While schismatic separations from the United Methodist Church (UMC) have largely taken place within the U.S., the largest being the Global Methodist Church, the denomination is now facing the situation of its international partners threatening to leave, according to Evangelical Focus (September 9), a newsletter on European evangelicals. So far, the denomination has lost around a quarter of its churches (over 7,600), most of them dissenting from the UMC’s opening to LGBTQ+ issues [see June RW]. Jonatán Soriano writes that “many national Methodist churches have seen themselves forced to open a reflection process about their place in the denomination from now on.” Among the first national churches to leave the denomination in 2019 was the Methodist Church of Bulgaria (whose separation was finalized in 2022). A church official said of the last General Conference that voted on the LGBTQ+ issues: “When the majority vote can define the truth above the Scriptures, we are talking about a different kind of organization, not so much concerned about Scriptural holiness, but social justice and submission to the ideologies that rule in modern society.” But Soriano writes that it is the African churches that are the most closely poised to leave the denomination. In December 2023, 11 African Methodist bishops signed a declaration stating: “Notwithstanding the differences in our UMC regarding the issue of human sexuality especially with our stance of traditional and biblical view of marriage, we categorically state that we do not plan to leave The United Methodist Church and will continue to be shepherds of God’s flock in this worldwide denomination.”
Source: United Methodist Insight, https://um-insight.net/perspectives/hands-off-the-united-methodist-church-inafrica/
But even the stalwarts of African Methodism, such as John Wesley Yohanna of the United Methodist Church in Nigeria, whose moves are expected to influence the rest of the continent, have expressed more uncertainty since the actions of the General Conference. One decisive event that could change things was the arrest and deportation from Nigeria of Eben Nhiwatiwa, bishop of the United Methodist Church of Zimbabwe, who was accused of entering the country with invalid documentation, a “visit” rather than a “religious” visa. According to the authorities, Nhiwatiwa had traveled to Nigeria to destabilize the UMC of Nigeria’s electoral process, with the aim of maintaining control and promoting an alleged pro-marriage and pro-LGBTQ ordination faction. One official said the bishop was “arrested because he was found doing religious business with a visit visa. We arrested him following information that he was supervising the election of a new bishop.” Meanwhile, in Zimbabwe, the members of the UMC protested against the decisions taken in May after the conclusion of the Charlotte General Conference, stating, among other things, that “homosexuality is a threat to our culture.” In the same month, the Methodist Church of Côte d’Ivoire voted to break with the denomination and leave the UMC with its 1.2 million members.
(Evangelical Focus, https://evangelicalfocus.com/world/28115/the-united-methodist-church-widens-its-fragmentation)
