Editorial Analysis
Time to break out the winter coats, United Methodists, because from our perspective, Hell has officially frozen over: the General Board of Global Ministries is leaving New York City. And it's reforming the old politics of location as it goes.
United Methodist leaders have announced that the church's global missions agency will move from its longtime headquarters at 475 Riverside Drive in New York City by the time its lease expires in two years. In a deal brokered by Bishop Michael Watson of the North Georgia Annual Conference, Global Ministries will take over the campus of Grace United Methodist Church in Atlanta. In addition to the headquarters move, Global Ministries will establish three new regional offices in Asia, Africa and Latin America, while enhancing its European presence through an existing UMC office.
Longtime UMC leaders and observers understand the epic nature of moving Global Ministries out of New York and setting up three new continent-based offices. If any one decision might signal the end of U.S. hegemony over global United Methodism, this move could well be it. The missions agency has long been the true linchpin of the worldwide denomination; as Global Ministries goes, so goes the church.
It's impossible to know for certain what behind-the-scenes discussions spurred Global Ministries' relocation, since real estate negotiations fall into the realm of sanctioned secrecy according to Book of Discipline Paragraph 722. Nonetheless, astute observers have been watching for some kind of decentralization since the 2011 appointment of Thomas Kemper, a German United Methodist, as the agency's top executive. Kemper and GBGM directors have been open and upfront that his appointment signaled an intention to make the mission agency's operation much more globally participatory instead of remaining a remnant of ecclesiastical colonialism.
The missions agency has long been the true linchpin of the worldwide denomination; as Global Ministries goes, so goes the church.
Longtime observers will intuit rightly that there are both financial and political motives at work in Global Ministries' relocation out of one of the world's most expensive cities. Forgive the U. S. metaphor, but moving GBGM from New York City to Atlanta, the putative capital of the American South, represents the UMC equivalent of General Sherman marching Yankee forces through Georgia during the Civil War. Knowingly or not (and we suspect more of the former), GBGM leadership has cut the heart out of a political tactic long employed by conservative forces, namely that United Methodist mission work was irredeemably tainted by its headquarters' location in wicked New York.
Both sides have used this "strategy of place" for decades in UMC political lobbying. Global Ministries supporters have claimed that the New York location, with its multiple cultures and transportation infrastructure, provided the necessary international awareness that a global denomination needed. Conversely, GBGM opponents, especially proponents of the independent Mission Society for United Methodists, countered that the denomination's official mission-sending agency was a conduit for liberal theologies and politics because of its New York site.
Now this "strategy of place" will no longer work, if it ever did. And the timing of its transformation couldn't be better politically, coming approximately 18 months before 2016 General Conference in Portland, Ore., when the existence of The United Methodist Church could be decided. Moving Global Ministries out of New York delivers the coup de grace to the old strategy of place, thanks in large part to the Internet's ability to create virtual places by transmitting face and voice connections via satellite.
Succeeding the U.S.-based approach is a new "strategy of place" in global missions that equalizes representation and operations. The development of regional GBGM offices in Asia, Africa and Latin America, along with a closer partnership with European United Methodists, will shake up the worldwide church. In effect, relocating GBGM sets the stage for restructuring the UMC into continent-based regional conferences.
Proposals to set up regional conferences with the power to enact their own contextualized Books of Discipline are already making the rounds of General Conference delegations. If Global Ministries' regional offices are in place by the time General Conference convenes in 2016, any plan to set up continent-based conferences has a far better chance of succeeding.
From the American perspective, GBGM's move to Atlanta will have little practical effect on those in pew and pulpit. Apportionments, UMCOR and Advance contributions will still flow to the denominational mission headquarters. However, U.S. church leaders will be confronted with a likely loss of power, for it's reasonable to expect that Global Ministries' governance and operations will be adapted to its new decentralized structure. Since the political power of the purse always has been the U.S. church's ultimate weapon, it will be fascinating to see how the new "think global, live local" arrangement plays out.
Cynthia B. Astle serves as coordinator of United Methodist Insight.