Overseas United Methodists, especially Africans, are typically very supportive of the church’s biblical teachings about marriage and sex. But the recent Reconciling Ministries Network’s (RMN) “Convocation 2009: Justice & Joy” featured several overseas church officials who shared RMN’s pro-homosexuality perspective. About one third of United Methodists now live outside the U.S., and these growing churches have become the chief obstacle to RMN’s hopes for liberalizing United Methodism.
A Sunday afternoon plenary, entitled “Global Connections: All the Little Children of the World” discussed the world-wide structure of the United Methodist Church and RMN’s advocacy for affirming homosexual behavior and trans-sexuality within the church.
Former United Methodist Commission on Christian Unity chief Bruce Robbins, now pastor of Hennepin Avenue UMC in Minneapolis, Minnesota, moderated the session. He called the connection between RMN’s agenda and the growing overseas church a “very dynamic tension.” He noted that the international contingent of United Methodism now means that up to 40 percent of delegates at the governing General Conference will be from outside the U.S.
“At the same time, we’re going to be facing a challenging issue again of full inclusion of these communities [lesbian-gay-bisexual-transsexual-questioning (LGBTQ)] within the life of the United Methodist Church, and many – not all, but many – of the delegates from the central conference bring a more socially conservative perspective,” Robbins said. “This is in the context of changes within the United States, and where many denominations are becoming fully inclusive. And so pressure is upon the United States United Methodists to follow this pattern as well.”
Participating in the panel were retired Filipino Bishop David Arichea, currently bishop in residence at Duke Divinity School and Union Theological Seminary in the Philippines; Rev. Araceli Ezzatti, founder and pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church in Montevideo, Uruguay; Rev. Dr. Eunice Musa Iliya, director of the Directorate of Evangelism and Stewardship of the United Methodist Church in Nigeria; Kapya John Kaoma, an Anglican clergyman from Zimbabwe and project director at the left-leaning Political Research Associates; and Rev. Stephen R. Parelli, executive director of Other Sheep, an organization that focuses on empowering sexual minorities across the world.
The panel began with Rev. Ezzatti and Bishop Arichea introducing the global dimensions of LGBTQ issues. Rev. Ezzatti shared her experiences in the prisons of Uruguay where she encountered homosexual prisoners who were targets of discrimination in the same way members of different races or economic groups are. Bishop Arichea began by saying, “This will be my new title: Reconciling Bishop.” By his own admission, Arichea’s views were shaped by the hardships of his son, a homosexual who could not find an accepting church home. Because of his son’s experience, the Bishop has sought to convey the good news of the Bible and “turn texts of terror into texts of liberation.”
Rev. Iliya’s appearance was her second of the weekend, having given the morning sermon earlier in the day. Iliya was known to conference participants as the only Nigerian delegate at the 2008 General Conference to vote to liberalize the church’s teachings on sex. In her sermon, Iliya told how she felt pressured by conservative U.S. United Methodists to vote differently. Her remarks in the plenary concerned the patriarchal nature of the UMC in Africa and how this has complicated her pursuit of justice for the “lonely,” the “oppressed,” and the “voiceless” – all of which, she made clear, applied to LGBT persons.
Iliya is a graduate of Claremont School of Theology in California and was formerly closely associated with the very liberal California-Nevada Conference.
Claims of pressure and condescension by Rev. Iliya served as the foundation for the plenary. Kapya Kaoma took to these issues with singular intensity. He argued that conservative Christians have an advantage in Africa “because no one has defined ‘Christian right’ to Africans. Nobody. They use the word ‘evangelical.’” According to Kaoma, this rhetorical move has allowed conservative Christians to export right-wing political ideology while presenting themselves as honest and compassionate.
Kaoma contended that the success of conservative missionaries in Africa has resulted in growing numbers of conservative African Christians which, as indicated by Rev. Robbins, threatens LGBTQ causes. He admonished progressive Christians to adopt the tactics of their conservative counterparts: dispatch missionaries, send literature, and build ministry infrastructure. Further, the success of evangelicals must be rolled back by revealing them for what they are, politically motivated Christians seeking to dominate Africa. Kaoma assured the crowd that, “The moment you define the meaning of the word ‘Christian right’ and what nonsense they stand for, that will be a downfall of the great voices of the conservative angle in mainline churches across the board.”
Ostensibly, the purpose of the plenary was to argue for the importance of liberalized standards in United Methodism and assess how this issue bears on the structure of the church. By the end of the session, however, there was no consensus. In fact, two seemingly contradictory arguments were offered. On the one hand, it was argued that there is growing support for pro-homosexuality causes in the U.S. and that the U.S. church should respond to its own concerns. Therefore, U.S. United Methodism should be autonomous and able to make decisions on matters that affect it disproportionally, foremost among them the full affirmation of homosexual behavior and trans-sexuality.
On the other hand, it was argued that there is growing support globally for RMN’s cause within United Methodism and that LGBTQ concerns are global in scope, demanding the attention of all United Methodists. What follows, then, is that the church should present a united front to address these issues. Further, it must have the authority to make decisions in pursuit of full affirmation.
Despite these conflicting conclusions – one in favor of and one opposed to a truly international United Methodist Church – the participants seemed to ultimately desire a church divided into geographic regions. By their calculus this is the most promising course of action, a sentiment echoed by Rev. Robbins: “I submit that in 2008, if the U.S. United Methodists had an opportunity to vote, I think we would have seen for the first time movement toward full inclusion in the United Methodist church.”
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