Darryl W. Stephens: United Methodists in the Ivory Coast: One Vote, One Million Departures, Many Questions

Today's post is by Rev. Dr. Darryl W. Stephens. Rev. Dr. Stephens is Director of United Methodist Studies at Lancaster Theological Seminary and is author of many books, articles, and chapters on Methodism, including Methodist Morals: Social Principles in the Public Church’s Witness(2016) and Reckoning Methodism: Mission and Division in the Public Church (2024).

The United Methodist Church (UMC) potentially lost one million members on May 28, 2024, complicating its ambition to become a “worldwide” denomination. In a special session held in Abidjan, the annual conference of the United Methodist Church of Ivory Coast (EMUCI, Eglise Méthodiste Unie Côte d’Ivoire) voted “For reasons of conscience before God and His word, the supreme authority in matters of faith and life . . . to leave the United Methodist Church denomination.” (Reported by La Croix International. See also UM News.) The departure is not yet finalized.

The vote followed an eventful General Conference in Charlotte, NC, in which the denomination’s longstanding prohibitions against LGBTQ clergy and same-sex marriage were lifted. The UMC Discipline (book of law and doctrine) now takes a permissive stance, allowing discernment on these issues at the local and regional levels of the UMC, which has conferences in Africa, Europe, North America, and the Philippines.

Contextually flexible ministry to and with LGBTQ persons precipitated the vote by United Methodists in Côte d’Ivoire to leave the UMC. The EMUCI president, Bishop Benjamin Boni, explained: “the United Methodist Church now rests on socio-cultural values that have consumed its doctrinal and disciplinary integrity” (La Croix International). Did the Ivorians join the UMC under the false assumption that its policies on homosexuality would never change?

None of the denomination’s prior prohibitions against same-sex marriage or ordination of a “self-avowed practicing homosexual” were matters of doctrine. Like long-standing prohibitions against alcohol, tobacco, and divorce in generations past, these policies on sexual morality rested on social statements (for discussion, see Methodist Morals, pp. 31–41). Unlike the UMC’s “standards of doctrine” (Book of Discipline 2016, ¶ 17), the Social Principles—and any policies built on them—can be changed with a simple majority vote at General Conference.

Although their “marriage” was never very intimate, the failing merger of the UMC and the Methodist Protestant Church of Côte d’Ivoire raises significant questions regarding the “worldwide nature” of the UMC and its global ambitions.

A Surprise Wedding

The Methodist Protestant Church of Côte d’Ivoire and the UMC initiated their merger in 2004. Was this joining of denominational bodies a merger, a partnership, a marriage, or something else? The initial commitment to unite the UMC and the Methodist Protestant Church of Côte d’Ivoire came as a surprise to all parties—the ecclesial equivalent to an elopement.

The Ivorians had operated as an independent ecclesial body for less than twenty years. Established as a church in 1924, Methodists in Côte d’Ivoire became autonomous from the British Methodist Church in 1985 (for a history, see https://www.umnews.org/en/news/a-brief-history-of-methodism-in-cote-divoire). This church subsequently requested mission status from the UMC’s General Board of Global Ministries circa 2001 in anticipation of joining the UMC in 2008.

Through a petition to the General Conference of 2004, the Commission on Central Conference Affairs recommended referring the matter to its executive committee for further study. However, during the General Conference plenary, a delegate made a substitute motion to add Côte d’Ivoire without delay. It passed. The United Methodist News Service reported a one-million-member increase for the UMC, documenting surprise and delight among the respective leaders involved.

After the initial euphoria and a more precise census, the Judicial Council ruled that the appropriate Disciplinary procedures had not been followed, delaying a merger of the two churches until 2008. Lack of sufficient premarital counseling and a hurried wedding did not bode well for a successful marriage between the UMC and the Methodist Protestant Church of Côte d’Ivoire. Many issues of how to be church together remained unaddressed.

An Unconsummated Marriage

At the time of merger, Côte d’Ivoire became the UMC’s largest annual conference, and it was clear who held the power and controlled the finances. I do not know what motivated the Ivorian leaders to seek to become part of the UMC. However, the results included consecration of a bishop, access to US-funded agencies, and other denominational resources. Despite the perception of mutual benefits, the 2008 merger maintained the inequalities and disparities of the central conference structure in the UMC. The institutional integration of the two churches was never fully consummated.

From the outset, the former Methodist Protestant Church of Côte d’Ivoire showed ambivalence about participating in the business of the UMC. Côte d’Ivoire was the only annual conference not in crisis to fail to submit vote totals on the five constitutional amendments approved by General Conference 2016. It was also the only annual conference to fail to revise its membership numbers for the 2020 General Conference delegation calculation. The annual conference has not submitted a journal to the General Council of Finance and Administration since 2016.

The UMC, for its part, did not prioritize this new international partnership. While various shared ministry partnerships arose, the efforts did not endeavor to address fundamental issues. Differences in language, culture, geography, institutional history, and socio-political context on a denominational level were not addressed. Despite a merger of institutions on a similar scale to the 1968 merger that created the UMC, little attention was given to the details of being church together (for discussion, see Reckoning Methodism, pp. 38–44)

Twelve years after the initial vote to acquire the Côte d’Ivoire church, significant aspects of the work of denominational union remained unresolved. General Conference 2016 postponed and referred eight major pieces of legislation to various agencies and commissions, including a Global Book of Discipline, revised Social Principles, and an ongoing study of the “worldwide nature” of the UMC. Meanwhile, United Methodists in the United States perceived few changes, and most were unaware that a merger had occurred.

A Failing Merger and Global Ambitions

Many aspects of this failing merger were specific to the way the UMC and United Methodists in Côte d’Ivoire related to each other. Both sides neglected the relationships and structural changes necessary to forge a shared life together. This union was treated as an acquisition, and these institutions did not view each other as equals. When General Conference finally approved two major pieces of global polity—the Revised Social Principles and a regionalization plan—Boni and other leaders in Côte d’Ivoire decided that the changes were not compatible with their understanding of Methodism. Their planned exit from the UMC could be accomplished as quickly as their entry since there are no strong structural ties. Could an equally swift exit vote happen among United Methodist annual conferences elsewhere in Africa?

It is possible that conferences in Nigeria, Zimbabwe, South Congo, and others could also vote to depart the UMC—though this is unlikely. The Africa Forum supported the recent regionalization legislation, and connectional relationships appear much stronger beyond the denominational newcomers in Côte d’Ivoire. Whether the UMC mirrors the cross-cultural antagonism found within other church bodies, such as the Anglican Communion, or finds a different path for international cooperation remains to be seen.

The failing merger of the UMC and the Methodist Protestant Church of Côte d’Ivoire exposes the difficulties of realizing United Methodism’s global ambitions. The ambition for global expansion appears to be motivated by a US, imperialistic mindset. The project of building a “worldwide” church is funded through US apportionments and is emblematic of cultural power and prestige. In a winner-obsessed culture, nothing is more indicative of success than increasing numbers, whether through baptisms or acquisition. Despite a century of perpetual studies of “Methodism overseas” and the “worldwide nature” of this denomination, the UMC has yet to adequately address its replication of the structures of empire.

For the project of a “worldwide” church to be shared among United Methodists outside of the United States, international partnerships must be mutually transforming. For a lasting marriage, US United Methodists will have to do church differently—or suffer yet another departure from the US “mother church.”

Further Reading

Maia, Filipe, and David W. Scott, eds. Methodism and American Empire: Reflections on Decolonizing the Church. Nashville: Abingdon, 2023.

Scott, David W. “Is Being a World-Wide Denomination an American Aspiration?” UM & Global, June 14, 2019. http://www.umglobal.org/2019/06/is-being-world-wide-denomination.html.

Stephens, Darryl W. Methodist Morals: Social Principles in the Public Church’s Witness. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2016.

———. Reckoning Methodism: Mission and Division in the Public Church. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2024.

Philip Wingeier-Rayo: Celebrating 150 Years of Methodism in Mexico: Napoleon, Cinco de Mayo, and Reform

Today's post is by Rev. Dr. Philip Wingeier-Rayo. Rev. Dr. Wingeier-Rayo is Professor of Missiology, World Christianity and Methodist Studies at Wesley Theological Seminary.

What does Cinco de Mayo have to do with Methodism in Mexico? Restaurants, schools, and breweries in the U.S. have made the holiday popular—mostly for commercial gain. However, few can articulate the history or significance of the Cinco de Mayo holiday. Some people wrongly assume that it is Mexican Independence Day. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mexico launched its war on September 16, 1810, and won its independence from Spain in 1821, while the Battle of Puebla happened over 50 years later on May 5, 1862. Mexico’s victory was against the French army. 

Now what were the French doing in Mexico? This brings us to our topic of Methodists in Mexico. But first a little background.

Ever since Hernan Cortez and Spanish conquistadors conquered the Aztecs and Emperor Moctezuma in 1521, politics in Mexico have been intimately intertwined with religion. The Spanish arrived with the sword in one hand and the Bible in the other. The Roman Catholic Church and clergy enjoyed broad ranging power, influence, and wealth – owning approximately 1/3 of Mexican land.

This began to change when President Benito Juarez (1806-1872) and the liberals advocated for the separation of church and state and freedom of religion. They fought for a constitutional federal state, subjugation of the army to civil authorities, public education, freedom of religion, and the equal distribution of wealth through the sale of unused church property. In 1856, the liberal government headed by Juarez passed the Ley Lerdo, which ordered the sale of church lands (monasteries, cemeteries, etc.) not used for religious purposes. The Catholic Church and clergy fought back in the War of Reform (1858-1860). The liberals won this war and recaptured Mexico City in 1860, passing the freedom of religion law, which allowed other denominations besides Catholics to legally operate in Mexico. The government carried out reforms, nationalizing Catholic properties and secularizing charitable institutions (e.g., hospitals). The liberals turned around and sold these properties to the public, which allowed for the creation of a Mexican middle class.

The Roman Catholic clergy and conservative allies were on the losing end of these reforms and encouraged French Emperor Napoleon III to intervene, which he did under the pretext of an outstanding national debt to France. The French invaded Mexico in 1862, and Napoleon named Maximiliano I to be emperor of Mexico. A sense of national pride and sovereignty rallied Mexican troops, who initially defeated the French army on May 5 at the Battle of Puebla. The victory was short-lived as the better-equipped army advanced and entered Mexico City in 1864. Maximiliano I tried to create a unified government, but he was caught between the competing claims of liberals and the coalition of conservatives and clerics. In 1867, Maximiliano was defeated by Benito Juarez and executed, marking a victory for the liberals and for the Reform. 

What does this have to do with Methodism? 

The liberal government found an ally in North American and European Protestants who believed in literacy, public education, health care, democracy, and ministry in rural areas—especially to the indigenous populations. A former Franciscan convent on Gante Street in Mexico City was one once of the properties confiscated and sold by the liberal government. It was and is a majestic site. Prior to the arrival of the Spanish, the lands had been used by Emperor Moctezuma as a garden before it became the first and largest Franciscan convent in New Spain. Between 1862 and 1873 after being sold during the Reforma, this building had various owners and was used for different purposes. In 1865, it was home to the Chiarini Circus, which Emperor Maximiliano once attended with his wife, Carlota. While the National Palace was under repair during 1868-9, this site became a place of legislation as temporary home to the Chamber of Deputies. It was also used as a theatre, restaurant, and cantina, among other functions. 

In 1871, the Missions Committee of the Methodist Episcopal Church approved $10,000 for missions in Mexico. The following year, William Butler, missionary and founder of the Methodist Church in India, was named secretary of the American and Foreign Christian Union and was tasked with mission work in papal lands, specifically in Latin America. Ms. Matilda Rankin, a Congregationalist based in Brownsville, Texas, invited the Butlers to go to Mexico, and so on February 1, 1873, the family sailed for Veracruz and took a train to Mexico City. The Butlers purchased the former Franciscan monastery for $16,300 to start the first Methodist Church. They began an orphanage with 37 girls, and Mrs. Butler established a support group for mothers every Tuesday night. 

Alejo Hernández became the first Mexican to be ordained by the MEC, South in December of 1871. Born in Aguascalientes, Hernández came to Brownsville, Texas, in search of a Protestant Bible and was ordained a deacon by Bishop Enoch Martin in Corpus Christi, Texas, and then he traveled back to Mexico City to assist Butler to help the new Methodist mission on Gante Street in 1873. The same year, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South sent Bishop JC Keener, and he purchased the former chapel of St. Andrew on the corner of San Andres and Callejon 57 streets in Mexico City. 

The liberal reforms and defeat of the French army created a window of opportunity for the Methodists, along with the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and other Protestants, to begin mission work in Mexico—150 years ago this year. To honor this history, the Methodist Church of Mexico will hold a celebratory conference later this year with the theme “Renovation and Future,” to be held at the Santisima Trinidad Methodist Church at Gante Street 5, November 30 – December 2.

David Scott: Looking at autonomy and connection together

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian 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. This piece originally appeared as a commentary on the United Methodist News Service site and is republished here with permission.

Like annual conferences in the United States, some European conferences are struggling with conflicts, particularly over sexuality in the church. Some have chosen to become autonomous, while others have chosen disaffiliation.

The Czech Annual Conference is an example. During annual conference sessions in May, delegates voted to become an autonomous church, no longer part of The United Methodist Church. To become autonomous, the Czech church will follow the procedure laid out in Paragraph 572 of the denomination’s Book of Discipline. The Eurasia Episcopal Area also chose to follow Paragraph 572.

Other branches of Methodism in Europe have selected different methods to separate from the denomination – a unilateral declaration in the case of Bulgaria and Slovakia and a process negotiated with the central conference for Estonia. Other branches of The United Methodist Church in Europe or elsewhere could similarly decide to use Paragraph 572 to become autonomous.

These recent developments raise theological and polity questions. What is an autonomous church? Where did Paragraph 572 originate? Is autonomy just another name for disaffiliation? What does autonomy mean for the future of connectionalism?

“Autonomy” means “self-ruling.” An autonomous church makes its own polity. Differing degrees of autonomy can be practiced by differing bodies within the church. A congregation has autonomy over its building-use policies and program calendar. An annual conference has autonomy over its clergy deployment.

An “autonomous church” is generally understood as a separate body or denomination that makes its own polity and policy decisions without additional input by a larger church body. The Discipline’s Paragraph 570 defines an “autonomous Methodist church” as “a self-governing church of the Wesleyan tradition.”

Paragraph 572 allows individual or groups of annual conferences outside the U.S. to self-govern in all matters, no longer subject to the decision-making of the United Methodist General Conference. For a church to become autonomous by following Paragraph 572 requires annual conference, central conference and General Conference approval. (For more on that process, see this primer.)

The earliest version of Paragraph 572 was added to the Discipline in 1964 in response to the desire by branches of The Methodist Church in Asia and Latin America to become autonomous. These requests came at a time when former colonies were asserting their political independence and, therefore, their autonomy in political matters. In many cases, the church also sought religious autonomy. (For more on that history, see “Autonomy, international division mark United Methodist tradition” and “The History of the Global Connection, Part 2.”)

While the wave of church autonomy related to decolonization crested in the 1970s, the provision for autonomy remained in the Discipline. It was most recently used in 2012 to allow the Swedish Annual Conference to enter into an ecumenical union with the Mission Covenant and Baptist denominations in that country.

Previous instances stemmed from political realities in secular society or from the desire for ecumenical merger, but the current requests are related to conflicts over sexuality within the church. Especially in the case of Russia, other political and cultural factors are also at work.

That difference in intention raises a theological danger: that we will conflate autonomy and disaffiliation.

Autonomy is a church body’s desire to make its own decisions. Disaffiliation is a church body’s desire to separate from another part of that body. The two impulses may coincide. Separation from a church body allows independent decision-making, and doing so when those decisions once were jointly made implies some separation. Yet, autonomy and disaffiliation are not the same.

Autonomy and connection can go together. This expectation is reflected in language from Paragraph 572 and surrounding paragraphs. “Affiliated autonomous Methodist churches” maintain a formal connection to The United Methodist Church, whereas “affiliated united churches” result when Methodists merge into an ecumenical body.

Every autonomous or united church formerly connected to The United Methodist Church or The Methodist Church is now an affiliated Methodist or affiliated united church. In the past, branches of Methodism sought to become autonomous with the assumption that connection with The United Methodist Church would continue through nonvoting participation at General Conference, the Council of Bishops, agencies and other means.

Autonomy and connection can go hand in hand. Bishop Aldo Etchegoyen led a portion of the church that became autonomous from The United Methodist Church (the Evangelical Methodist Church, Argentina), while Bishop Emerito Nacpil led a portion of the church – the Philippines Central Conference – that continued to be part of the denomination.

Etchegoyen called for “connectionality with responsibility,” in which each church is responsible for its own identity and its own government but also shows its “historical, theological and ecclesial unity.”

“The vision of a global church,” Nacpil wrote, “relates or links autonomy and connectionality organically and essentially. In a global church, one cannot have one without the other.”

While it does not involve Paragraph 572, the current conversation around regionalism is about autonomy and connectionalism within The United Methodist Church. It will undoubtedly take a good deal of conferencing, consulting and time for The United Methodist Church to propose, test and refine theological and practical answers. That is as it should be. But our process of grappling with these questions will be aided if we understand autonomy as a positive theological quality that needs to be paired with, rather than opposed to, connectionalism.

For more historical and theological insights on autonomy and connectionalism, see “Church Autonomy and the Commission on the Structure of Methodism Overseas (COSMOS): A UM & Global Collection.”

Gustavo Vasquez: CIEMAL College of Bishops and Presidents Elects New Board of Directors

Today's post is by Rev. Gustavo Vasquez, Director of Hispanic/Latino Communications at United Methodist News. It originally appeared in a Spanish version on UMNews. It has been translated by David W. Scott and appears here by permission.

In very challenging times due to the effects caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the College of Bishops and Presidents of CIEMAL (Consejo de Iglesias Evangelicas Metodistas de America Latina y el Caribe; the Council of Evangelical Methodist Churches in Latin America and the Caribbean) has elected its new Board of Directors for the 2022-2027 quinquennium.

The election process took place on November 26-27, 2022 virtually via Zoom, where bishops and presidents of the Methodist churches in the Latin American and Caribbean region met to deliberate and choose new officers.

According to an announcement from the group, it is the first time that the process happened virtually, as “this type of election has usually been done in person,” but after the COVID-19 pandemic affected normal air travel and health requirements for international travel, many of the meetings and events have happened online.

The result of the election process has led to a new Board of Directors composed of Bishop Lizzette Gabriel Montalvo, of the Methodist Church of Puerto Rico, who is the first woman elected as president of this collegial body; Bishop Bruno Roberto Pereira dos Santos, of the Methodist Church in Brazil, as vice president; and Dr. Evelyn Wibmer Murdoch, of the Methodist Church in Uruguay, as secretary.

Bishop Gabriel had been president of the entire CIEMAL body in the 2012-2017 quinquennium and vice president in the 2017-2022 quinquennium and now appears for the first time as president of its College of Bishops and Presidents. She was recently elected as the first woman to occupy the episcopacy of the Methodist Church of Puerto Rico.

Together with Bishop Gabriel will be Bishop Bruno Roberto Pereira dos Santos, who for his part was recently elected bishop of the 4th Episcopal Region of the Methodist Church in Brazil. Pereira dos Santos is also the secretary of the College of Bishops of the Brazilian church.

At the same time, Dr. Evelyn Wibmer Murdoch is a lay leader elected as president of the Methodist Church in Uruguay in June 2021 and now will be the new secretary of the College of Bishops and Presidents of CIEMAL.

For its part, the Board of Directors which has been in office since 2017 and ended its term in these last elections was made up of the bishops Juan de Dios Peña Gallegos of the Evangelical Methodist Church in El Salvador as president; Samuel Aguilar Cury of the Methodist Church of Peru as vice president; and Hideide Brito Torres of the 8th Episcopal Region of the Methodist Church in Brazil, who was the secretary of the board.

According to the announcement by CIEMAL, the College of Bishops and Presidents “is a body of CIEMAL whose purposes are pastoral accompaniment for the church in Latin America and the Caribbean and to be a prophetic voice in the face of the new challenges and new realities that confront the church and society in the region.”

Brief biographies of the members of the new Board of Directors of the College of Bishops and Presidents of CIEMAL are below:

Lizzette Gabriel Montalvo has been a pastor in the Methodist Church of Puerto Rico since July 1989. She has had outstanding leadership in the Emmaus Community of Puerto Rico since her participation in Walk #3 in Mexico (1989). She has actively participated in the opening of new communities in Texas, Florida, Georgia, and New Jersey.

She was certified as a Spiritual Director at the Academy of Spiritual Formation #22 held in San Antonio, Texas. She led three Academies in her country and was the first woman recognized as Chaplain of the National Guard of Puerto Rico (1994). Currently, she has participated as a volunteer on the Citizen Interaction Committee, Puerto Rico Command of Caguas.

She has been a member of the Alzheimer's Society of Puerto Rico since 2019 and serves as spiritual director for the Caguas chapter of the support group for Alzheimer's caregivers. She was the first spokesperson for the Faith Based Organizations Advisory Committee for the city of Caguas.

Bruno Roberto Pereira dos Santos is a bishop of the Methodist Church in Brazil assigned to the 4th Episcopal Region, which includes the states of Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo.

He is the current secretary of the College of Bishops of the Methodist Church in Brazil, with 20 years of pastoral ministry. In Rio de Janeiro, he was pastor in the capital and the rural areas of the state and was a district superintendent.

Bishop Pereira dos Santos has been married for 18 years and has three children. A member of the church since he was a child, he entered the theological school of the Brazilian Methodist church and received his first pastoral assignment at 21 years old.

Currently, he is studying for a postgraduate degree in theological pedagogy and was homiletics professor at the César Dacorso Filho Seminary for the training of new pastors.

Evelyn Wibmer Murdoch is a lay leader and current president of the Methodist Church in Uruguay.

She was born and raised in Montevideo, the capital of the country. Married, months away from her golden jubilee, mother of four children, and grandmother of five grandchildren, she comes from a Methodist family of several generations.

She has been a member of the church since she was a teenager, member of the committee of directors of Central Methodist Church, representative to national assemblies, vice president of the National Board of Life and Mission (JNVM) between 2012 and 2015, and president of JNVM from July 2021 to this date.

She is a medical doctor with postgraduate experience in internal medicine and nephrology and studies in health management and the management of dialysis centers. She developed her career at the Mutualista Evangelical Hospital, where she was General Manager from 2015 to 2019. She was representative of the mutual sector to the National Resources Fund from 2011 to 2015; co-founder of an acute dialysis center, two chronic dialysis centers, and a kidney transplant center; and president of the medical guild of Mutualista Evangelical Hospital in two separate periods.

Regionalization and Connectionalism: The Era of Political Independence and Church Autonomy

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. It is the third in a five-part series based on a presentation by Dr. Scott to the Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

Questions of local relevance and trans-local connection and of connection and power within the church have played out for Methodists in three separate historical eras: the colonial mission era, the era of political independence and church autonomy, and the era of globalization and world Christianity.

The second era in which questions about local relevance and trans-local connection were fiercely debated was the era of political independence and church autonomy, beginning after World War II, but coming to its full force in the 1960s and early 1970s. In this era, the international structures—whether political or churchly—that had been established in the first era were critiqued as a form of dominance and, in some instances, dismantled.

In the secular context, this took the form of nationalism and decolonization leading to political independence for formerly colonized nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Leaders in politics and society critiqued the structures of European and American empires and the unjust exploitation and lack of self-determination that were a part of these structures.

The solution to this problem was seen as the creation of independent nations, a process that required developing a sense of nationhood within colonies, even when the boundary lines of those colonies cut across historic groupings of tribe and religion.

Thus, while nationalism rejected international connections through colonial systems, new nationalisms in the 1960s often bound people together across religion, culture, and ethnicity. Moreover, nationalist movements in one country drew inspiration from nationalist movements in other countries. There was an international edge to 1960s nationalism. While at times nationalism could result in violence or exclusion, commentators of the age spoke of “healthy” versus “unhealthy” forms of nationalism.

This push toward self-government was reflected in the church as well. Branches of Methodism outside the United States were not content to remain dominated by mostly American missionaries, an American mission board, American bishops, and an overwhelmingly American General Conference.

This same trend would impact British Methodism as well, along with other American expressions of Methodism such as the AME Church, AME Zion Church, Free Methodists, Wesleyan Church, and Nazarenes. The British responded to this movement by eventually granting autonomy to branches outside Britain associated with the British church’s mission agency. Other American denominations all made adjustments to their polities to ensure greater international equity within their structures.

For its part, the Methodist Church launched the Commission on the Status of Methodism Overseas, or COSMOS, as it was called. COSMOS was charged with rethinking the relationship between Methodists in the United States and those elsewhere around the world. Through several quadrennia of study and international conferences in Green Lake, WI in 1966 and Atlantic City, NJ in 1970, COSMOS explored models of international connection and responded to requests for autonomy by branches of Methodism outside the United States.

COSMOS considered several possibilities for international structure: national autonomy for all branches of the church, continued central conference status for churches outside the United States, the creation of a central conference for the United States with corresponding changes to General Conference, and the creation of a worldwide council of Methodist Churches.

Ultimately, only the first two possibilities—autonomy or central conference status—were pursued, and COSMOS recommended its own disbanding in 1972. The Methodist Church/EUB Church merger in 1968 took away attention from COSMOS’ work, and other polity possibilities were seen as too difficult and costly. The Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters is the successor to COSMOS.

When offered the choice of autonomy or central conference status, most branches of the church in Asia and all branches in Latin American requested autonomy from The Methodist Church or United Methodist Church between 1964 and 1980. For the Evangelical United Brethren tradition, autonomy and ecumenical merger were the expectation for branches outside the United States, though churches in Switzerland and Germany remained part of the newly created United Methodist Church in 1968.

In all countries, autonomy reflected a desire for greater local decision-making to ensure local relevance. In some countries, it also reflected a desire for greater ecumenical connection within that country. In all instances, conferences choosing autonomy were promised that connection with the UMC would continue after autonomy, both through the mission board and the bishops. The World Methodist Council also helped to foster on-going relationships between the newly autonomous churches and the remaining Methodist and then United Methodist Church.

While the focus of this time period was on questions of structure, including what autonomy meant for the ability to choose one’s own episcopal leadership and make decisions locally in one’s own conference, we must not forget other, more relational forms of connection that bound the church together.

As in the earlier era, missionaries, missionary writings, and mission funding continued as important forms of connection, especially after autonomy, though the number of missionaries deployed around the world began to decline, especially outside Africa. Students from outside the United States studying in the United States became an increasingly important form of international connection and relationship-building in this period, as did migrants to the United States following changes in US laws in 1965.

Theological exchange continued to happen through writings, including through the rise of new liberation and contextual theologies around the world. Such theological exchanges again illustrate the connection between means of local relevance and means of trans-local connection. Contextual theologies were developed for the sake of local relevance, but they also generated a great deal of international interest and discussion.

Despite such innovations in maintaining connection and local relevance, the failure of The Methodist Church and subsequently The United Methodist Church to really make changes to its structures of connection meant that, as in the earlier era, the church continued to be characterized by US dominance. Formal, structural connection meant control by US United Methodists. The General Conference, Judicial Council, and Council of Bishops all continued to be controlled by US Americans. The United States continued to set the pattern and the agenda for the denomination, and the church in other areas could perhaps adapt or adjust as they saw fit.

Central conferences did slowly win increased powers of adaptation, but the range of officially recognized adaptation was still small. Moreover, the church continued to operate with a center-periphery style of thinking in which the church in the United States was the center, and all other branches were peripheral.

The next post will look at the era of globalization and world Christianity.

Bishops Etchegoyen and Nacpil on Autonomy and Connectionalism

Given current separations from the denomination and questions about the future for those who stay, The United Methodist Church is in a time of reconsidering what it means to be connected as a church. Therefore, past reflections by two former Methodist Bishops - Aldo Etchegoyen of the Evangelical Methodist Church Argentina and Emerito Nacpil of the UMC in the Philippines - on the relationship between connectionalism and autonomy struck me (David) as once again relevant, especially for the question of how remaining United Methodists should relate across national and continental boundaries.

Bishop Etchegoyen, writing in 1997 in "Connectionality and Autonomy" in The Ecumenical Implications of the Discussions of "The Global Nature of The United Methodist Church" rooted the concept of connectionalism not in Methodist history but in theological principles: "We believe in a connectional God who has moved outside himself to create all things. God's creation is a connectional phenomenon in which earth, sun and water serve the plants, the flowers and the fruits, as also the animals and humanity." "The opposite of connectionalism," he continued, "is separation." (p. 163)

Therefore, Etchegoyen wrote, "We cannot speak of connectionality and autonomy in the same breath. Each of these terms excludes the other. I believe this contradiction has done us much harm." (p. 164)

In contrast, he proposed, "I am defending a connectionality with responsibility in which each church may take account of its own identity, may be able to perform its own government but at the same time may show clearly its historical, theological and ecclesial unity, which we already have. On the opposite side of this conception is the dangerous possibility of falling into an irresponsible autonomy of which we have several examples. ...

"We must come to a moment when we will not be autonomous churches seeking to express our connectionality, but connectional churches on an equal footing. This, by no means signifies a leap backward into the past, but rather a leap forward in search of a new situation in which we can truly express our genuine connectionality in service of life, in maturity and in coherence with the Gospel. A connectionality that surges up from our national roots and is enriched by the diversity of world Methodism in the setting of the great ecumenical family." (p. 165)

Bishop Nacpil, in a 1994 Episcopal Address entitled "Developing a Truly Global Church," contained in The Secularity of the Word, Vol. III of A Spirituality that Secularizes, took up similar themes:

"The vision of a global church relates or links autonomy and connectionality organically and essentially. In a global church one cannot have the one without the other. They mutually entail each other in a global vision." (p. 440)

Speaking in the context of Filipino debates over voting to become autonomous, he continued:

"Connectionalism connects the local and the global. Connectionalism does not stop connecting one local church with another church within a nation which is what a purely autonomous structure will do! It goes on connecting with all the local churches of the one global United Methodist Church which is what globalization seeks to do. Moreover, it does not only connect one local church to another local church, but the local to the global and the global to the local. That is to say: between parts and whole and between the whole and its parts! Connectionalism entails globalization. And there cannot be globalization without some form of connectionalism which is expressed locally with autonomy. But autonomy alone restricted by national boundary cannot and can never be global and connectional!" (p. 450)

After commenting on a then-current plan for restructuring the UMC along lines similar to those proposed in the present-day Christmas Covenant, he concludes, "One can see that connectionality starts from the charge conference and moves vertically and horizontally through annual, regional, and general conference levels. Autonomy also is exercised from the local, annual, regional, and general levels within the framework of global connectionality."

While the two use the term autonomy differently, what both bishops argue for is an understanding of Methodism that entails local and national decision-making alongside international connection. One is making that argument from within the UMC and one from outside its formal structures, but both believe such a balance of local freedom and international connection is essential to Methodism.

Such a vision is relevant both as The United Methodist Church considers how to structure itself going forward and as it considers how to relate to historically-connected churches, such as those Methodist churches in Latin America and parts of Asia.

Autonomy, international division mark United Methodist tradition

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian 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. This piece originally appeared as a commentary on the United Methodist News Service site and is republished here with permission.

In April, the Bulgaria-Romania Provisional Annual Conference voted to leave The United Methodist Church and join the Global Methodist Church upon its launch on May 1.

This action created a disagreement with Bishop Patrick Streiff, the bishop of the Central and Southern Europe Central Conference, over the proper procedure for the Bulgarians and Romanians to leave The United Methodist Church.

While Bulgarian leaders claimed authority to make such a decision via conference vote alone, Bishop Streiff pointed to Book of Discipline Paragraph 572 as laying out the proper and only means by which an annual conference within the central conferences can leave The United Methodist Church.

Paragraph 572 spells out the process by which a portion of the church outside the United States may become autonomous. Streiff's ruling of law, which references Paragraph 572, is now up for review by the Judicial Council, The United Methodist Church's top court. In the meantime, the Council of Bishops has voted to affirm Streiff’s ruling.

This current debate and its implications for the ongoing process of denominational division have piqued interest in Paragraph 572 and the history of church autonomy in the United Methodist tradition. What branches of Methodism outside the United States have become autonomous, and why? Yet as a review of the history of autonomy shows, there are no easy analogies for the present situation.

The very first example of an international branch of a predecessor to The United Methodist Church becoming autonomous is the Methodist Church in Japan in 1907.

At the time, the Methodist Episcopal Church, Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and Canadian Methodist Church all conducted mission work in Japan. Japanese church leaders and missionaries came to agree that the divisions between the three churches were not relevant in Japan. Autonomy allowed the three different missions to separate from their home denominations and unite with one another as a new church. The new Japan Methodist Church continued to maintain collaborative relationships with the three denominations from which it was birthed — a trend that would continue in subsequent instances of Methodist autonomy.

The motivation of autonomy for the sake of intra-Methodist merger was repeated in 1930 in Korea and Mexico. In both instances, the Methodist Episcopal Church and Methodist Episcopal Church, South, supported mission work in the same country. That mission work had grown, developed indigenous leadership, and had taken on increasing internal structure. While those two U.S. denominations were at the time in talks to merge, local leaders and missionaries agreed that it made sense for the branches of the church in Korea not to wait for the U.S. church but instead to separate from the U.S. church and unite with one another. The same decision was reached in Mexico.

In later years, especially in the 1960s, this impulse to seek autonomy for the sake of local merger would extend beyond the Methodist tradition. In Belgium, Hong Kong, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Pakistan and Spain, in Evangelical United Brethren work in the Philippines, and most recently in Sweden in 2012, branches of The Methodist Church, the Evangelical United Brethren Church or The United Methodist Church outside the United States decided to separate from international (and predominantly U.S.-based) denominations for the sake of local ecumenical merger with Christian churches from other Protestant traditions.

If the desire for ecumenical merger represents one major impetus toward autonomy, the desire or need for local independence represents the other major force for autonomy. The first such instance was the decision by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, to grant autonomy to its mission work in Brazil, a decision also made in 1930. Methodists in Brazil and the United States agreed that the Brazilian church would flourish better if able to make more of its own decisions locally, though the process by which the general church acted to establish an autonomous Brazilian Methodist Church received mixed reactions in Brazil. At issue was the desire among Brazilians for some sort of continued connection with Methodists in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in the United States.

In the mid-20th century, the push for local decision-making was often entangled with the desire or need to be seen, for political reasons, as separate from Western-dominated church structures. Countries around the world were throwing off the shackles of colonialism, and this extended to the church as well. Churches desired more autonomy from Western decision-making structures or found that they needed such autonomy to escape local political suspicion. As in Brazil, this did not mean Methodists wanted a complete cessation of ties to U.S.-based denominations, and negotiations over the specific form of continued connection were sometimes contested.

This push for national independence kicked off a great wave of autonomous Methodist churches branching off from The Methodist Church, the Evangelical United Brethren Church and The United Methodist Church, especially in Latin America and Asia. This wave began in The Methodist Church in 1964 with Myanmar and Indonesia.

As part of the 1968 merger that created The United Methodist Church, all conferences of the Evangelical United Brethren Church outside the United States became autonomous, though the churches in Sierra Leone and Nigeria have subsequently rejoined The United Methodist Church.

Many national branches of The Methodist Church became autonomous in 1966, 1968 and 1972, including Cuba, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Malaysia and Singapore, Peru, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Panama and Taiwan. This wave continued through the autonomy of the Methodist Church in India in 1980 up to the autonomy of the Methodist Church of Puerto Rico in 1992.

The current disciplinary provisions for conferences outside the United States to become autonomous date to this era. While affiliated autonomous churches were first recognized in The Methodist Church’s 1940 Book of Discipline, a regular process for becoming an affiliated autonomous church was not added until 1964. What is now Paragraph 572 was added to accommodate either local ecumenical mergers or moves to national autonomy, but its origins are in the era of postcolonial rethinking of what sorts of international relations should characterize Methodism.

The challenge in applying Paragraph 572 to the current situation of international division between The United Methodist Church and the Global Methodist Church is that the separation is neither a local ecumenical merger nor a move toward national independence. This does not mean that Paragraph 572 cannot or should not be applied in the current situation. That is a question for the Judicial Council and other denominational leaders to sort out. It does mean that historical moves toward autonomy are poor analogies for the sort of situation in which the church now finds itself.

If there are no good analogies for the division between The United Methodist Church and the Global Methodist Church in the history of autonomy, neither are there many good analogies in the history of denominational division. As has been widely noted by other commentators, there are plenty of precedents for denominational division in the Methodist tradition. However, almost all the examples frequently cited are limited to the United States. They were not international divisions of an international church.

The African Methodist Episcopal Church, African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and Methodist Protestant Church all separated from the Methodist Episcopal Church before it operated missions outside the United States.

When the Wesleyan Methodist Church, Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and Free Methodist Church split from the Methodist Episcopal Church, the denomination’s foreign mission work stayed with the Methodist Episcopal Church, though each of these new denominations would go on to develop their own foreign mission work. When the United Evangelical Church split from the Evangelical Association in 1891, existing denominational foreign mission work stayed with the Evangelical Association, though again the United Evangelical Church quickly established international work of its own.

To these American splits, one could add a history of denominational divisions in other countries, a process that continues to the present. Church splits in the Philippines, Chile, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and elsewhere are also part of the heritage of division in the United Methodist tradition. Yet these splits occurred within a single country and were not international in scope. Therefore, they are also limited as historical analogies.

The only denominational split of which I am aware in which church members in more than one country had to choose which side to take was the 1889 split in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, which originated in the United States but extended to mission work in Sierra Leone and China. This case certainly deserves additional attention, but there is not space to expand on it here.

To say that there are no good historical precedents for the sort of international division that The United Methodist Church is beginning to undergo does not mean that such division is impossible. The recent decision of the Bulgaria-Romania Provisional Annual Conference shows that an international division of The United Methodist Church is not only possible, it is already happening.

What the lack of historical precedents does mean is that the process of international division is likely to be unpredictable, and existing processes and polity provisions may not be well suited to the purpose. Polity is a system of rules, and rules are predicated on an assumption of regularity. Unprecedented circumstances, whether those are a global pandemic or an international church split, challenge existing polity precisely because they are irregular and therefore do not fit within existing practices and procedures.

Therefore, leaders in all parts of The United Methodist Church will be challenged to think creatively about how best to respond to situations for which there are no provisions in existing church law and very few historical models to guide them.

UM & Global Collection: Church Autonomy and the Commission on the Structure of Methodism Overseas (COSMOS)

The previous UM & Global collection looked at the UMC as a global church. The newest collection of UM & Global articles on church autonomy and the Commission on the Structure of Methodism Overseas (COSMOS) looks at the flip side of that coin: churches that were at one point connected to The United Methodist Church or its predecessors but have chosen to become independent, autonomous denominations. Many of these denominations have, however, chosen to remain affiliated with the UMC. Most of these changes came about in the late 1960s and early 1970s through the work of the Commission on the Structure of Methodism Overseas (COSMOS), a General Conference-created body of The Methodist Church. This collection examines this history for the sake of drawing lessons for current mission practice, ecumenical relationships, and global polity conversations in the UMC.

The collection includes essays by Philip Wingeier-Rayo, Robert Harman, David W. Scott, Blair Trygstad Stowe, Daniel Bruno, and Kyle Tau, as well as documents from the Commission on the Structure of Methodism Overseas (COSMOS), including writings by D. T. Niles. As always, discussion questions help connect these writings to pressing contemporary questions for United Methodist leaders, General Conference delegates, and students.

UMC Ecumenical Partnerships: A Brief Historical Timeline

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian 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.

Having provided an overview of the bilateral and multilateral ecumenical relationships maintained by The United Methodist Church, I thought it would also be helpful to provide a timeline of significant developments within United Methodist (and predecessor) ecumenical relationships.

1881 – The first World Methodist Conference, which brought together 400 delegates from 30 Methodist bodies around the world, was held in London, England.

1908 – The Federal Council of Churches in America is formed, primarily to unite churches’ voices on labor issues. The Evangelical Association, Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC), Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS), Methodist Protestant Church, and United Brethren in Christ are all founding members. The new council adopts a social creed based on the Methodist example written by Frank North, and MEC Bishop E. R. Hendrix is elected the organization’s first president.

1909 – The Methodist Church in Japan becomes the first church body associated with American Methodism to become autonomous. It does so as part of a merger of MEC, MECS, and Canadian Methodist Church mission work. Missionaries from all three bodies continue to play a part in the life of the Methodist Church in Japan.

1910 – The World Missionary Conference is held in Edinburgh. It is chaired by US Methodist layman John R. Mott. Mott, with the help of others, uses the conference to launch a number of regional and mission-focused ecumenical organizations that would be the forerunners of the World Council of Churches.

1930 – The Methodist Church in Brazil, Methodist Church in Korea, and Methodist Church in Mexico become autonomous from the MEC and MECS. For Korea and Mexico, autonomy includes a merger of MEC and MECS work in those countries. The MEC and MECS adopt provisions into their Doctrines and Disciplines about their relationship to autonomous affiliated churches, with specific reference to Japan, Brazil, Korea, and Mexico. Affiliation is seen as a function of continued missionary presence and collaboration with the Board of Missions.

1931 – The World Methodist Conference agrees to organize a council to oversee work in between its decennial meetings.

1939 – The Methodist Church is formed through the ecumenical merger of the MEC, MECS, and Methodist Protestant Church.

1941 – The Methodist Church in Japan is forcibly merged into the United Church of Christ in Japan by the Japanese government. The Methodist Church (US) continues its relationship to the new denomination through the Board of Foreign Missions. The category of affiliated united church is subsequently created to recognize Japan’s new status.

1946 – The Evangelical United Brethren (EUB) Church is formed through the ecumenical merger of the Evangelical Church and the United Brethren in Christ.

1948 – The World Council of Churches is founded. John Mott is elected honorary president.

1950 – The Federal Council of Churches in America is reorganized as the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, or NCC for short, carrying out expanded forms of ecumenical collaboration.

1951 – The World Methodist Conference officially changes its name to the World Methodist Council, and conferences begin to be held every five years.

1960 to 1968 – A formal process is developed and spelled out in the Book of Discipline for an annual conference of the Methodist Church/UMC to become an affiliated autonomous or affiliated united church. That process involves central conference permission and coordination with COSMOS (the Commission on the Status of Methodism Overseas, later replaced by the Commission on Central Conference Affairs and then the Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters).

1964 to 1972 – A wave of annual conferences outside the United States, especially in Asia and Latin America, become autonomous from The Methodist Church, the Evangelical United Brethren Church (EUB), and The United Methodist Church. For former annual conferences of the EUB, these moves to autonomy are the result of an intentional mission strategy. For former Methodist annual conferences, these moves to autonomy acknowledge the wave of decolonization sweeping much of the world. These newly autonomous churches sign agreements to maintain relationships as affiliated autonomous or affiliated united churches.

1968 – The United Methodist Church is formed through the ecumenical merger of The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church. Talks with the Methodist Church in Britain produce a concordat between the two churches. Although the concordat is discussed at the UMC’s General Conference, it is not clear from the Daily Christian Advocate how much of the concordat is formally approved by the General Conference. A process for developing further concordats is later laid out in the UMC’s Book of Discipline (BOD) based on the work with the Methodist Church in Britain.

1972 – The affiliated autonomous relationship is redefined based on mutual recognition of members and ministers as part of a clarified “covenant relationship.” Thus, affiliation is no longer a function of missionary placement or relationship with the Board of Global Ministries. In addition, a process for previously autonomous bodies to join the UMC is added to the BOD.

1976 – Concordats with the Methodist Church in Mexico and the Methodist Church in the Caribbean and the Americas are approved. General Conference approves extending an invitation to other Methodist churches to consider concordat relationships.

1980 – The Methodist Church in India becomes autonomous. The previously autonomous churches in Sierra Leone and Nigeria, once part of the EUB, rejoin the UMC. A distinction is made in the BOD between autonomous churches and affiliated autonomous churches.

1985 – The Commission on Pan-Methodist Cooperation, which brings together the UMC and historically African-American denominations, is formed. The Methodist Church in Kenya, which comes from a British background and does not have historical ties to the UMC, enquires about becoming a concordat church. This request and other similar ones set of a re-examination of the UMC’s intra-Methodist ecumenical relationships.

1988 to 1992 – First in the Book of Resolutions (1988) and then in the Book of Discipline (1992), a new definition of and process for becoming a “covenanting church” is adopted. The initial intention was that both affiliated and non-affiliated churches could become covenanting churches as an alternative to concordat relationships. Primary responsibility for such covenanting relationships is clarified as belonging to the Council of Bishops, not Global Ministries. At least ten denominations would go on to sign covenants, the majority not previously affiliated.

1992 – The Methodist Church of Puerto Rico becomes autonomous and signs a concordat with the UMC that guarantees continued representation on UMC boards and agencies.

1992 to 2000 – As a result of a 1992 study committee, a Commission on Union is established in 1996 to explore union between the UMC and historically black Methodist churches. In 2000, this Commission is merged with the Commission on Pan-Methodist Cooperation to create the Pan-Methodist Commission.

2000 to 2001 – A number of Methodist churches that are not affiliated are invited to General Conference 2000 as affiliated churches. A follow-up committee develops a list of official affiliated autonomous and affiliated united churches in 2001, that list apparently having previously been lost.

2000 to 2008 – The BOD definitions of affiliated autonomous and affiliated united churches shift away from historical language about how these bodies were established to geographic language about their existence outside the boundaries of the jurisdictions (but not outside the boundaries of the central conferences, as some central conferences and affiliated churches overlap). BOD language also shifts from emphasizing mutual recognition of membership and ordination, mutual visitation, and cooperation in mission to emphasizing exchange of General Conference delegates (though the prior concerns are not deleted, just de-emphasized by rearranging the language). Specific mention of the Methodist Church in the Caribbean and the Americas and the Methodist Church in Mexico is added to the section on concordat churches. No mention of the Methodist Church in Puerto Rico is made in this section, though mention of MCPR continues to be made in the section on boards and agencies.

2008 to 2009 – A full-communion agreement between the UMC and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is ratified, first by the UMC General Conference and then by the ELCA.

2011 to 2015 – The Equmeniakyrkan (The Uniting Church in Sweden) is formed in 2011 through a merger of The United Methodist Church in Sweden, The Swedish Covenant Church, and The Baptist Union of Sweden. In 2012, The Uniting Church in Sweden is recognized as an affiliated united church, and in 2015, the UMC and The Uniting Church sign a full communion agreement.

2012 – A full-communion agreement among the members of the Pan-Methodist Commission is ratified.

2016 to 2018 – A full-communion agreement between the UMC and the Moravian Church (Northern and Southern Provinces) is ratified, first by the UMC General Conference and then by the Moravians.

UMC Ecumenical Partnerships: Bilateral Partnerships

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian 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.

Last week, I published a map of the UMC and affiliated denominations. This map generated a lot of discussion and a variety of questions: Why were the Italians and the Columbians and the Methodist Church of South Africa not included? Why were some but not all members of CIEMAL and some but not all members of the World Methodist Council included? Aren't there some countries with more than one type of Methodist?

I was glad to see that this map foster discussion. As a follow up, I thought it would be helpful to write some posts that contextualize the map by providing more information about the UMC's ecumenical partnerships.

Within the realm of those ecumenical partnerships, one can make a distinction between bi-lateral partnerships, that is, partnerships between The United Methodist Church and individual other denominations, and multi-lateral partnerships, that is, groups that bring together The United Methodist Church and multiple other denominations. One can further make a distinction between intra-Methodist partnerships and broader ecumenical partnerships with churches outside the Methodist tradition.

This post will examine bilateral partnerships, both with Methodist and non-Methodist denominations, and a subsequent post will examine multilateral partnerships.

The Council of Bishops (as successor to the Office of Christian Unity and Inter-religious Relations) recognizes five different types of bilateral partnerships between the UMC and other denominations.

The first type is "concordat" churches. A concordat is essentially a treaty ratified between two denominations that gives each other certain rights and privileges within that relationships. The terms of each of these concordats differs significantly, but all include an exchange of delegates between top legislative bodies, recognition of lay membership, potential, but not automatic, recognition of clergy membership, and language about collaborating in ministry, which may play out in more or less concrete ways. Concordats are not full communion agreements. In the case of the UMC, concordats are approved by General Conference and are governed by ¶570.5 and ¶574 of the Book of Discipline.

There are four concordat churches for the UMC: The Methodist Church of Great Britain, the Methodist Church in the Caribbean and the Americas, the Methodist Church of Mexico, and the Methodist Church of Puerto Rico. The first concordat was with the MCGB in 1968. At the time, it was seen as hearkening in a new era of pan-Methodist collaboration, and the expectation was that more concordats would follow. The MCM and MCCA concordats did come about in the decade or so after that, but there was never a wide-spread movement towards concordats. The MCPR concordat was ratified in 1992 when the MCPR became autonomous from the UMC, and no concordats have been passed since.

The second and third types of bilateral relationships are affiliated autonomous Methodist churches and affiliated united churches. These are churches with historical ties to the UMC and its predecessor denominations (Methodist Church, EUB, Methodist Episcopal Church, and Methodist Episcopal Church, South). As with concordat churches, affiliated status involves recognition of lay membership, potential, but not automatic, recognition of clergy membership, and language about collaborating in ministry. Affiliated denominations are allowed to send delegates to General Conference, but these delegates are non-voting. Affiliated relationships are governed by ¶570-¶572 of the Book of Discipline.

There are eighteen affiliated autonomous Methodist denominations and eight affiliated united denominations. For a full list, see the Council of Bishops website. These are the denominations highlighted in the map from last week; the "affiliated" in the title of that post was intended in a technical sense. Most of these affiliated relationships were established in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the biggest wave of conferences becoming autonomous from the UMC happened, though some date from earlier and later. Since these are denominations with historical ties to the UMC and its predecessors, denominations which came out of the British Methodist tradition, such as the Methodist Church in Sri Lanka, the Methodist Church of Southern Africa, and the Uniting Church in Australia, are not in this category. There are also a few denominations, such as the Methodist Church of Italy, that have some historical ties with the UMC but are not included in this group.

The fourth category of bilateral partnerships are full communion relationships, in which two denominations recognize each other's ordination and sacraments. This allows pastors to transfer between denominations or serve congregations of the other denomination easily. Full communion agreements usually involve a joint theological affirmation. Full communion does not, however, mean structural unity. Both partners remain separate denominations. Full communion relationships are governed by ¶431 and ¶442 of the Book of Discipline.

The UMC has eight full-communion partners, seven of them primarily in the US. Five are historically African American denominations that left UMC predecessor denominations because of white supremacy. One is the Uniting Church of Sweden, which was formed out of a merger of Swedish United Methodists, Swedish Baptists, and the Mission Covenant Church in Sweden. The other two full communion partners are the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Moravian Church, Northern and Southern Provinces, which also covers the US. The UMC is in the process of considering full communion with the Episcopal Church, another US-based denomination.

The final category of bilateral relationships is relationships that European United Methodists have with (formerly) state Lutheran churches in several countries, including Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, and Norway. These relationships vary by the country. Unlike ecumenical relationships in the US, these relationships are not officially recognized by General Conference or governed by the Book of Discipline. Thus, the UMC's approach to ecumenical relationships still tends to be US-centric.

While this may already seem like a dizzying array of relationships, this post has only examined direct one-to-one relationships between the UMC and other denominations. A subsequent post will examine multilateral groups such as the World Methodist Council and other bodies.

Resource: Map of the UMC and affiliated denominations

Anyone looking at a map of the global presence of The United Methodist Church will notice some significant grey areas, especially in Latin America and Asia. The UMC does not have annual conferences in these areas. Instead, it has connections to affiliated Methodist denominations here and elsewhere throughout the world. The UMC maintains ongoing relationships with these other denominations, especially through Global Ministries and the Council of Bishops.

In most cases, these denominations have historical ties to the UMC and its predecessors but became autonomous, mostly in the 1960s. In some instances, formerly Methodist or EUB churches have merged with other denominations to form united or uniting churches. Four of these affiliated Methodist denominations have a special status as concordat churches. There are also many Methodist churches who are members of the World Methodist Council but are not affiliated denominations of the UMC.

What follows is a map of the UMC presence (including current mission initiatives), concordat denominations, other affiliated Methodist denominations, and affiliated united denominations. It offers another perspective on the global extent of the UMC.

Renewing Our Relationships with Affiliated Methodist Churches

Today’s post is jointly written by Rev. Dr. Kyle R. Tau, Ecumenical Staff Officer for the Council of Bishops, and Dr. David W. Scott, Director of Mission Theology for Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are the authors’ own and do not reflect in any way the official positions of the Council of Bishops or Global Ministries.

The United Methodist Church is one of over 70 Methodist, Wesleyan, and United denominations around the world that have their roots in the Methodist movement beginning with John and Charles Wesley. These churches include traditionally African-American churches such as the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church and the AME Zion Church, holiness denominations such as the Church of the Nazarene and Free Methodist Church, united churches including former Methodists such as the Church of South India and the Uniting Church in Australia, and independent, nationally-based Methodist churches, most of which have a historic connection to either British or American Methodist mission.

The United Methodist Church continues to have on-going ministry partnerships with many churches in these last two categories that are based on historic ties. Many united churches and independent, nationally-based Methodist churches were once part of The United Methodist Church or its Methodist Episcopal, Methodist Episcopal South, Methodist, and Evangelical United Brethren predecessors.

Starting in 1909 and most recently in 2012, annual conferences outside the United States and occasionally entire central conferences have chosen (or have been pushed) to separate from The United Methodist Church and its predecessors. This has happened for a variety of reasons, including the desire for ecumenical mergers, local political pressures, and post-colonial impulses.

The Book of Discipline includes provisions whereby an annual conference outside the US or a central conference can, with approval by the General Conference, leave the denomination and become “autonomous,” a church polity term that means self-governing. All independent denominations are autonomous, but the process in the UMC and its predecessors often spoke of “granting autonomy” to departing portions of the church.

The Book of Discipline, however, also provides a variety of possibilities for on-going relationships between The United Methodist Church and separate Methodist denominations. Part of the process for an annual or central conference to become autonomous includes establishing the terms for such an on-going relationship.  Yet there are also other relationships that can be established between the UMC and any other separate Methodist denomination.

The Council of Bishops and Global Ministries are both primary agents of The United Methodist Church in maintaining these ecumenical partnerships with our sibling denominations. These partnerships are in many cases vibrant collaborations that facilitate a great deal of joint mission and ministry. Both the Council of Bishops and Global Ministries value other Methodist denominations as essential mission partners.

The Book of Discipline uses a variety of language to describe these partner denominations, but much of that language has not been updated in decades, and in some places, it is unclear or no longer reflects the realities of 21st century global Christianity. Therefore, the Council of Bishops and Global Ministries have jointly proposed two resolutions to General Conference 2020 to update that language - Petition # 20651 (pp. 962-964 of ADCA) and Petition 20645 (pp. 991-992 of ADCA).

These two petitions work together to change the term “affiliated autonomous Methodist church” to simply “affiliated Methodist church” and to eliminate the term “autonomous Methodist church,” a term that presently does not have a clear meaning or function in the Book of Discipline. An explanation of both changes is in order.

By changing “affiliated autonomous Methodist church” to “affiliated Methodist church,” The United Methodist Church sends a signal to its partner denominations that what is important is our on-going mutual ministry, i.e., our affiliation, and not the status of those partners as previously subject to the General Conference, i.e., having been granted autonomy. We feel that to continue to emphasize the term “autonomous” in these relationships functions primarily to re-emphasize these denominations’ previous role in a system dominated by United Methodists in the United States. In this regard, the term feels outdated – a product of the de-colonization of the middle of the 20th century and not a reflection of the equality and mutuality that we hope will characterize relationships between The United Methodist Church and partner denominations in the 21st century.

The term “autonomous” is also unnecessary in the phrase “autonomous affiliated Methodist churches.” Affiliation already implies that the two parties are separate. We do not describe annual conferences, jurisdictional conferences, or central conferences as “affiliated Methodist churches.” We reserve that language only for separate denominations. Since “affiliated” already implies separate, self-governing denominations, it is not necessary to repeat that implication by including the term “autonomous.”

The term “autonomous” is unnecessary for another reason – all denominations are autonomous, so it does not add any definitional clarity to the ecumenical relationships described in the Book of Discipline. This is a reason not only to remove it from the term “autonomous affiliated Methodist church” but to do away completely with the term “autonomous Methodist church.” That term does not have a clear and consistent meaning in the Book of Discipline, and in most instances can be either simply removed or can be replaced by more explicit references to other Methodist/Wesleyan churches.

In submitting these two petitions to General Conference, the Council of Bishops and Global Ministries hopes that these changes will create greater clarity about these valuable ecumenical relationships – greater clarity in the technical language of the Book of Discipline, but more importantly, greater clarity about the spirit of humility, equality, and partnership with which the UMC should engage other Methodist/Wesleyan denominations.

Recommended Viewing: The Central Conferences at the Pre-General Conference Briefing

Resource UMC has posted videos and PowerPoint slides from the presentations made at the Pre-General Conference Briefing held in Nashville on Jan. 23-24. Among the presentations are several that will be of particular interest to the readers of this blog.

A panel on "Central Conference Perspectives," including presentations by Rev. Ole Birch of Denmark, Rev. Igmedio Domingo of the Philippines, and Rev. Betty Kazadi Musau of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. UM & Global has published a transcript of Rev. Domingo's remarks. PowerPoint slides from Rev. Domingo's presentation and from Rev. Birch's presentation are also available. Both Rev. Domingo and Rev. Kazadi Musau are signers of the Christmas Covenant, and thus this presentation gives important background into what is another significant structural plan presented to General Conference.

The panel on "Young Panel's Voice in the Church" also included two speakers from the Central Conferences: Jani Djamba of Germany and Venus Mae Gatdula of the Philippines. This panel, which focuses on the proposed restructuring of the Division of Young People's Ministries and the role of young people in the church, is another opportunity for American United Methodists to listen to the voices of United Methodists from the Central Conference before General Conference.

While presented by US representatives, portions of the panel on "Our Global Connection" are highly relevant, too. George Howard's presentation (beginning at 11:00) describes the work of the Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters and the role of bishops in Africa. Bishop Palmer (beginning at 14:00) describes the comprehensive plan for adding bishops to Africa. Bishop Palmer's slides are also available. Dee Stickley-Miner I(beginning at 20:45) describes work on the General Book of Discipline.

Finally,  Rev. Dr. Kyle Tau discusses the ecclesiology statement "Sent in Love" in his presentation, starting at 1:30. His presentation will be of interest to those following UM & Global's series assessing "Sent in Love."

2019 in Review

As the United Methodist News Service has concluded, and pretty much anyone else observing The United Methodist Church in 2019 has agreed, the top story in United Methodism from this past year is the on-going fight over the place of LGBTQ persons in the church, especially as it played out at General Conference 2019 and the aftermath of that event.

The centrality of that conflict for United Methodists around the world has certainly made an impact on the sorts of content this blog has presented over the past year. Yet, rather than comment on the political mobilizations or talking points that often reinforce the views of one side or another, UM & Global has tried to provide unique perspectives on that conflict, such as the following:

  * Dana Robert's excellent piece on the impact of a potential church split on women

  * Articles on how central conference perspectives on this conflict differ from US perspectives and need to be taken seriously, including special attention to Filipino perspectives

  * Coverage of how this conflict is playing out in European United Methodism and its search for a way forward as annual conferences and central conferences

  * Research on the international financial arrangements of the church and how these would be impacted by a church split

  * Reflections on what we as United Methodists can learn from our autonomous affiliated sisters and brothers about how to be the church across denominational lines

Yet 2019 was not just about the conflict over the treatment of LGBTQ persons. Mission continues, no matter what is happening with church structures, and this blog examined several important threads related to mission as well, including the following:

  * The bicentennial of mission in the United Methodist tradition

  * The practice of UMVIM and other short-term mission trips

  * African women's perspectives on mission

  * The definition of mission

  * Multiculturalism and cross-cultural interactions as a central part of mission

While it's certain that 2020 will bring a certain amount of stories related to General Conference 2020 and the conflict over sexuality, UM & Global will remain committed to providing unique perspectives on that conflict (look for a series on the legal and financial implications of the trust clause starting soon!) and will remain committed to telling other important stories about mission and the global nature of the church.

Thanks for your readership, and see you next year!
Dr. David W. Scott, blogmaster

Daniel Bruno: Fifty years after the autonomy and the birth of the Iglesia Evangélica Metodista Argentina (IEMA)

Today's post is by Rev. Lic. Daniel A. Bruno. Rev. Bruno is a pastor of the Argentina Methodist Church and Professor of Church History. It originally appeared (in Spanish) on the website of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Argentina (IEMA) and appears here with the author's permission and in the author's translation.

"We retired, declaring that our holy aspirations are still standing ... maybe tomorrow we will return to the battle through new paths, according to the designs that God has prepared for us, since we have not been given to realize our ideals along the paths we have traveled so far" ... (1919)

With these words which expressed at the same time hope and frustration, one of the most conflicting and least known processes in the history of Rio de la Plata Methodism was closing. Between 1916 and 1918, a strong movement led by lay people and pastors had generated a public debate about achieving autonomy from the Methodist Episcopal Church.

The certainty of that movement was that “as long as our peoples reach the opinion that the Gospel we preach is an exotic doctrine, a religion of foreigners… the seed of the gospel will not develop, nor take root or bear fruit as we expect … ”

That nationalizing movement was a minority and was defeated at the beginning of 1919. But, as the proclamation that opens the article said, God had prepared other ways, although that old story`s leaders were no longer there to see them.

The sixties in the "south cone" of America 
Brazil and Mexico were the first Methodist churches to obtain autonomy in Latin America. For fifty years, both countries had the presence of two different Methodist churches in each country (northern and southern Methodism). Towards the end of the 1920s, American Methodism began a process of unification to overcome that division.

The merging of both missions made it necessary now to clarify which of the two mother churches would keep the relationship with local churches. For that reason, the best solution was to declare the new reunified missions to be autonomous churches. After a long process with their respective institutions, both missions achieved their autonomy in 1930.

The history and process in Latin America`s southern cone was different. The churches that came up from the first Methodist mission of the Southern Cone (Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and Peru) had to wait until the 1960s to reach that goal. Certainly, the emancipatory atmosphere of the ‘50 and ‘60 in political, religious and social fields had some similarities with the one that lived in 1916. However, the success of the process which culminated in the autonomies of those churches cannot be explained only by its own will and vision. The new shape that Methodism in the US was taking, its context and decisions, also should be taken into account in order to explain the process of autonomy in their missions abroad.

In the mid-sixties, two factors that facilitated the autonomy process came together. On the one hand, there was a progressive need of the missions of the southern cone to adapt the structure of churches to their contexts. They also needed their own space for political decisions out of the control of central interests. Many of their leaders, in clear harmony with that which had been expressed in 1917, claimed that "the effectiveness of their testimony could be annulled because of their historical and organic relationship with American Methodism." Which was true.

But, on the other hand, the structural needs that affected the US Church demanded a redefinition of its objectives and especially its budgets for missions. Since post war time, missions in Africa and Asia began to raise special interest. These were missions which had always been subject to greater attention and budget than that given to those in Latin America, and in this circumstance would be even more.

So, in this context the action of the Commission on the Structure of the Methodism Overseas (COSMOS) began to mobilize the idea about the need for missions in Latin America to separate from the mother church. That would be decisive for the realization of the autonomy process. COSMOS began its work in 1964 and officially concluded it in 1972; however, by 1968 its task was almost totally completed.

In that year, COSMOS sent a recommendation to the General Assembly of the Methodist Church to grant the request for autonomy that the churches in Chile, Peru, Argentina and Uruguay had been asking for.

So, in order to finalize the autonomy processes, these would need to be legitimized in local assemblies, which should create the new national churches. And so it happened: Chile, February 1969, Argentina and Uruguay, October 1969, and Peru, January 1970.

The Iglesia Evangélica Metodista Argentina is born
The preamble of the IEMA Constitution declares:

"In Rosario de Santa Fe, on October 5th of the year of the Lord of nineteen sixty-nine, one hundred thirty-three years after the establishment of the Methodist Church in Argentina,
 •  "Grateful to God our Lord, whose Spirit`s work, through our parents in the faith, made us be born to the truth of the Gospel in the ranks of this Church, ……
 •  "Convinced that the present times demand all the fearlessness and creative capacity of a people rooted in the evangelical faith and energized by the power of the Holy Spirit for the fulfillment of the mission that Christ has entrusted to his Church
 •  "Wanting to give a more native and authentic character to our testimony for its greater effectiveness, and feeling the need to be endowed with more autonomy and freedom to give us legislation adapted to the needs and circumstances of our immediate situation,

We declare our willingness to establish autonomously, the ARGENTINE METHODIST EVANGELICAL CHURCH, whose life and action will be governed by the Constitution and General Regulations."

Autonomy with connexionality
It is important to note that because of this process of autonomy of the Methodist churches, the Council of Methodist Churches of Latin America (CIEMAL) was born in February 1969. In its first plenary, it declared:

"The time has come for Latin Americans to demonstrate greater responsibility, consolidating the unity of Methodism in Latin America, to avoid fragmentation, through the autonomy of the Churches of the continent."

The main objective of this entity was to prevent national autonomies from provoking the atomization of Methodism in Latin America. For this reason, the new council would try "to develop a structure that would allow Latin American Methodism to maintain its unity in the mission in a continent as vast and differentiated as ours" without implying that it would interfere with the legislation and politics of each autonomous church.

In the closing sermon of the Constitutive Assembly of the IEMA held in Rosario on October 5-7, 1969, Bishop Carlos Gattinoni said:

"We do not always see the way, but we see Jesus going forward with the great promise, 'just as the Father sent me, I send you.' There was great despair in the work of Methodism in the 30s, when they told me the Methodist church is about to be extinguished ... but it was reconstituted in the 40s and 50s, and it was proposed to extend ... There were new senses of march, new theological concepts, and new social awareness being displayed. But we are sure that we must move forward with more boldness through fields and cities. Our program will be given to us by Christ, because he is the right hand of God."

And that is still our prayer, after fifty years. Throughout this time new questions continue to open, such as those that unveiled the precursors of the beginning of the century. Surely, that process of questions will not stop and probably that is a good thing, for it lets us know that we are still a church in the process of autonomy.

This process manages to shape a church laid out and sustained based on an open mission tailored to the needs of the people, because "our program is given to us by Christ, because he is the right hand of God."