United Methodism’s largest overseas jurisdiction has voted to quit the denomination in response to the church’s divorcing sex from marriage at its governing General Conference earlier this month.
The United Methodist Church in the Ivory Coast voted on May 28 to exit the denomination. In 2022, this conference reportedly had over 1.2 million members. So, its departure means over one tenth of United Methodism has in one day left the denomination. Oddly, United Methodist News Service reported the vote very briefly in an emailed news digest but as of today has no article on its website. Perhaps it will post a fuller account later.
A European website, La Croix International, offers a fuller account:
“For reasons of conscience before God and His word, the supreme authority in matters of faith and life,” the annual conference of the United Methodist Church of Ivory Coast (EMUCI, Eglise Méthodiste Unie Côte d’Ivoire), gathered for an extraordinary session on May 28 in Abidjan, and decided “to leave the United Methodist Church denomination.”
The Ivorian United Methodists said United Methodism “deviates from the Holy Scriptures” and prefers “to sacrifice its honor and integrity to honor the LGBTQ community.”
La Croix International quoted Bishop Benjamin Boni saying “the United Methodist Church now rests on socio-cultural values that have consumed its doctrinal and disciplinary integrity.”
Here’s text of Ivorian resolution.
Amazingly, as shared in this video, the decision-making process for the Ivorian Methodists transpired over only a couple weeks after the United Methodist General Conference concluded May 3 in Charlotte, North Carolina. At that General Conference, delegates removed the church’s longtime stance that sex is only for marriage between husband and wife. Adultery and extramarital sex were removed as chargeable offenses for clergy, along with homosexual behavior.
The quickness of the Ivorian exit may inspire other United Methodist regions in Africa to act likewise. United Methodism in Africa is overwhelmingly conservative and displeased with United Methodism’s new direction set by the recent General Conference. African delegates at the General Conference were widely ignored and already underrepresented, thanks to an unfair representation formula. Plus, over 70-90 delegates, at least one quarter, and perhaps one third, failed to get U.S. visas.
Some African delegates unsuccessfully urged the General Conference to establish a process for their exit, as there had been for U.S. churches 2019-2023. But unlike in the U.S., most African nations don’t have clear laws giving the denomination clear ownership of church buildings. If an entire overseas conference votes to exit, there’s little to nothing that U.S.-based church officials can do.
Ivorian Methodism is different from United Methodism elsewhere in Africa because it originated with British Methodism. It gained independence in the 1980s and joined United Methodism in 2004. Now it returns to its previous independence.
There are between 7 million and over 4 million United Methodists in Africa. In 2022, United Methodism reported nearly 7 million members in Africa, where the church often grows by several hundred thousand members annually. This number included 1.3 million in Ivory Coast. But now United Methodism reports 4.6 million members overseas with no explanation of the discrepancy. The recent United Methodist News Service report about Ivory Coast’s exit assigns it one million members.
United Methodism now reports 5.4 million members in the U.S., presumably based on 2022 figures. It does not include the full impact of 7,700 exiting churches, which combined with closed churches, included 1.5 million church members. U.S. membership is now likely close to 4 million, with Africans outnumbering Americans.
But likely not for very long, as the impact of the dramatic General Conference liberalization sinks into African churches. Ivory Coast’s example will be instructive for many others. In five years, very probably nearly all of Africa will have exited United Methodism, leaving a rump church of perhaps several million U.S. members.
U.S. progressives at the General Conference were celebratory about their huge victories, even as they approved massive budget cuts reflecting United Methodist membership decline.
Maybe they should recall Winston Churchill’s warning after the Munich agreement: “And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour…”
Only divine intervention could restore United Methodism to moral health and martial vigor. In the new age of post-denominational America, likely United Methodism, with other denominations, will not meaningfully exist as a national body in 10 years. But Methodism in Africa, in whatever format, will continue to thrive.
Comment by Fred Cleaver on May 30, 2024 at 2:19 pm
So proud of my Christian brothers and sisters in the Ivory Coast. They proudly and bravely stand up for Scriptural Authority in a very concrete way. I was a lifelong Methodist who dropped my membership the week of the General Conference as soon as I learned of their vote on changing the Book of Discipline. I was very pleased and encouraged to read this article. Thank you for sharing this news.
Comment by Allen on May 30, 2024 at 2:41 pm
Some folks hate the LGBTQ community more than they love the church (the body of Christ on earth). Spending time deciding who should be excluded is an odd spiritual practice
Comment by Osage on May 30, 2024 at 2:49 pm
After what this radical group has done to conservative Methodists the United Methodist Church deserves it.
Comment by Tim McGonagle on May 30, 2024 at 2:50 pm
The church (body of Christ) should hate no one. All sinners are free to come or stay away. We all are sinners. The church (body of Christ) must follow the instructions of the Bible. If not, they are not a church, but they are a club. A club can make any rules they want. Sounds like the Africans want a church (body of Christ) and not a Sunday morning social club. Good for them.
Comment by Corvus Corax on May 30, 2024 at 3:33 pm
“ Some folks hate the LGBTQ community more than they love the church (the body of Christ on earth). Spending time deciding who should be excluded is an odd spiritual practice”
Come on man, it’s about the positive sexual ethic clearly advanced by the authors of the Old Testament, by Christ in the Gospels, and by Saint Paul in the Epistles. In this life you are free to practice any alternative set of ethics you’d like, but what you’re not free to do is call them “Christian.”
Comment by Skipper on May 30, 2024 at 4:45 pm
Hallelujah and Praise the Lord! What a Great Day! What a bad day for the powers of darkness! This great news should start a stampede back to God!
Comment by Guby on May 30, 2024 at 7:11 pm
It’s not about hate or exclusion it’s about do you believe the holy Bible or a Bible full of holes scripture is very clear about human sexual relationship it’s Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve anything else is a perversion of God’s law and nature
Comment by Gordon Hackman on May 30, 2024 at 7:24 pm
“Some folks hate the LGBTQ community more than they love the church (the body of Christ on earth). Spending time deciding who should be excluded is an odd spiritual practice.”
I can’t help but think that you know this is dishonest. The alternative is that you have no understanding of the scriptures or the Christian faith.
Comment by James Marok on May 30, 2024 at 8:24 pm
Matthew 7:1
Jesus says, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged”.
Luke 6:37
“Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven”.
Sadly over 1 million former United Methodists are going to have to do some explaining for not following the Lord’s words.
Comment by Mark Emond Sr on May 30, 2024 at 8:50 pm
Glad to hear that. It’s what the good Lord would want. He created one man and one woman for a reason! In Leviticus it says “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman.” Plain and simple. In Christian love not hate for others is why we tell people what God’s Word says to do. I just don’t see how people can be Gay and be Pastor’s. How can you reprimand someone for their sins if you are openly living in sin or saying it’s ok to be Gay! We must obey God rather than men. Even Jesus out of love reprimanded people when they were living in sin. He loved them so much He wanted to see them in heaven. If you don’t ask God to forgive you before you die there is only one place for you. I hope and pray those people repent and ask God to forgive them before they die. Hell is for eternity.
In Christian love,
Comment by Pam on May 30, 2024 at 9:05 pm
Glad they left along with all the other judgmental haters.
Comment by Fred Cleaver on May 30, 2024 at 10:11 pm
I am not a “judgemental hater”, but I left the United Methodist church after roughly 70 years of membership. I left because I can read and understand what is clearly stated in the Bible. And what the United Methodist church now condones is contrary to what is warned against by the Bible.
Comment by Frank Walker on May 30, 2024 at 10:40 pm
Jesus didn’t say a single word about homosexuality or abortion. Keep casting the first stone!
Comment by Frank Archer on May 30, 2024 at 11:29 pm
The shortest church pamphlet I ever saw was about Christ’s views on homosexuality. It was blank. Breakaway factions in any denominations in any church deserve whatever happens. As a father of two grown children and grandfather to four, none of them care about churches at all. At all. I hold degrees in music, church music, and liturgical studies. I’m out too. I meditate every morning with poets such as Mary Oliver, Rumi and others, and they bring me comfort and closer to a God I recognize and love us all. Our God, mother and father of us all, will welcome us to heaven together no matter how stupid we are down here.
Comment by Douglas Ehrhardt on May 31, 2024 at 7:01 am
There’s nothing in the Bible that presents homosexual behavior in a positive way. In Matthew 19 Jesus mentioned that marriage is between a man and woman. Actually Jesus is the entire Bible. Everything in the Bible belongs to Him. Including the words of everyone. Abortion is murder of an innocent human . How people can call themselves Christian and support anti Christ theology is a tragedy.
Comment by Corvus Corax on May 31, 2024 at 7:10 am
“As a father of two grown children and grandfather to four, none of them care about churches at all. At all. I hold degrees in music, church music, and liturgical studies. I’m out too. I meditate every morning with poets such as Mary Oliver, Rumi and others”
Is this satire? Congratulations on your faithless descendants, your bevy of useless degrees, and your vacuous little morning ritual. What any of it has to do with the topic at hand, I don’t know. You read an Islamic poet yet you call God “mother”? You are not an enlightened being you are just another garden variety boomer narcissist.
As for the claim that Jesus said nothing about homosexuality… well he said nothing about necrophilia either, except by exclusion when in Matthew 19 he affirmed the sexual ethics of the Old Testament. Sex outside (permanent!) marriage between a man and a woman is adultery, period. When the disciples rightly note that this is a harsh and restrictive teaching, Jesus says “there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”
So no, just doing whatever feels good is not a Christian ethic, despite what the baby boomers think they discovered in the 1960s.
Comment by David on May 31, 2024 at 8:06 am
Depending on whether one accepts Genesis 1 or the contradictory Genesis 2, the Adam and Steve business gets a bit curious. In 2, animals were created from the ground so Adam would not be alone. However, Adam did not find any of these to be a suitable “helpmate.” It is often overlooked that Eden was not paradise, but a plantation. Adam was created for the expressed purpose of tending the garden (2:15). If Adam had become friendly with a dog, who knows?
“As with a woman.” There was a general prejudice in the Mediterranean world against males being penetrated as this lowered them to the status of women. However, affection between two persons of the same gender was not condemned and several instances of this are mentioned—“more than a woman’s love.” If one abstained from one particular act, then the question arises if this was sin.
Comment by Pastor Mike on May 31, 2024 at 9:20 am
@ David, how about peddling your blasphemous and atheistic commentary somewhere else?
The first two chapters of Genesis present two complementary accounts of creation. Genesis 1 pictures God in sublime terms – grand and awesome. The Hebrew word used for deity in this section (Elohim) speaks of God’s majesty, sovereignty, and awesome power.
Genesis 2 presents a more personal picture of creation. It focuses on the creation of man and woman – the only beings in creation who reflect the very image of God. In this section, God’s personal name (Yahweh or Lord) is used rather than His title, “God.” This is because God personally shaped Adam from the dust of the earth, breathing life into him, and forming Eve from Adam’s flesh and bone.
Comment by David on May 31, 2024 at 10:58 am
Pastor Mike: I am sorry the Bible offends you. The reason why different terms were used for “God” is because the chapters had different authors. In the first, animals are created first then humans. In the second, it is the reverse. Both cannot be correct. You need to study J1, J2, E, D, and P.
Comment by Corvus Corax on May 31, 2024 at 11:18 am
“If Adam had become friendly with a dog, who knows?”
Another masterpiece, David! Am I to understand this the normative rabbinical interpretation of Genesis, or is Adam’s speculative bestiality the fruit of your own scholarship?
Comment by Pat on May 31, 2024 at 12:08 pm
I stopped being a United Methodist when they ordained women as ministers. The change in policy with the church does not surprise me. People forget yes God loves the sinners but not the sin, you can welcome everybody to your church but not condone their behavior.
Comment by Randy Horick on May 31, 2024 at 12:28 pm
“The church’s divorcing sex from marriage?” That’s not what the United Methodist Church did when it allowed conferences to embrace same-sex unions and LGBT pastors. The church’s teachings about sexual relationships within marriage apply to same-sex as well as heterosexual couples. The difference is that, now, same-sex couples can be joined in marriage, where the expectations of fidelity apply just as they would to heterosexual marriage partners.
It is one thing to profess that the United Methodist General Conference’s vote was wrongheaded. I don’t agree, but I acknowledge that many of my brothers and sisters in the church come by their view honestly.
It is quite another thing, as Mark Tooley dishonestly does here, to claim that the General Conference did something it did not do. I believe the biblical term for that is “bearing false witness,” and last time I checked the Bible was against it.
Comment by David on May 31, 2024 at 12:39 pm
Corvus Corax: If Adam had been satisfied with a dog, there would be no Eve. Given subsequent events, he would have been better off with the dog.
Comment by Randy Horock on May 31, 2024 at 2:00 pm
Frankly, Pat, I’m glad you left the United Methodist Church, because in ordaining women as leaders the church got back to following the original practices of the Christian communities Paul established–practices that the later church misunderstood, took out of context, or simply ignored. Sorry you weren’t on board with that.
Women aren’t supposed to be preachers? Then why does Paul provide instructions to the Corinthians about how women should wear their hair when they preach (prophesy)?
Women aren’t supposed to teach men? Then why does Acts tell us that Paul enlisted a co-worker and leader (Priscilla/Prisca) to help teach correct doctrine to the travelling evangelist Apollos?
Why does Priscilla’s name always appear ahead of her husband, Aquila—a practice that in the ancient world signified greater importance?
Why is a woman, Junia, listed by Paul as an apostle–a designation he gives to none of the men mentioned in his letter to the Romans? And why did some church officials later try to change her name in the text to a man’s name (read your footnotes)?
Ever been to the catacombs in Ephesus? Why does a fresco show a woman (Theokla) as a fellow teacher with Paul and of equal stature, denoting equal authority? And why did some Christians later try to literally deface the fresco to hide the woman’s gender and position?
And are you really suggesting that to be a woman in ordained ministry is a sin? Really?
You need to get off the train you’re on and get on board with Paul and Jesus.
I could go on, but hopefully you get the point.
Comment by Shal on May 31, 2024 at 2:04 pm
“The church (body of Christ) should hate no one. All sinners are free to come or stay away. We all are sinners. The church (body of Christ) must follow the instructions of the Bible.”
How does that work when the church doesn’t recognize homosexuality as a sin any more? In Ivory Coast homosexuality are welcome to church but they won’t be accepted as pastors until they are changed, same goes for any other Christian is who struggle with sin and living willfully in Sin.
Comment by Juan on May 31, 2024 at 2:05 pm
The irony is that in the name of diversity, the UMC has basically alienated all of its foreign membership. Again and again at the general conference, white middle class Americans spoke up in favor of these changes and demanded the church become more diverse. And they ignored the wishes of the Black African and Asian majority of thier denomination. They will be left with a smaller, whiter and wealthier denomination. Truly diversity in action
Comment by Gary Bebop on May 31, 2024 at 3:47 pm
As another commenter has opined, “Truly diversity in action.” The drama continues its twisted outplay. The queering of the church has been on stage for decades. Many collaborators have boosted it along. Now comes the payout.
Comment by Jim on May 31, 2024 at 4:23 pm
As an ex-Methodist I maintain that the LGBTQ people should be allowed to come to service but should be required like alcoholics, thief’s, liars and all other sinners to repent or move on. As an ex alcoholic I don’t insist I be allowed to show up drunk and people be forced to accept it.
Comment by Russell on May 31, 2024 at 8:14 pm
When some of you people state that Jesus never said anything against homosexuality, you are making it clear that you have not read your Bibles, or that you are only reading it in the light you choose.
First, Jesus is God, (In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God) and in addition to being part of the inspiration of Moses in his writings, was literally actually present at times in Old Testament accounts (a fiery furnace and a wrestling match come to mind). As such, it is not incorrect to credit Jesus as an author of Old Testament scripture, all of which condemns homosexuality. Second, there is a really good reason Jesus never preached directly against homosexuality, and it’s for the same reason he never preached directly against many other sins: he didn’t need to. Remember, Jesus’ ministry on earth was to the Jews, in Jewish lands, all of whom knew the law. Third, Jesus, while being lured into a theological trap by the Pharisees, takes an opportunity to restate that marriage is between a man and a woman. Since all fornication (sex outside of marriage) is a sin, how much clearer could he be? And fourth, on three separate and distinct occasions in the New Testament, Jesus said, in reference to the people of cities who chose to reject his teachings, that it will be better for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than the people of those cities. Every single person who heard his words knew exactly what he meant. Every single person who heard his words knew that Sodom and Gomorrah were the only two cities ever specifically and violently wiped off the face of the earth (targeted) by God, and they knew why: the sexual immorality of their inhabitants, specifically homosexual immorality. The New Testament scriptures detailing these accounts are devoid of any account where a listener asks any question about these remarks or what Jesus meant (this was not a confusing parable or a statement that seemed at odds with scripture or tradition).
It is disingenuous to claim that Jesus implicitly or tacitly approved of homosexuality. He could have done so, had he wanted to. The entire Bible is devoid of any positive reference to homosexuality. Anyone who claims Jesus was ok with same sex relations should be prepared for an interesting encounter if and when he or she meets Jesus.
God Bless the Methodists of the Ivory Coast who have chosen to follow scripture.
Comment by Connie Freckleton on May 31, 2024 at 8:41 pm
Our Ivorian brothers and sisters, by standing for correct biblical teaching, are now without physical buildings in which to hold services and meetings in general, if I understand this article correctly. Our YHWH is in charge of all of this, and He delights in what we call “miracles,”. Watch Him provide the perfect places and buildings for His ex-United Methodist Church members! He ALWAYS provides. ALWAYS.
Comment by Pastor Buddy Whatley on May 31, 2024 at 9:51 pm
And now we know why so many African pastors were denied a vote at the UMC General Conference…
Comment by Orlan Lehmann on May 31, 2024 at 10:06 pm
The goal of The United Methodist Church as I understand it was,
“To make disciples for Christ for the transformation of the world”
I f cannot do this if we just make disciples to the current worldy ideas and forget about the transforming of the world. Without the transformation of the homosexual through the Holy Spirit’s help how can he do any transformation of his world.
Man’s sinful human nature needs to be transformed,but it will always be a struggle as Paul himself said. He said the things he did not want to do, were the things he did. It was his human nature taking control. We need to ask God to help us overcome our human nature not allow it to control us. So just because someone may have an attraction to someone of the same sex, does not mean we have to act on that, but ask God to help us .
Comment by Fred Cleaver on May 31, 2024 at 10:59 pm
I now see the United Methodist church as a denomination of hypocrisy. From 1972 to earlier this month the Book of Discipline stated that “Homosexuality is inconsistent with Christian teaching “. That is what clergy and members purportedly believed and upheld. At the recent General Conference they retracted that statement essentially saying, “Oops, we were wrong”. We were so wrong that we now approve of our chief teachers (pastors) being gay. So, membership, please be so morally ambiguous that you will be okay with either way. Let the all-knowing church set your moral compass.
Comment by Jim on June 1, 2024 at 8:16 am
Ivory Coast Methodists just succeeded in an act of anti-colonial resistance.
Comment by MikeB on June 1, 2024 at 2:47 pm
I find it amazing how people who are non-Christian by their own admission are insisting that they understand the Bible far more than Christians.
This is to an extent that these people who don’t believe in an actual God who died for them insist that their rudderless morals are indeed what entire communities of Christians should indeed follow.
If indeed these who wish nothing but harm to the community of Christ are against us it is indeed a good sign.
Comment by Tim on June 1, 2024 at 3:51 pm
I will never understand why conservative churches think God cares more about sex than love.
The Gospel has very little to say about sex. It has a lot to say about who matters to God: everyone. Time and time again, Jesus spends time with the folks that the religious people of His time rejected. He reminds us that all of us matter, and God’s love requires us to help in any way we can for as long as we can.
Somehow conservatives take Paul’s warnings about how Christians shouldn’t worship like pagans and make enforcing traditional sexuality the point of the religion. That ain’t Christianity, and I’d point out that the churches most obsessed with sex (the Catholic and Southern Baptists in the US) have the worst record of sexual morality.
I still can’t believe that this issue broke the United Methodist Church, one of the greatest forces of love the world has ever seen. It is well past time for us to be getting back to what matters. Those that left us sadden us, but I hope they can reestablish a religion that shows the world God’s love too.
Comment by MikeB on June 1, 2024 at 10:15 pm
Tim, what you don’t realize is that sin is being outside the will of God.
We ALL sin, murder, homosexual acts, gossiping, or thinking bad about your sibling are ALL sins as they are outside the explicit path God wants us to walk that glorifies him.
But that is why he died for us, we can’t make it without his death.
You can attempt to confuse it with calling chemical dopamine reactions as love, but it’s no more real than a man’s love for his mistress.
He calls us to him, without reservation, if you can’t do that it’s not God’s lack of love for you it’s your ego holding you back from accepting his forgiveness.
It’s shockingly hard to admit that we live in sin. I Sin daily, I am flesh. Paul struggled Peter struggled, but we are saved by Christ.
But if you claim that any sin does not require his forgiveness, if you encourage others in these then you are anathema.
Comment by David Charlton on June 4, 2024 at 1:19 pm
“I will never understand why conservative churches think God cares more about sex than love.”
A more ironic statement could not be made. Love means to preach the Gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ to all people. It is the liberal churches like the UMC, TEC, ELCA, and PCUSA who care more about sex than love. How do I know this? 15 years after the ELCA made it possible for pastors to performed same-sex weddings and allowed active homosexuals to be ordained, the ELCA is still obsessed with sex. Meanwhile, the Gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ is seldom heard. The UMC will remain obsessed with sex, while the Methodists in Africa will preach the Gospel.
Comment by Td on June 4, 2024 at 1:55 pm
Tim- sex when directed towards a total giving of oneself to another and towards procreation is a loving act. Sodomy, fornication, masturbation, pedaphilia, incest, and all other acts that do not use sex organs towards their ordered purpose are forms of sex abuse. There is no getting around this reality in Christianity.