African United Methodists, largely represented by United Methodist Africa Initiative until 2021, became the majority in the denomination the same year that the United Methodist Church (UMC) at the 2024 General Conference removed a 52-year-old clause declaring “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” As of 2024, the UMC had 4 million members in the United States, and 7.3 million members overseas, the overwhelming majority of whom are in Africa.
Africans became the majority in the UMC after 7,658 United States (U.S.) local churches departed the denomination through a process known as disaffiliation, between 2019-2023, taking more than 1.4 million members with them. Posited as a battle over same-sex marriage, that was only the pretext of disaffiliation. The clash, which led to some splits within local churches, and a subsequent partition of the UMC through a process known as Regionalization, was really about protecting power and money.
Bishops’ selective enforcement of the The Book of Discipline, the UMC law book, roiled evangelicals. And evangelicals seeking episcopal accountability did not mince words in calling out bishops who ran afoul of the Discipline. In a January 10, 2024, blog post by the now-shuttered Mainstream UMC entitled “Money: The Elephant in the Conference,” Executive Director Mark Holland stated:
“People will ultimately vote with their checkbook (withholding money) and with their feet (walking out the door).”
Two forms of structural racism are ongoing within the UMC: Regionalization and Jurisdictional Conferences. Regionalization was initiated after the evangelical power structure disaffiliated to form the Global Methodist Church. The Jurisdictional Conference structure is being perpetuated by non-evangelical officials, post-disaffiliation (December 31, 2023).
Regionalization as Apartheid era ‘Bantu-stans’
The tripartite evil of Power, Money, and Sex extended its tentacles beyond the U.S. Methodist theological debates, taking aim at African United Methodists, who are even more traditional than evangelical Methodists in America. Through Regionalization, American Methodists systematically exclude African Methodists from positions of authority of the UMC, even as they constitute its majority.
Prior to the 2024 General Conference, the UMC was organized as a single church worldwide, similar to the Catholic Church (in contrast to Lutheran and Anglican global bodies, which are formed of autonomous churches in relationship with one another). Only General Conference can speak for the entire UMC, and the decisions made at the General Conference applied to the whole church, at least until 2024.
Now that Regionalization has been ratified, the UMC is structured more like the Anglican Communion, with each region possessing autonomy to make decisions within their own ministry context without effect upon the rest of the denomination. These are not unlike government-established Bantustans in Apartheid-era South Africa. This neo-colonial move ensured that Africans, who do not hold any churchwide positions of power within the UMC (all UMC agencies are helmed by non-Africans), will not have control of money within the denomination.
Let me make it plain: when Africans (united by UMC Africa Initiative) were a minority within the UMC, there was no need to regionalize the denomination. Now that Africans constitute a majority, regionalization became a priority.
Regionalization of the UMC became a priority because it was widely believed that Americans would constitute a minority of 2028 General Conference delegates. That belief came true in November 2025 as the Commission on the General Conference announced that Americans are indeed a minority of the delegates to the 2028 General Conference. Originally scheduled to meet in Harare, Zimbabwe, it has been relocated to convene in Minneapolis.
Some American Methodists who have not disaffiliated are intent upon maintaining power and, to do so, must exclude traditional African Methodists at all costs.
Furthermore, Regionalization was sold as a path of ecclesiological autonomy for the African UMC, ostensibly tired of American Methodists’ debate of U.S. Federal Government policies at General Conference. However, some African delegates to General Conference questioned the real intent, instead perceiving Regionalization as a ‘divide and conquer’ strategy, as American Methodists endorsed a more recent United Methodist Africa Forum (UMAF) over the long running Africa Initiative. UMAF participants later found they were being ‘played like a fiddle’ by Mainstream UMC, a caucus promoting the Regionalization Plan. Mainstream UMC was accused of neo-colonialism by UMAF. After the Regionalization plan passed at the 2024 General Conference, Lloyd Nyarota (General Coordinator of UMAF) admitted:
“It is beginning to show that largely Africa was lied to … The Worldwide Regionalization became a neocolonial piece of legislation crafted for U.S. UMC imperialism.”
Mainstream UMC has since disbanded and merged with the Reconciling Ministries Network (RMN), the primary LGBTQ caucus within the UMC. RMN representatives traveled to Kenya in 2022 to dedicate a new sanctuary for the first local African congregation that had joined their ranks three years prior. The caucus group even filmed a documentary on their efforts to convert Africans to the LGBTQ cause.
Examples abound of the paternalistic attitude of American Methodists toward our brothers and sisters on the African continent. After the death of Sierra Leone Bishop John Yambasu, retired U.S. Bishop Warner Brown was dispatched as an interim replacement. Were there no qualified retired African bishops who could serve in that role? Eastern Pennsylvania and Greater New Jersey Bishop John Schol traveled to observe the election of a bishop in Nigeria. Indiana Bishop (and Council of Bishops President) Tracy Smith Malone traveled to Zambia to observe the election of bishops there. And, finally, Baltimore-Washington Bishop LaTrelle Easterling traveled to South Africa, along with Schol, to observe the election of several bishops.
Yet not one African bishop traveled to the U.S. to observe the election of American bishops in 2022.
Racial justice, a key component of the Social Principles of the UMC, demands the end of Regionalization in the UMC. The tolerance of discriminatory structures is hypocrisy.
Jurisdictional Conferences, a Vestige of the Jim Crow Era
The Methodist Episcopal Church, founded in 1784, and its successors operated without jurisdictions for more than 150 years until 1939, when Southern Evangelicals in The Methodist Church (USA), a predecessor body to the UMC, insisted upon the creation of a jurisdictional conference system. Five U.S. jurisdictions were established geographically, plus an additional one based upon race. All black churches, regardless of geography, were lumped together into the Central Jurisdiction, whose purpose was to prevent blacks from serving as pastors at southern white churches or becoming bishops there.
Southern Methodists voted against previous attempts at unification with Northern Methodists for reasons other than race, prior to the formation of the Central Jurisdiction. “The fear of social liberalism, loss of identity, and even northern ministers would come to the South and take all of the better appointments!” were some of the objections to the merger of Methodists North and South. However, at the 1939 Uniting Conference one of the major points of disagreement was the process of how bishops would be assigned. It was clear that southern Methodists wanted independence in this process.
Eventually, the Central Jurisdiction “was not only supported by white Southern Methodists but by Northern Methodist Episcopal Church leaders as well.”
The Central Jurisdiction continued until 1968 at the formation of the current UMC. Prior attempts to abolish this Jim Crow era structure had not met with success. However, the Evangelical United Brethren Church, in the process of merging with the Methodist Church USA, demanded the end of the Central Jurisdiction as a precondition.
Black churches moved into the geographical jurisdictional conferences that exist in the UMC today. Nevertheless, the origin of this system was rooted in southern racism supported by earlier northern segregation.
In the wake of the Central Jurisdiction dissolution, Black Methodists for Church Renewal was born to “ensure a permanent place for Blacks in the new UMC.” BMCR, as it is known as, has preserved the history of African American Methodists, demanded changes within the UMC, and has planned for the future of the black church in the denomination.
Eventually, sometimes with ease and other times with contention, black pastors were assigned to serve as pastors for white churches in the South and were elected as bishops in the Southeastern and South Central Jurisdictions. This was a work in progress up to, and through, disaffiliation.
Yet after white evangelicals departed the UMC, only one person has publicly called for the end of this vestige of the Jim Crow era that was weaponized against disaffiliating churches, when I did so at 2024 General Conference. Mainstream UMC was silent. Black Methodists for Church Renewal have been silent. The Reconciling Ministries Network has been silent. UMC bishops have been silent. And now there is debate as to whether it is time to conclude Jurisdictional Conferences altogether.
One can only conclude that non-evangelicals have benefitted from this vestige of the Jim Crow era, which is why they refuse to end it.
Racial justice, a key component of the Social Principles of the UMC, demands the end of the Jurisdictional Conferences in the UMC. The tolerance of discriminatory structures is hypocrisy.
Odell Horne, Jr. was a delegate to the 2024 UMC General Conference and is a doctoral student studying Contextual Theology. He holds a degree in African and African American Studies and has more than 20 published articles for Ministry Matters, Theological Voice of Africa, Firebrand Magazine, United Methodist News Service, United Methodist Insight, and the Journal of Sociology and Christianity.
Comment by Qohelet on July 29, 2026 at 9:44 am
It is very discouraging to hear the language of anticolonialism and anti racism used to justify the right of a formerly colonized people to continue to oppress people with even less power. This article goes beyond that to include a lot of misinformation. I’ll try and address what I’m competent to as a UMC lay person.
1.) Regionalization is creating South African style Bantustans
The problem with this analogy is that regionalization doesn’t change much for non-North American United Methodists. These churches have long been part of eight “central conferences” with the ability to modify the Book of Discipline to fit local cultural needs. All regionalization does is add the US as a ninth region. If we have long acknowledged (as the Council of Jerusalem did in Acts 15) that different cultures have differences they might disagree on but should not be hindered from worshiping God together why is the US culture any different?
In short, it is not honest to claim that central conferences are being somehow discriminated against when all regionalization does is put the US church in the same category.
2.) US Bishops were sent to Africa and the reverse has not occurred
A.) The author failed to mention that Bishop John Schol was part of a leadership team that included three other bishops, two Africans and a European
B.) The author acknowledges Tracy Smith Malone was the Conference of Bishops president. Why is her presence problematic? She has extensive work in Africa on her resume, including leading the East Ohio conference in building a hostel for women at Africa University in Zimbabwe.
C.) Paragraph 405 of the United Methodist Book of Discipline explicitly states that concecrations may include bishops from other jurisdictions and encourages the presence of Bishops eom other traditions were in communion with. The point is to be ecumenical, and that seems to be the role Easterling played.
3.) Jurisdictional conferences are a holdover from Jim Crow and should be abolished
They honestly might be abolished at some point as no longer relevant. But what does this have to do with discrimination against Africa? The jurisdictional conferences are part of the new US region, and each region will be able to organize itself as it wants.
I’m curious why the author chooses to persist in attacking the United Methodist Church when the Global Methodist Church now exists.
Comment by Corvus Corax on July 29, 2026 at 10:27 am
It’s not a racial issue, it’s a personal one. The people who want the church to bless homosexual acts generally have a friend or a relative who is homosexual. In some cases, they are themselves homosexual. Therefore they have an emotional need to dress aberrant sexual habits in sacred garb. If two thousand years of church teaching stand in the way, then two thousand years of church teaching must fall. If African traditionalists stand the way, then African traditionalists must fall.
As Jesus said, “there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.”
They’re not able to receive it. It’s really that simple.
Comment by Wilson R. on July 29, 2026 at 1:53 pm
@ Corvus Corax
I would argue that what most of the argument over homosexuality here comes down to is scriptural interpretation.
To those who left the UMC for the Global Methodist Church and condemn the UMC’s removal of language that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian practice, Scripture speaks clearly and requires no context or further interpretation.
But that is a standard that is not applied across the board. Methodists of all stripes have long supported the ordination of women. Yet denominations like the Southern Baptists cite scriptures specifically justifying their refusal to let women preach or even teach when men are present. Methodists interpret these scriptures in their context and also line them up against other scriptures.
So it has always been curious to me why some draw the line so sharply–no context or interpretation required–when it comes to homosexuality but allow much more leeway and nuance on issues like divorce. Jesus has a lot to say about divorce, and it’s much stricter than what most churches today practice.
The passage you cite about eunuchs is a good example. I went back and looked at that chapter from Matthew. In context, Jesus is talking about voluntary celibacy for heterosexuals. But some have transformed it into a passage that speaks only to homosexuality.
You say it’s a “personal issue” in that those who advocated abandoning the old UMC language either were gay or have LGBTQ friends and relatives. You seem to treat them dismissively. And yet in the Wesleyan tradition that Global Methodists say they continue to revere, personal experience (along with reason and church tradition) are approaches Wesley advocated for interpreting scripture. These people use experience to say they have seen Christian holiness and the imitation of Christ in gay people they have known. They apply reason to argue that, if homosexualty is an inborn characteristic, as science suggests it to be in most cases, rather than a lifestyle choice, and if committed, same-sex relationships “do no wrong to a neighbor” (Paul’s litmus test), then these must be considered alongside NT prohibitions (which in any event do not account for first-century context). Thus, these Christians are applying Wesleyan principles. If Global Methodists want to remain consistent in their positions, perhaps they should also drop any affiliation with Wesleyanism.
Comment by Corvus Corax on July 29, 2026 at 5:08 pm
The sexual ethic described by Jesus and Paul is more restrictive than what was required by their cultural context. This would seem to argue against an expansive interpretation for modern people.
Moreover, sin itself is traditionally understood as an “inborn characteristic.” We do not excuse the obvious human proclivities to lie, cheat, and steal on the basis that nobody “chose” these universal predispositions.
There is no mention of homosexual behavior in the scriptures except where it is accompanied by stark condemnation. This occurs both in the moral law of the Old Testament and in Paul’s letters. It’s not subtle.
A church that cannot simply tell people to be celibate, which Jesus had no trouble telling his apostles, is not a church but a form of syncretic liberalism which has placed the self above God.
Comment by Qohelet on July 29, 2026 at 6:58 pm
I think you missed Wilson’s key point though: the Matthew 19 quote about eunuchs for the sake of heaven is about divorce, not LGBTQ issues, which Jesus doesn’t mention at all in any Gospel. Why was this the issue worth splintering a powerful force for good like the UMC when issues like divorce and mistreatment of immigrants did not seem to register at all?
Why does the IRD and other critics continue to write biased articles like this thst don’t fairly represent what the UMC is doing?
Comment by Corvus Corax on July 30, 2026 at 10:51 am
It’s the first point I addressed. If Jesus was willing to prescribe a more restrictive sexual ethic for the culture in which he ministered, then those principles apply a fortiori to sexual behaviors already outside the cultural norm.
I agree that issues of sexual behavior are a disproportionate focus of religious discussion, and that sins like covetousness and idolatry ought to get a lot more attention given the state of our society. However, this does not make the liberal insistence on sexual revolution correct. “Do whatever you want as long as you have consent” is the legal minimum but not the higher standard to which Christians are called. If that’s too tough for you to hear, maybe you’d be better off as a eunuch. I didn’t say that, Jesus did.
Comment by Qohelet on July 30, 2026 at 11:00 am
But he didn’t say that. He never said a mumblin’ word about homosexuality. You’re connecting dots that make sense to you but it’s not in scripture.
He did say quite a lot about sanctimonious religious people who feel confident judging the sins of others.
Comment by Skipper on July 31, 2026 at 9:36 am
Shame, shame on the UMC for approving of sexual perversion when the Bible is so clear. Christians have a responsibility to warn people of trouble so that they can live a New Life in Christ and put Jesus in charge. Our behavior is dramatically changed as God’s Holy Spirit reveals changes we need to make in our lifestyle. The Holy Spirit gives us power to break the bonds of self-destructive habits.
Jeremiah 8:4 “…if you take the wrong road, you turn around and go back, so why do you refuse to come back to me?” CEV
Comment by Skipper on July 31, 2026 at 10:42 am
I believe the Regionalization is to allow perversion in the U.S. while keeping to Biblical standards for those in Africa and beyond. These False Teachers are protecting a favorite sin in the U.S. while attempting to fool those overseas into staying UMC. I see why it could have racist overtones. It’s a good time for those in Africa to find a way out of the UMC.
Comment by David Gingrich on August 2, 2026 at 6:42 am
TERRIBLE article. I am a former UMC member. I left because the UMC decided they knew better than God.
But to throw the “RACISM!!” card at them is despicable. This has nothing to do with race. It is about the American UMC’s pride.
SHAME on IRD for using Left-wing tactics. SHAME.
Comment by Thomas on August 2, 2026 at 10:47 pm
We can talk of racism in Africa with the ideological colonizations some countries of the west have tried to impose on them.
Comment by Odell Horne, Jr. on August 3, 2026 at 1:24 pm
Based on the math, Africans should be running the majority of the agencies in the post-disaffiliation UMC, but they have been excluded from the top positions of power within the denomination. Additionally, Regionalization was an explicit attempt by the American UMC to control the Book of Discipline.