Recommended Viewing: "A New Era of United Methodism" Documentary

J. J. Warren has produced a documentary called "A New Era of United Methodism," documenting his trip along with Helen Ryde and Rev. Kimberly Scott to visit Rev. Kennedy Mwita in Kenya for the dedication of the new sanctuary of First UMC Moheto. First UMC Moheto is the first reconciling congregation in Africa, and Warren, Ryde, and Scott all attended the dedication as representatives of Reconciling Ministries Network. The hour-and-a-half long document shows both exceptional and representative elements of world-wide Methodism, only one of which, though, has to do with the congregation's status as the first reconciling congregation in Africa.

Rev. Mwita and First UMC Moheto are certainly exceptional in some ways, the most notable of which is their work to become a reconciling congregation and to create a space of welcome for LGBTQ persons in a culture that is often not very welcoming.

But Rev. Mwita is also remarkable in the size of the vision he has for what God can do around and through First UMC Moheto. He has big ambitions for how God can use the church and the others in its circuit to be a blessing to its surrounding community. In part, that is through its status as a reconciling congregation, but it also involves a lot more traditional development work - a school, a clinic, water and electricity projects.

While Rev. Mwita's holy ambitions are notable, they are also in many ways representative of the sorts of visions for the church and its relationship to the wider community that many United Methodists hold across countries in Africa. United Methodism in most places in Africa is a form of Christianity that is oriented towards benefiting the community through a holistic gospel that combines evangelism, social justice, education, health, development, and agriculture.

First UMC Moheto and the other circuit congregations under the leadership of Rev. Mwita, his wife Pastor Elnora Mwita, and Rev. Benedict Odiambo -- Christ Chapel United Methodist Church in Oyani and St. Paul’s Giosahi United Methodist Church in Kuria West -- are also representative of so many churches throughout the continent of the Africa in their assets for and their struggles in trying to implement the holistic vision of church and community proclaimed by United Methodism. They have multiple assets - intelligent, hard-working, visionary leadership; enthusiastic and generous members; land; and local resources. Yet they also struggle with obtaining other necessary resources, not always because of poverty but because of a combination of logistics, supply lines, and regulations.

The documentary also show something else remarkable, though, and that is cross-cultural conversation between the three Americans and the Kenyans. Especially around the half hour and one hour marks of the video, there are recorded conversations about the nature of justice in its many forms and about the church's role in development respectively. The future of the UMC depends upon such cross-cultural conversations with equal exchange and mutual learning becoming more common.

Therefore, the feature-length documentary is well worth taking the time to watch -- both for the ways in which what it shows is remarkable and the ways in which it is not.

This is what the marriage debate looks like in Kenya

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Assistant Professor of Religion and Pieper Chair of Servant Leadership at Ripon College.

You've heard about the marriage debate, right?  The one that pits traditional marriage against more modern notions?  The one that's about whether marriage should be defined as one man and one women?  The one that involves complicated religious and cultural forces?  The one that's being played out in legislative chambers and on blogs?

If you're an American, you would identify that debate as the debate about gay marriage.  But if you are a Kenyan, you would identify that debate differently.  As this story reports, Kenya's parliament recently passed a bill legitimizing polygamy in the form of allowing men to take more than one wife, even without consulting existing their spouse(s).

This bill has sparked a lot of debate about the nature of marriage, but debate that's very different from the marriage debates in the US.  "Traditional marriage" is the term used not for the one man-one woman setup, but in defense of polygamy, seen as rooted in African cultures.  Monogamous marriage is sometimes seen as a modern, Western imposition.  Muslims often support polygamy, but there are those who make the argument that this should be the Christian view as well and cite biblical justifications.  Women are largely opposed to the bill, especially the provision that allows for the husband to not consult his wife about subsequent marriages, though not all women are necessarily opposed to polygamy, and one female blogger has even gone so far as to call for women to be allowed to marry multiple men (though perhaps with a bit of tongue-in-cheek).

What does this have to do with The United Methodist Church?  A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post suggesting that United Methodists from outside the United States might have other agendas (including evangelism, education, poverty and disease reduction, etc.) that get drowned out when the church focuses only on the American marriage debate.  This news from Kenya reminds us that, even if the UMC were to focus on defining marriage, there is more than one marriage debate we would need to engage.  The status of gay marriage in the church is an important debate for Americans, but we are victims of cultural blinders if we assume it has the same urgency for United Methodists everywhere.