As the debate continues over the work of the Commission on A Way Forward, the Church unity rhetoric is far from convincing to African United Methodists. We , the African voters who hold the power of the balance in this debate have so far not been given anything that persuade us to change our voting pattern to maintain the UMC’s stances regarding human sexuality.
Photo by Paul Jeffrey, UMNS
Forbes Matonga
The Rev. Forbes Matonga, a clergy delegate from the West Zimbabwe annual conference, speaks to the United Methodist General Conference in Portland, Ore., on May 11. Photo by Paul Jeffrey, UMNS.
The Methodist movement itself is a breakaway church; it broke away based on principle and conviction from the 17th century Anglican Church. For some of us, Reformation is not adapting the theology of the church to modern or so-called progressive thinking. Rather, for some of us reformation is about calling the church to go back to the basic principles of the Primitive New Testament faith!
What is of serious concern to some of us is when we see or view our episcopal leaders becoming manipulative. For some of us this is extremely disturbing! We have experienced this over and over again and we are fast losing confidence in them as each day passes.
In Africa, for example, debate about human sexuality is just not allowed because of cultural taboos. In the church, no platform is created to allow us to be in debate with the rest of the connection on such an important issue, hoping that Africans will be ignorant of the key issues, making it easy to manipulate us come 2019. It is assumed that we Africans will vote on "Church Unity" rather than human sexuality.
This kind of manipulation is sickening, my friends. It perpetuates the myth that Africans are objects of manipulation. The rest of the United Methodist Church should be aware that we are not fooled by “church unity” language. We know what we’re being asked to endorse – the acceptance of homosexual practice – and we refuse to abandon our tradition.
The Rev. Dr. Forbes Matonga serves as Secretary of the Africa Central Conference and Pastor in Charge of Nyadire Mission , Zimbabwe. This article is was edited for publication with Dr. Matonga's permission from a Facebook post.