply because there’s no argument to be made with those blind to a basic understanding of Scripture. The UM Church, which I was employed by for 17 years, has become driven by a social agenda, not the Great Commission. It governs based on our feelings, not true science or fact. I was born with a disposition toward alcohol (there’s genetic stuff to prove all that but whatever)- so I became addicted to it. It nearly ruined my life. Progressive thinking would say I should be able to drink whenever I want to because by not doing so I am denying my true self. Scripture says through Christ I can be free of that lie. I surrendered to the truth of the Gospel and my life was changed. Bottom line – true surrender comes when you strive for the will of God over your own. This “feeling-centered” theology won’t last, thankfully. That’s why Jesus went after the lost so they could be changed, not so they could receive affirmation of their lost-ness.
I don’t think it’s an either/or. Isn’t addressing poverty, racism, and the ills impacting the most vulnerable in our society PART of reflecting God’s love and winning people to Christ? How do you think the church looks when we turn a blind eye to those in need, but are quick to preach?
Doesn’t Christ call us to love and serve even the most marginalized?
Doesn’t scripture tell us what good is it to tell someone who is hungry we are praying for them but not feed them? (James 2)
This should be a yes/and….yes, spread the gospel AND address the sins and ills of our society.
And I say the same thing to churches that talk ONLY about the Great Commission and say NOTHING about serving the community.
Yes/and….not either/or.
Marin, I don’t agree with much of you say about the UMC split and gay affirmation. But I do think this: so-called Evangelical churches have taught Free Grace doctrine for many years resulting in the dismal treatment of POC. People were free to call themselves Christian even though they had no commitment to Jesus and His values. Evangelicals wrongly saw civil rights as too controversial to address by their churches. They mistakenly assumed their converts from revivals and evangelistic meetings would somehow become better people. It mostly didn’t happen. You’re right, it doesn’t have to be either/or.
I admit I am very torn here. I don’t like seeing the church divided over non-essential matters, and I believe this is one of them. (Essential being the inerrancy of God’s word, Jesus as the Son of God who died and rose again for our sins, the Trinity…I believe Hebrews 6 lays these out quite well).
As a former member of the UMC (I left for unrelated reasons years ago), I also don’t like how the same people in the church who stand firm against gay marriage will stand firm in support of a man like Donald Trump, whose beliefs (saying he didn’t repent because he didn’t need to), language (which is perverse, cursing, isn’t edifying or truthful, much less “telling the truth in love” as scripture calls us), and lifestyle (on his third wife, with public reports and/or admissions of infidelity in each marriage) all go against the SAME Bible they stand ready to quote when it comes to speaking out against gay marriage. I speak from personal experience in discussions about this.
We want to talk about seeking the lost and sharing the gospel? We look like hypocritical fools, with the WORST case of selective outrage.
Your comments about the conservative Christian support for Trump hints at one aspect that is often unmentioned. The irony is that for culturally conservative Black Christians, while they agree with the anti-gay views of conservative white Christians and churches, they experience a great deal of racism from those same people, not only on an individual level, but in their support for Trump, and by extension, his racist policies. This means that they must pick their poison. While many Black Christians and churches are traditional in their understanding of human sexuality, it is, I believe, significant that relatively few Black UMC churches have disaffiliated, along with limited numbers of black clergy. In at lease some of those cases, I’m guessing that part of the reason for this is because they can’t stomach the outright racism of many anti-gay people who are leading the charge for disaffiliation. I know that this is the case in the two churches I have served that are predominately Black, and who are largely traditional in their understanding of human sexuality. I don’t want to suggest that there is no racism on the part of progressive or liberal white Christians.
But it is the raft of policies supported by white Christian conservatism that is so distasteful to many Black Christians. When they see so many white Conservative Christians supporting MAGA policies that negatively impact people of color such as mass deportation of primarily brown and black immigrants or the death penalty, or efforts to limit the teaching of historically racist realities like slavery in our schools, or to cripple DEI programs, this serves as a counter-balance to their support of the anti-gay agenda.
You are SPOT ON, Tom. I’ve said it several times: if the GOP got itself together by addressing racism (condemning extremist voices and policies that disproportionately impact people of color), they would have the Black vote ON LOCK. If you look at the data, Black people are both more religious (e.g., more likely to attend services regularly, have higher percentage of close relationships in the church, etc.) AND more conservative (e.g., least supportive of LGBTQIA community, etc). This is especially true of Black boomers, who are most likely to vote.
I tell folks to sit down with my parents (Black boomers in their early 70s) and their friends, and you’d swear you are at a Republican rally of yesteryear. As a centrist, I regularly get into debates with my parents and their friends over their more conservative leanings on a variety of topics. BUT why wouldn’t they DARE vote Republican? Racism. They will tell you. They aren’t going to vote for a party that claims the very mention of Black history – including the Jim Crow era they lived through – is “woke” (unless it mentions that Black people ‘benefitted’ from slavery), hates the very word “diversity”, remains silent as “great replacement” theories run rampant, and has 1000 excuses for VERY racialized language (not to mention paying fines for denying Black people housing) coming from its Presidential candidate. Nope. Not gonna happen.
You want the Black vote? Clean house.