A bunch of African delegates to the United Methodist Church Normal Convention have denounced the current votes to permit for same-sex marriage and noncelibate LGBT clergy.
This week, delegates on the UMC Normal Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, handed a sequence of measures eradicating from the Guide of Self-discipline guidelines stopping the officiating of same-sex weddings and the funding of LGBT advocacy teams.
On Thursday, the churchwide legislative gathering voted 523 to 161 to take away from the Guide of Self-discipline the assertion that the “practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching,” which had been initially added to the rule e book in 1972.
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Rob Renfroe, writer of the theologically conservative Good Information Journal and attendee of the Normal Convention, forwarded The Christian Publish a replica of Thursday’s assertion from a number of African delegates.
“We have loved The United Methodist Church. We have been grateful for The United Methodist Church. We have joyfully served The United Methodist Church. But now our hearts are troubled,” learn the assertion.
“The United Methodist Church has changed the definition of marriage. It now defines marriage differently from what God created it to be in the beginning. It has changed the definition of marriage from how Jesus described it in Matthew 19 as one man and one woman.”
The delegates assert: “We do not believe we know better than Jesus. We do not believe we know better than God. We do not believe we know better than the Bible.”
“We are devastated now to be part of a denomination that officially contradicts the Bible’s teaching on marriage and sexual morality. We return to Africa with important decisions to make regarding the future,” they continued.
“Still, we go home full of hope, confident in Jesus, standing on the word of God, and determined to contend for the faith once and for all delivered to the saints. We return to Africa where the church is growing, nonbelievers are coming to faith and disciples are being made for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The African delegates blamed the UMC institution for failing to correctly invite 70 African delegates in time for them to journey to the Normal Convention, additional biasing the proceedings.
“That is roughly 25% of our delegates. Ten months ago we began sending letters and emails and making phone calls, alerting the Commission on General Conference and some of our bishops that there was a problem. Many of these communications never received a single response,” the assertion alleged.
The assertion was signed by the Rev. Jerry P. Kulah, head of the Liberia Annual Convention delegation; Affluent Tunda, delegate of the East Congo Annual Convention; the Rev. Danjuma Judi, delegate of the Nigeria Annual Convention; Dr. Yeabu Kamara, delegate of the Sierra Leone Annual Convention; and Ginford Dzimati, delegate of the Zimbabwe Annual Convention.
CP reached out to the UMC for touch upon the claims. A spokesperson emailed a press release from Bishop Tracy S. Malone, president of the UMC Council of Bishops and resident bishop of the East Ohio Convention.
Malone, the first African American lady to be president of the UMC Council of Bishops, mentioned the delegates who signed the protest assertion “do not speak for all the African delegates who are here at General Conference.”
“The staff of the Commission on the General Conference made every effort to get each delegate from the African region to the General Conference who had a right to be seated,” she defined.
“The Committee on Credentials reported to the General Conference and confirmed such efforts. The delegates from the African region who are here are fully engaged in all decisions being made. The delegates who are not here were not able to travel due to not receiving visas and other circumstances that prevented them from being here.”
Malone mentioned the UMC is “a worldwide church” that embraces “our diversity and respect our cultural, contextual, and theological differences.”
Malone cited the regionalization measure that handed through the Normal Convention. This measure will enable completely different areas of the worldwide denomination to find out their stance on LGBT points. It should nonetheless be ratified by a majority of annual conferences earlier than it may be added to the UMC structure.
“The regionalization legislation that overwhelming passed confirms this visible unity and witness,” she added. “The Social Principles legislation that expands the definition of marriage that overwhelming passed also confirms this unity and diversity and respects our cultural and contextual realities.”
A UMC spokesperson additionally forwarded CP a short assertion from Bishop Eben Nhiwatiwa of the Africa Central Convention, Zimbabwe Episcopal Space, who expressed assist for Malone.
“We want to go on record to say that the majority of the African bishops who are here at General Conference, support this statement from Bishop Malone,” said Nhiwatiwa.
For the previous a number of years, the UMC has been coping with divisive debate over the Guide of Self-discipline’s stance on LGBT points. Whereas efforts to vary the language at previous Normal Conferences had at all times failed, many liberals refused to implement or comply with the foundations.
In 2019, at a particular session of the Normal Convention, delegates handed a short lived measure that created a course of for congregations to disaffiliate from the UMC over the talk. Greater than 7,500 largely conservative church buildings left the denomination from 2019 to 2023.
“Well bless their hearts.”
