Africa Initiative Prayer Summit
Some of the 92 participants at the Africa Initiative Prayer Summit held May 13-18 in Nairobi, Kenya, pose for a photo at the meeting's end. (Photo by E. Julu Swen, UM News))

Dual Membership or Duplicity: African United Methodists and the Global Methodist Church

by

Special to United Methodist Insight

A brilliant lawyer from the Democratic Republic of Congo made the news a few years ago as they developed their thesis on neutrality as an expression of cowardice. Jacques Mukonga Sefu at the 33rd Congress of the International Conference of Bars of Common Legal Tradition in Lausanne, 2019,  notes that “Yes I know! We have been touted a thousand virtues of neutrality. It has been rumoured that neutrality would be the wisdom of prudence or the prudence of wisdom; that neutrality would preserve revenge, confrontation; that it would guarantee republican peace; it has even been argued that neutrality would be a guarantee of credibility… No, that's just a thunderous peroration. To tell the truth, God knows that all neutrality hides a cowardice which is ashamed to confess. Yes, neutrality is cowardice.”

After the further postponement of the 2020 General Conference to 2024, and launch of the Global Methodist Church on May 1, 2022, many United Methodists were quite surprised by the position adopted by Africa Initiative at their recently held meeting in Nairobi. A position that seeks to portray an image of neutrality when they have clearly opted to leave the United Methodist Church. It is no secret that Africa Initiative is the African version of the Wesleyan Covenant Association which has given birth to the Global Methodist Church. The launch of the Global Methodist Church without the passage of the Protocol has led to multiple attempts at what some have called dual membership, being United Methodist while at the same time being part of the Global Methodist Church.  It has to be clearly spelled that one can’t be a member of two denominations, and that false sense of assurance this duplicity provides doesn’t serve them well.

In their recently held meeting in Nairobi and even prior to that, people in the Africa Initiative  who have made clear their intentions to associate with the GMC have begun to change the narrative to claim that they will wait until 2024 GC in the hope of the passage of the Protocol (which is dead) to leave the UMC. What they have been unable to explain is whether their membership in  the UMC or GMC is based on deep-seated theological convictions or it's a matter of convenience.

If the support and association with the Global Methodist Church is based on theological grounds, there is no reason why people would wait until 2024 to leave when some of their American counterparts have already made the decision to leave? It is clear that the position to wait until 2024 hides cowardice, the fear to make a confession that the interest lies in the properties and resources of the United Methodist Church. The fear to admit that the purported reasons for departure doesn’t stand when assets are off the table. The fear to admit that it was never about differences of views on Human Sexuality, but power and assets. Is Africa Initiative being told to wait until 2024 so that their votes could be used again by WCA for whatever legislative chaos they want to unleash at the next General Conference? Why would these siblings want to meddle in the future plans of the UMC when it’s clear they have already decided to leave for another denomination?

Should the African church be satisfied with this duplicity and disloyalty? No. The Africa Initiative and its members (including bishops, clergy, and laity) should come clean as to their membership and actions between now and 2024 General Conference. You cannot claim to be United Methodist while simply waiting for an opportunity to divide the church for self-serving interests. To stay in the United Methodist Church so that they can drive members and  churches to leave and join GMC is destroying opportunities for ecumenical relationships between the two denominations.

Those seeking to depart should learn from the example of other clergy who left the United Methodist Church to form new denominations when they disagreed with official positions or decisions of the church. Rev. Ngoy Mulunda in the D R Congo left and created the New Methodist Church without lingering on UMC properties, the same with Rev. Philip Mpindu in Zimbabwe who created the Methodist Revival Church. Africa Initiative and their members should have the courage to launch the Global Methodist Church in Africa without pretending to be United Methodists.

The Nairobi meeting was a clear indication that those present have left the United Methodist Church already. It was interesting to note from the agenda that there was a heavy focus on promoting the GMC and some caucuses, one of which is – not surprisingly – the Institute for Religion and Democracy (IRD). This organization is responsible for fomenting division in many American denominations and has not stopped until the global witness of the UMC is diminished through their plans to burn the whole house down as GMC walks out the door. The aftermath of the meeting has seen some people seeking to justify their continued membership in the UMC while clearly opting for the GMC.

Jacques Mukonga Sefu further notes that,  “Neutrality therefore, if indeed it is possible to be neutral, neutrality, I say, is only the posture of an impostor adopted for the need of the cause or for the cause of the need. A decoy. A trick. And Pierre Billon was so right to say that ‘neutrality is something you find in speeches, not in people's hearts.‘ Therefore, if refraining from proclaiming your convictions out loud for fear of suffering the consequences is not cowardice; if renouncing the action for fear of reprisals is not cowardice; yes, finally me! seeing injustice and moving on is not cowardice, at least admit, nevertheless admit that it looks a lot like it.”  And I would say, to associate with the Africa Initiative and pretend to be neutral is indeed the posture of an imposter in our church adopted for the need of the cause or cause of the need. If refraining from proclaiming your convictions out loud for fear of losing assets in the United Methodist Church is not cowardice, nevertheless admit that it looks a lot like it. Let’s end the pretension of neutrality and make a choice of either being United Methodist and be loyal to it or recognize membership in the Global Methodist Church.

Reference

Jacques Mukonga Sefu,   Speech at the 33rd Congress of the International Conference of Bars of Common Legal Tradition in Lausanne, 2019

Albert Otshudi Longe is a Congolese United Methodist serving as a chaplain in the Great Plains Annual Conference. To reproduce this content elsewhere, please contact the author via his Facebook page.