Structural Racism in the United Methodist Church?

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.