Recommended Viewing: Manuel Kalimbue Testimony

The Florida Annual Conference, which has a partnership with the East Angola Annual Conference, recently posted a video interview with Rev. Manuel Kalimbue. Rev. Kalimbue is the pastor of Central Malange UMC in Angola and dean of the Quessua School of Theology. In the video, which is just under 20 minutes long, Rev. Kalimbue recounts (in Portuguese with English subtitles) his early life story and eventual call to ministry.

As a child, Rev. Kalimbue was displaced by the civil war in Angola, lived in an international refugee camp, was separated from his family while escaping the camp and was enslaved, escaped enslavement and reunited with his family, and lived through the death of his mother and the rejection of him and his siblings by his father. It is a dramatic life story, and it is well worth listening for its human interest.

It is also worth listening for the questions it raises about intercultural theology. Again, Rev. Kalimbue is dean of the Quessua School of Theology. Certainly his teaching about theology is shaped by his life experiences and the similar life experiences of others in his context, as it should be. Yet those life experiences are very different than the life experiences of most US United Methodists.

How do such different life experiences impact the way in which United Methodists do theology and then communicate about that theology with one another? To give just one instance, trauma-informed theological education is a hot topic in North American theological education. What are the connections between trauma-informed theological education in the US and theological education among Angolans who have been shaped by the traumas of war, displacement, and slavery? There are potentially rich conversations to be had there and mutual learning to occur.

The future of United Methodist theology depends upon mutual recognition of the unique contexts that shape specific instances of United Methodist theology, and it also depends upon our ability to communicate about our theology across those contexts.

Recommended Viewing: Angola and Congo Mission Photos

The Mission Photograph Albums available electronically from the General Commission on Archives and History are a rich visual trove for anyone interested in the history of Methodist mission. Now there is an additional resource of photographic material related to Methodist mission in Angola and Congo. Dr. Paul Blake is a former missionary kid whose parents served in Angola and then with the Methodist Church's mission board and who himself medically treated Angola refugees in the Congo. Out of that legacy of personal and family involvement in mission, Dr. Blake has put together an online collection of photos of Methodist mission in Angola and Congo in the early decades of the 20th century and in Congo and Peru in the middle of the 20th century. The pictures are well worth a look.

Robert Harman: The United Methodist Church and Resisting Political Oppression

Today's post is by Robert J. Harman. Rev. Harman is a mission executive retired from the General Board of Global Ministries. It is a response to David Scott’s recent post, “The United Methodist Church and Declining Democracy.”

David Scott recently wrote a blog post raising the question of how declining democracy and increasing authoritarianism will impact The United Methodist Church. Robert Hunt replied in a comment that, while that is a good question, “an equally good question is whether Methodists make any impact in opposing authoritarian regimes and promoting democracy.”

Dr. Hunt suggested that “most Methodist leaders and their followers are either disengaged from politics or are actually comfortable with authoritarian leaders - so long as they don't directly impact Methodist life.” I am sad to say that I agree with Dr. Hunt's assumption that church leaders today are probably fine with trends toward authoritarian governments as long as they continue to benefit or refrain from much interference with religious practices or services.

There were, however, moments in United Methodist Church history when the opposite was true—when Methodists worked to oppose political domination and on behalf of freedom. The era of decolonization was just such an era.

Liberation movements in the late colonial period were supported and even led by church leaders in their struggle to define and realize self-determining rule as their post-colonial reality. There was not great confidence in democracy as the antidote to colonialism, given the history of collaboration between democracies and colonial authorities. Instead, independence movements looked to indigenous sources for inspired leaders and found some in mission-established churches such as the UMC that had successful educational programs to produce them.

In Mozambique, Methodist-educated Eduardo Chivambo Mondlane became the first black Mozambican of his generation to enroll at the University of Lisbon, where he collaborated with other African students involved in the formation of national liberation movements. He was the founder and first president of the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO), the political and military movement that was eventually successful in deposing the Portuguese dictator Salazar and establishing the first post-colonial government in Mozambique.

The UMC experienced opportunities for cooperation with the new Mozambican government, benefiting their educational and social outreach programs. The indebtedness to the Methodist Mondlane, who fell to an assassin, has often been recognized on ceremonial occasions when country United Methodist leaders and government officials have shared the same public platforms.

In Angola, Dr. Agoutino Neto, medical doctor, son of a United Methodist pastor, and a former Crusade Scholar like Mondlane, became head of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola. He had a profound vision for a self-determining alternative to Portuguese control and worked to implant it village by village, a process in which countless United Methodists gave leadership, sometimes resulting in death and imprisonment. Along with Neto's imprisonment was that of the Reverend Emilio de Carvalho, the first indigenous bishop of the UMC in Angola. MPLA became and remains the ruling party today in spite of protracted civil and insurgent challenges reflecting Cold War political interests in the region.

The governments of neither country today rank high on the scale of democratic influence, though they are trending in that direction with each passing decade. But it is their movement away from the controlling colonial authority through leadership which arose from the ranks of church leaders and members who sacrificed their lives for a new and hopeful futures for their people that is worthy of remembrance as we look at current trends in patterns of governance that may seem discouraging.

Will this history find recurrence in critical contexts where the UMC is engaged? One would hope that the activity within the denomination's base in the United States would provide some signs of awakening to the drift into nationalism. If the charism of a church leader is required, we should be praying for return of the likes of Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam who was a militant against political repression in the Red Scare period of the late 40s and 50s.

But the current trend toward authoritarianism is embraced and successfully led by evangelical groups that harbor no shame in endorsing self-benefitting political strategies rather than advocating for or protecting the goodwill of all the governed. They have yet to be challenged by mainstream churches that bear the Oxnam legacy but choose silence. Will United Methodists remain silent in the face of such a slide towards authoritarianism?

Recommended Reading: Biography of Bishop Ralph E. Dodge

Ralph E. Dodge was a Methodist missionary from the United States to Angola, Board of Missions executive for Africa, and bishop elected by the Africa Central Conference, serving from 1956-68. Dodge was a noted proponent of racial equality, African leadership in the church, and a gospel that combines personal salvation and the social gospel.

Dodge himself wrote several books, including an autobiography, and a number of short profiles about him can be easily found online. Samuel Dzobo, a Zimbabwean student at Asbury University, though, has written one of the first recent treatments of Dodge and his career. Dzobo's dissertation, entitled "Toward a New Church in a New Africa: A Biographical Study of Bishop Ralph Edward Dodge 1907-2008" is freely available on Asbury's website.

As the subtitle suggests, the dissertation is a biography that is structured around a straight-forward narrative of Dodge's life. Scholars might wish for a bit more analysis of Dodge's thought and practices as a missionary, mission executive, and bishop, but Dodge's commitments still come through strongly in the narrative, even without extensive commentary. The narrative approach also makes the profile approachable for a non-specialist, though there are editing errors and jumps in the narrative structure that may be distracting for some readers.

While not all readers of this blog might have the capacity to read a book-length study of Dodge, as the church looks for ways in the present to dismantle racism and create a church in which US Americans and Africans are equal partners, he is a figure worth re-considering, even a half century after his retirement.

Glory Dharmaraj: Gender, Intersectionality, and Being Home in Mission - A Reflection Under the Shadow of COVID-19 Crisis (Part 2)

Today's post is by Dr. Glory Dharmaraj. Dr. Dharmaraj is President of the World Association for Christian Communication, North America and Retired Director of Mission Theology for United Methodist Women. This post is the second of a two-part series.

As explained in my previous post, the COVID-19 crisis has shown the need for ground-up community-level solutions for survival. It is time for niche advocacy in specific localities with a focus on the most vulnerable people, with an intersectional perspective, while interrogating why certain groups of people have been less protected and allowed to die. It is time to align ourselves in a mutually respectful dialogue and joint action with those who are at the margins of survival, and work with those who build coalitions for human flourishing from ground up. It is also time to include the voices of those at the margins in building such coalitions. In this way, we can build a new concept of home as hearthhold of hope.

Sisterhood and Neighborhood
These new practices must be rooted in concepts of sisterhood and neighborhood. Sisterhood and neighborhood existed long before women organized themselves for mission. Sisterhood is as old as neighborhood.

For instance, in the story of Naomi and Ruth, it is the sisterhood of Bethlehem that visit Naomi often, bless her in her journey of survival, and rejoice when she takes over the child care of Ruth’s new-born baby. It is the neighborhood women who even come up with a name for the new-born child (Ruth 4: 14-17). Something unprecedented!

A sisterhood of lament is found in the story of Jephtha, who makes a hasty decision that if he wins his fight over the enemies of Israel, he will sacrifice anyone who comes to meet him first on his return home. It is his virgin daughter who comes to greet him first with music and dance! A group of women immediately accompany this unquestioning daughter in order to bemoan her “unfulfilled” life. A sisterhood of lament, the women perpetuate the memory of this nameless victim whose life is cut short, in an annual ritual of remembrance (Judges 11: 29-40).

In the not-too-distant past, sisterhoods have played many roles for survival, running soup-kitchens, offering child-care, sewing clothes, and making it possible for families to function. Instances of sisterhood and neighborhood coming through in the best and worst of times are not rare occurrences. Emerging in the communal spaces during crises where inequality persists due to class, race, and other categories of oppressions, sisterhoods have strengthened women, children, and men, and the community as a whole, and have sought to address systemic gaps, by community organizing projects and neighborhood unions.

Home and True Womanhood in Mission History
As a base, home has been pivotal in women’s mission. So is the notion of the “cleansing” influence of home on the neighborhood and community, that home offer a moral and spiritual framework to shape the latter.

A key thread in the history of women in Christian mission is a story of how the female leaders negotiated the ideology of separate spheres along gender lines in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. In a binarily divided cultural framework, the domestic sphere defined “true womanhood,” characterized by piety, submissiveness, and domesticity; public sphere fostered men’s roles in hard core activities.

While the definitions of home and household labor have gone through sweeping changes over time, there have been gaps and cracks in the concept of women sanctifying the private sphere from its inception. African American and poor immigrant women had toiled along with their men side by side, be it in farms, fields, or crowded urban settings. The ideal of true womanhood failed to include the so called “heathen” within the U.S., such as the “blacks, mountaineers, rural people, and immigrants.”[1] Gaps of inequity, be it class-specific or race-related, tend to become “systemic gaps.”

The rallying cry for women’s mission was centered around the notion of the private sphere in the slogan, “Women’s work for women.” Single female missionaries, both home and foreign missionaries, and the deaconesses put to use the notion of separate spheres as a strategy around this catch phrase, while playing a key role in women’s move from the private sphere into the public world. These women used concepts of home to propel their mission but refused to be limited by the home.

This circumvention of patriarchy is an interesting thread of this story and an important lesson to take with us as we re-examine home in this COVID-19 reality, though a full accounting of this history is beyond the scope of this article.

Local Solutions and Community Organizing
Localized solutions to the problems revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic have sprung from home and extended neighborhood spaces. Garages, driveways, and porches have become communal spaces where groceries, masks, and essentials are distributed to neighbors. Some clergy make “driveway” visits in place of home visits in the New York area, and pray aloud to the parishioners who keep social distance in their garages and in their front yards!

In the midst of it, practices of togetherness, however fragmented it be, take on many shapes. In my immediate neighborhood in Westchester County, New York, a father of a nine-year-old suggested that we have a backyard barbeque and that we celebrate togetherness in groups of two or three households. The idea is well mapped out by this dad that the “fired-up” barbeque grill be common and each bring their own meat or vegetable and grill from an assigned area on the grill plate. A common fire and a shared grill!

Hearthholds of Hope
This localizes the age-old concept of hearthhold, alluded to by Felicia Ekejuiba, and developed into a theological idea by Mercy Amba Oduyoye, a Methodist minister and a former leader in the World Council of Churches: a fireplace set inside or outside the home. It is a concept familiar across many places in Africa and Asia, and migrant camps including the one in Brownsville, Texas.

Some years ago, a group of women in Angola, Africa interpreted what hearthhold meant to them in a Bible Women training in Luanda which was sponsored by the Angola Council of Christian Churches and the United Methodist Women. Surviving the Civil War in Angola, these women were rebuilding their communities. To them, the fireplace meant “warmth,” “food,” “solidarity,” “protection,” and “presence of the life of the household.” Women created heartholds in the fields where they spent long hours of work, and they created these heartholds in places of survival. Men create a central fire place in communities called “Njango” and “Kibanga.” One of the women leaders urged the others in a Bible Study to nurture the fire of hope, “Nutrir da palavra de Esper.”

Thanks be to all those who tend the heartholds, be it homes, neighborhoods, migrant camps, and returnee routes. Though we are not together in Covid-19 crisis due to pre-existing and current deep systemic gaps, we are called to be in mission, “together towards life.” Lest this remain a mere aspiration, may we continue to imagine durable mission practices from the ground up, for and as resilient communities locally, regionally, and inter-regionally taking seriously into consideration the interstices and the systemic gaps that persist and resist human flourishing, healing, and wholeness.

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[1] Mary E. Frederickson, “Shaping a New Society” in Women and New Worlds, vol. 1, Hilah Thomas and Rosemary Skinner Keller (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1981), 349.

Whither the central conferences in a "loosened" connection? Part 2

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Director of Mission Theology at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

The Commission on a Way Forward has been worked to develop plans for a new way of structuring The United Methodist Church to preserve some degree of connection and shared ministry while accommodating different and at times fundamentally opposed views of homosexuality. The commission has indicated that their plan will likely entail a “loosening” of the current UMC connection. If the connection will change, it’s worthwhile to carefully examine the question of what the various central conferences might do in such a loosening of the connection. A previous piece looked at how these issues might play out in Europe and the Philippines. This piece looks at the three African central conferences.

Congo Central Conference
The Congo Central Conference is the largest, fastest-growing, and most cohesive of the central conferences in Africa. It contains the largest annual conference in the denomination (North Katanga). The Congo Central Conference has more members than the Southeast Jurisdiction and thus potentially has significant clout at General Conference. As with the Philippines, national boundaries and ecclesiastical boundaries largely overlap (though Zambia and Tanzania are also part of the Congo Central Conference), thus reinforcing a sense of shared identity, despite at times violent differences between ethnic and linguistic groups.

In general, Africans have one of the most conservative sets of views about homosexuality of any group globally. That does not, however, mean they are monolithically opposed to homosexuality, nor does it mean that this issue is the most important in the African context. Often, overwhelming opposition actually means that the issue is not important in the day-to-day life of the church in Africa, since such opposition can just be assumed without reinforcement. This is largely true in the Congo.

Often in recent years, the Congolese have voted at General Conference with conservative leaders from the Southeast Jurisdiction. This connection, however, goes back before recent debates about sexuality and other American culture war issues. Half of the Congolese church stems from mission work of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and thus there has been a close connection between Congolese and Southern US-Americans since the start of Methodism in the Congo. That relationship continues today. For example, newly elected bishop Kasap Owan is close friends with conservative North Georgia leader Joe Kilpatrick. Whatever their connections to the SEJ, though, the Congolese are their own people with their own interests and agendas, and it is an unhelpful stereotype to simply assume that they will support a plan simply because the SEJ wants them to.

One of the agendas for the Congolese UMC is continued financial support from the US. The Democratic Republic of Congo is an extremely poor country (perhaps the poorest in the world), and US money pays for churches, schools, hospitals, and even pastors’ salaries. The Congolese UMC is capable of raising their own money at times – they built a $2 million cathedral in Lubumbashi with their own money – and attitudes about dependency are beginning to change. Nevertheless, the Congolese church as a whole would be hurt if they lost funding from the US.

Moreover, the SEJ is not the only region to have close relations with Congolese United Methodists. The West Ohio Annual Conference, for instance, also has a close relationship, especially with North Katanga. West Ohio has, for instance, sponsored the critically important Wings of the Morning aviation ministry in North Katanga, along with Greater New Jersey.

Thus, it is reasonable to expect the Congo to continue as a unit, with the possible exception of its English-speaking annual conferences in Zambia and Tanzania. It is unlikely that the Congolese would support a plan to change standards on homosexuality for the denomination as a whole. Nevertheless, the Congolese might support some sort of plan that would change the denomination if it allowed them to continue to collaborate in mission with a variety of annual conferences across the US. Thus, the Congolese might be receptive to a multiple US denominations approach if it left their relations with the rest of the denomination relatively intact.

Retired Congolese bishop David Yemba’s role as a moderator of the Commission on a Way Forward and Congolese bishop Mande Muyombo’s and Wings of Caring pilot Jacques Umembudi’s role as members of the Commission on a Way Forward will carry significant weight in promoting the plan to their fellow Congolese United Methodists. In the Congo, as in much of Africa, United Methodists generally follow their bishop’s leadership. Hence, Congolese (and other African) support will depend on whether their bishops see such a plan as beneficial to them and their regions.

West Africa Central Conference
The West Africa Central Conference contains United Methodists in four main countries – Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Cote d’Ivoire – along with smaller mission work in Senegal and the Gambia. Three of the countries in West Africa are English-speaking, while Cote d’Ivoire is primarily French-speaking and was not part of the denomination prior to 2008.

While relations between United Methodists in Liberia and Sierra Leone are often tight, connections among Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, and the other two countries are less robust. The West Africa Central Conference does not collaborate much beyond its quadrennial meetings. National branches have a degree of leeway in selecting their own bishops, reinforcing a national-level sense of identity. There have, however, been instances in which the WACC has disregarded national-level opinions in episcopal elections, which has only served to create tensions amongst the national branches.

Civil wars and unrest in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria have left churches there reliant on international economic assistance to rebuild damaged infrastructure, though the Liberia and Sierra Leone Annual Conferences in particular have shown an interest in achieving greater self-sufficiency, meaning they are perhaps less threatened by the economic ramifications of a loosening of the connection than the Congolese might.

In general, views on homosexuality are conservative, as in the rest of Africa. Jerry Kulah, one of leaders of the Africa Initiative and an outspoken voice for maintaining strong opposition to homosexuality in the UMC, is from Liberia. Nevertheless, views are not monolithic. Reconciling Ministries has had productive visits to Liberia.

Still, it is unlikely that West Africans would vote to change the denomination’s stance on homosexuality. West Africans, however, might be willing to go along with a plan for several denominations under an umbrella of the UMC. There are no Liberians or Sierra Leoneans on the Commission on a Way Forward, which could hurt the plan’s chances in West Africa, especially if Jerry Kulah comes out in opposition to it. Bishop John Wesley Johanna’s membership on the Commission will help the plan’s fate in Nigeria.

What will also be interesting to see is whether the West Africa Central Conference would continue to exist in its present formation in a new UMC. The Central Conference is not plagued by the same tensions as the Africa Central Conference (see below), so inertia might be enough to carry it forward. Yet if things are changing in the UMC, it may be a chance for national branches of the UMC in West Africa to reassess the value to them of collaborating through a common central conference. Such reassessment is more likely if they are asked to write a common Book of Discipline. National differences may yield little interest in such a common Book of Discipline.

Africa Central Conference
The Africa Central Conference is the least cohesive of all the central conferences. It contains three lingua francas, five episcopal areas, ten or more different countries, and dozens of ethnic groups and local languages. All this diversity yields a central conference that, quite frankly, has little in common amongst itself. The quadrennial meetings of the central conference are often marked with difficulties regarding language, meeting location, and procedural questions, and the central conference as such has no existence beyond these meetings in the form of joint ministry.

As with most of the rest of Africa, views on homosexuality tend to be conservative, though South Africa, which has relatively liberal views on homosexuality is in this region, too. Forbes Matonga from the Africa Initiative is from Zimbabwe, though the issue of sexuality is not a top priority for most in the region.

Annual conferences here are less likely to be in close relationship with the Southeast Jurisdiction. ACC annual conferences partner with a variety of American annual conferences. For example, the Mozambique Episcopal Area has a close relationship with Missouri. Moreover, for Portuguese-speaking annual conferences, connections to the autonomous Methodist Church in Brazil are important along with UMC connections.

The episcopal areas are also varying degrees of economically self-sufficient. All countries still have economic struggles and benefit from US support, especially for medical infrastructure, but the basic operations of the annual conferences (pastors’ salaries and theological education) are not as heavily subsidized by the US as elsewhere in Africa. The East Africa Episcopal Area has been operating without much US funds for the last several years because of financial disputes between Global Ministries and US annual conferences on the one hand and Bishop Daniel Wandabula on the other.

Thus, the Africa Central Conference might be quite open to a loosening of the connection, not only with United Methodists elsewhere, but amongst itself, especially if that yields more autonomy for national or regional level groups. Even before the Commission on a Way Forward, there were proposals to split the Africa Central Conference into four. If the Commission proposes an approach that allows sub-units of the UMC to craft their own Books of Discipline, there is no reason to expect that the Africa Central Conference would try to do that together. Instead, look for up to four separate Books of Discipline for this region – Angola, Zimbabwe, Southeast Africa, and East Africa.

Conclusion
As stated in the introduction, the debate over homosexuality might be primarily American, but if the church is revamping its structures, that process can play out in different ways around the globe. It would be wrong to think that changes in the structure of the church in the US will not lead to any changes in the structure of the church elsewhere.

In summary, look for Europeans to strengthen their connections to each other while connections loosen elsewhere, perhaps implementing a local option to accommodate differences over homosexuality among themselves. Look for the Philippines to continue as is in terms of structure and stance on homosexuality or possibly to seek full autonomy from the denomination. Look for the map of African Central Conferences to be reshaped, especially in the south and east, while all branches uphold current teachings on sexuality.