General Conference 2024 Should Move UMC to be Fossil Free

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The 2024 General Conference of the United Methodist Church will once again be considering legislation to divest from fossil fuels, and I am in full support of the divestment effort.

I know that Wespath Benefits and Investments, the church body that manages United Methodist retirement accounts and other investments, is against fossil fuel divestment. That's because their directors and managers believe we need a seat at the table as shareholders to influence the fossil fuel companies to be more socially and ecologically responsible. This stance does not recognize what human civilization is up against when it comes to the financial interests of fossil fuel companies and their willingness to continue to do almost anything to protect their profits.

Wespath invests millions of dollars of United Methodist funds in numerous fossil fuel companies, and these companies have been sowing the seeds of doubt about climate change for decades in order to prolong their profit-taking at the expense of both people and the planet. Like the tobacco companies in the past, fossil fuel companies have been lying to the public about the deadly effects of using their products. They have been using their economic and political clout to delay the urgently needed transition away from fossil fuels, even when they know very well that the use of fossil fuel is driving us towards an unlivable climate.

As a shareholder in fossil fuel companies, the United Methodist Church holds a share in their profits, and thus we hold a share of the responsibility for the ecological damage and loss of a livable climate that these companies perpetuate. When we as a denomination profit from investing in fossil fuel interests, we weaken our prophetic resistance and become complicit in profiting off the demise of the community of all creation.

Who can forget the time the United Methodist Church attempted to be in solidarity with our siblings at Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, but then had to admit that we as denomination were investing in the very companies building the pipeline that was being protested?! It is not the time to take a seat at the table with these fossil fuel companies, these merchants of doubt about the reality of the climate crisis. Fossil fuel companies, as merchants of death, have chosen short-term economic gain when they know it is leading us to a climate chaos that will cause the suffering and death of billions of persons and lead to the sixth great extinction in the history of Earth. This is the time to turn over these tables in the sacred work of saving our world house, our only home.

Many of the most vocal opponents of fossil fuel divestment have disaffiliated from the United Methodist Church over the past year, including many from my own Oklahoma Conference. So, General Conference 2024 provides an opportunity for the United Methodist Church to stop investing in the companies that have done everything in their power to keep humanity from achieving climate justice and that are hurling us all towards climate chaos.

This week we have witnessed the hottest days the planet ever experienced by human civilization, with a global average temperature surpassing 17 degrees Celsius for the first time since record keeping began. June 2023 was the hottest June in the history of human civilization, and with the current El Niño in place, the next year will most likely be the hottest year since record keeping began. We are perilously close to points of no return in the climate crisis.

Fossil fuel companies have proven time and time again that they are not honest partners in efforts to address the climate crisis. On the contrary, they have lied constantly to the public about the reality of climate change and have spent billions of dollars over time funding propaganda and politicians who will support their ability to continue to make trillions of dollars of profits. The time to have a seat at the table with them is long past. Prophetic imagination and prophetic resistance call for the tables of the fossil fuel companies to be overturned. Divestment from fossil fuels is the very least the United Methodist Church can do to address the fierce urgency of now in relation to the climate crisis. It is long past time for the UMC to be fossil free.

The Rev. Dr. Mark Y. A. Davies is the Wimberly Professor of Social and Ecological Ethics and Director of the World House Institute for Social and Ecological Responsibility at United Methodist-related Oklahoma City University. He is Executive Director of the Leadership, Education, and Development (LEaD) Hub North America of the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry of the United Methodist Church. This post is adapted with permission from Dr. Davies' blog, One World House. To reproduce this content elsewhere, please contact the author via his blog or Facebook.