Regionalization and Connectionalism: The Colonial Mission Era

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. It is the second 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. 

In this and the next two posts, I want to lay out how 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 first era is the colonial mission era. This is the age, lasting from the early 19th century to the early 20th century, during which Methodism spread from North America to other places in the world, usually following the lines of secular colonial and commercial expansion.

European colonization of other parts of the globe stretches back to the late 15th century, but the period from the middle of the 19th century through the World Wars is often referred to as the period of “high” colonialism, the era in which Western colonialism achieved its furthest geographic spread and greatest degree of political and economic control over other lands.

Emblematic of this period of high colonialism was the “scramble for Africa,” the competition among European countries to control portions of the African continent, leading to the Berlin Conference in 1884-85, at which Europeans, without African input, agreed among themselves on how to partition Africa.

Of course, colonialism existed in Asia and Latin America as well, and indeed, European colonialism developed in these contexts earlier than it did in central Africa. And we must remember, too, that the United States entered the act of holding foreign colonies in 1898 with its victory in the Spanish-American War.

Along with the extension of European (and American) political control over other areas went the extension of Western economic networks. Often, political control and economic exploitation were deeply intertwined. This phenomenon of economic expansion was one in which the United States participated vigorously after its Civil War, especially in Latin America. As part of both colonialism and commercialism went the extension of various new technologies of transportation and communication: trains, steamships, telegraphs, and even postcards.

This was the context in which American Methodist missions began to spread, first to returned former slaves in West Africa, next to American businessmen in Latin America, then to immigrant homelands in Europe, and then to populous nations in Asia, and so on.

By 1919, when American Methodists from the North and the South celebrated the centenary of their mission agencies, Methodist churches had hundreds of missionaries and tens of thousands of converts in dozens of nations across five continents. Mission work included not only evangelism, but also education, healthcare, literacy, agriculture, and the promotion of democracy and Western culture. This wave of founding new branches of Methodism in new countries crested in the mid-1920s, when financial problems with mission fundraising and budgeting forced consolidation and retrenchment of mission efforts.

These missionaries organized their converts into new branches of their denominational structures, especially in the Methodist Episcopal Church and Methodist Episcopal Church, South. As mission historian Wade Crawford Barclay wrote, “There is no record of the Missionary Society having given instructions to their missionaries to transfer to their respective fields the exact pattern of church organization existing at home. It was assumed by all, without question, that this would be done.” That is, missionaries, mission executives, and bishops all assumed that connections across geography must include structural connections.

Nevertheless, founding new branches of the church in new geographic and cultural locations did raise questions about the process of trying to establish “the exact pattern of church organization existing at home.” How exactly should these new branches of the church relate to existing branches? What should be done if local conditions made some elements of the home pattern of church organization impractical, or even impossible? How could the church maintain connection—and often, control—over long distances that made travel and communication slow?

The answers that the church developed, slowly, through experimentation, and often outside the boundaries of existing polity, reflected the means of connection and local relevance that characterized the early church. Missionaries were a form of itinerants and the most important link in holding the various branches of the church together. They were not the only such link—migrants, traveling preachers, and even tourists also made connections across geographic regions of the church.

Nevertheless, missionaries were the most important such link, both in their own travel to the mission field and home for furloughs, and in their voluminous amount of writing. They wrote letters, newspaper articles, magazine articles, books, pamphlets, even calendars, and this volume of writing served to communicate about the home field to those they encountered around the world and to communicate about mission, including the lives and customs of people on the mission field, back to their friends, family, and supporters at home.

Often inspired by visits and letters from missionaries, church members in the United States (and Europe) in turn sent money to the mission field, both through denominational mission structures and directly through personal relationships with missionaries. This generosity underwrote the development of the church around the world, though it also often established long-standing traditions of dependence. Some mission leaders such as William Taylor attempted to cultivate self-support on the mission field, opting for local relevance instead of international financial connection.

As the church outside the United States grew, the structures of the church grew there as well, including both conferences and bishops. Annual conferences outside the United States were formed quite early, already in the 1830s, though initially in an adapted form as “missionary annual conferences.” Central conferences were added later in the 1880s, originally on the local initiative of missionaries in India, though eventually adopted into the regular practice and polity of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and carried over to successor denominations, including the UMC. Jurisdictions in The Methodist Church and The United Methodist Church were modeled in part on central conferences.

Questions about episcopal supervision and the availability of ordination also arose from the church outside the United States, first in Liberia and then elsewhere. This led to a variety of polity experiments in providing episcopal supervision, including travel by general superintendent bishops from the United States, missionary bishops limited to areas outside the United States, and general superintendent bishops appointed to live outside the United States. None of these arrangements were fully satisfactory to both areas of the church outside the United States and to decision-making centers of the church in the United States.

Several branches of the church outside the United States, starting with Japan in 1907 and continuing through Korea, Mexico, and Brazil in 1930, became autonomous churches, structurally separate from their parent denominational bodies, though still connected through missionaries, writings, and money. The desire to unite separate branches of Methodism, local political considerations, and, in the case of Brazil, disputes over episcopal supervision motivated these moves to autonomy. These developments, however, did not initiate a new wave of rethinking the relationship between autonomy and connection. Instead, with the 1939 merger of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and Methodist Protestant Church, the international polity of the new Methodist Church took on a settled character.

In the attempt to ensure both local relevance and trans-local connection, the Methodist churches of this era tended to emphasize trans-local connection over local relevance. Moreover, this was usually connection as a form of control by those in the United States, who in this era exercised dominance over other branches of the church, especially those in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Methodists in the United States set the standards, and others were occasionally allowed to adapt those standards to a greater or lesser degree. But Methodists in the United States were slow to recognize the need to adapt the practices of the church to ensure local relevance outside the United States.

When adaptation did happen, it usually did so through American missionaries taking initiative outside the regular system of polity, and even American missionaries were often suspicious of local control by native leaders. American Methodists in this era spread the gospel to others around the world, but the relationships and structures they created to do so stressed connection as control instead of connection as an aid to local relevance.

The next post will look at the era of political independence and church autonomy.

Recommended Viewing: David W. Scott on Colonialism and the Church

Dr. David W. Scott, Director of Mission Theology for Global Ministries and blogmaster of UM & Global, was invited to present to the Council of Bishops last week on the topic of colonialism and the church as part of the council's on-going Task Force to End Racism, led by Bishop LaTrelle Easterling.

In his presentation, Scott offered some remarks about the definition of colonialism, briefly reviewed three ways in which The United Methodist Church and its predecessor denominations have historically been entangled with colonialism -- settler colonialism in North America, European and especially British imperialism around the world, and American expansion around the world in its various forms, looked at how that history continues to impact the church today, and then offered some thoughts on how the church should address that legacy. Scott's presentation also included some question and answer interactions with the bishops.

Scott's presentation can be viewed on the Council of Bishops Facebook page as part of the livestream of that session. It begins at the beginning of the livestream and lasts approximately 50 minutes.

Robert Harman: The United Methodist Church and Resisting Political Oppression

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recommended Viewing: Unmasking the Evil of Colonialism

The Methodist Federation for Social Action and United Methodists for Kairos Response are co-hosting a webinar next Wednesday, Feb. 10th at 10am EST entitled "Unmasking the Evil of Colonialism." The webinar will explore the impact of colonialism on Turtle Island (a traditional Native American term for North America), the Philippines, Africa, and Palestine. According to press materials, the webinar will help viewers wrestle with the question, "How can we meaningfully reject the sin of settler colonialism and support these indigenous peoples' liberation struggles?" Interested readers can register at the above link.

The webinar will feature a panel of four presenters: Rev. Alvin Deer - Retired Clergy in Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference, UMC; Rev. Lloyd T. Nyarota – Clergy in the Zimbabwe East Conference, UMC; Rev. Armando Arellano - Filipino Clergy in the East Ohio Conference, UMC; and Ata Manasra - Director of the Wadi Foquin-Narjes Community Development Project, former Mayor of Wadi Foquin, West Bank, Palestine. It will be moderated by Michelle Dromgold-Sermen, former UMKR Intern and PhD candidate in sociology, University of North Carolina.

Lloyd Nyarota in particular has been an outspoken critic of colonialism within The United Methodist Church. Given his presence on the panel and given the generally United Methodist flavor of the event, it is likely that the discussion of colonialism will include a discussion of colonialism within the church as well as within secular realms.

Recommended Viewing: The Theological Roots of Racism and Colonialism

As part of the UMC's Dismantling Racism campaign, the denomination has been sponsoring a series of virtual panel discussions on aspects of race and racism. The most recent panel, on "The Theological Roots of Racism and Colonialism" was held on Sept. 16th.

The panel featured Rev. Dr. Mai-Ahn Le Tran of Garrett-Evangelical Seminary, Rev. Dr. Edgardo Colón-Emeric of Duke Divinity School, and Rev. Dr. Willie James Jennings of Yale Divinity School as panelists.The panel was moderated by Rev. Erin Hawkins, former General Secretary of the UMC's General Commission on Religion and Race.

The panel reflected on the ways in which theology and race intersect in the US context but put this discussion in larger contexts of colonialism and World Christianity. Panelists tied racism within the US to patterns of colonialism overseas and lifted up learning from world Christian perspectives as a means to decenter whiteness in American Christianity. The panel, which lasted about an hour, is well worth watching for these and other insights on the topic.

The panel can be viewed online here. There is also a UMNS story summarizing the townhall.

Recommended Viewing: The US & the Central Conferences at the UM Scholars Conference

While much of the Post-Way-Forward Gathering of UM Scholars focused on the US context, a few presentations looked at the relationship between the US and the Central Conferences.

Darryl W. Stephens presented on "United Methodism at the End of White Christian America." In his piece, he argued that the current conflicts in the UMC have their roots in a world in which white Christians were a dominant cultural force in America, and Americans were the dominant force in the UMC. Yet, white Christianity no longer holds the same dominant place in this country, and the UMC as a denomination has become increasingly less American and more international in its membership. Stephens closes by arguing that "General Conference must address the primary, urgent, pervasive, and political nature of the global challenges in the UMC."

Anne Burkholder's presentation on fine-grained attention to vote counts, however, indicates just how difficult building coalitions for change in the UMC is. She notes how the conversation is at very different places in different countries. Burkholder explains how, despite a centrist-progressive wave at GC2020 delegate elections in the US, US delegates along cannot push forward changes on their own. Yet, as Burkholder notes, it matters what the question is when it comes to anticipating central conference responses. Among the potential questions Burkholder examines is the proposal to create a separate US structure/region/central conference.

Taken together, Stephens' and Burkholders' presentations highlight the important of Americans having conversations "with not about" central conferences regarding the future of the church, a theme I will expand upon in a subsequent post.

Recommended Reading: Robert Harman on EUB vs. Methodist World Mission

Several years ago, Robert Harman, retired head of the World Division of Global Ministries and occasional contributor to and regular commenter on UM & Global, wrote a piece on the differences between EUB and Methodist traditions of world mission. The piece, entitled "Reflections on World Mission in the EUB, Methodist, and United Methodist Traditions," ran as the Summer 2012 issue of the Telescope-Messenger, the newsletter for the Center for the Evangelical United Brethren Heritage.

While the piece touches on several differences between the Methodist and EUB traditions, much of it describes the differences between how the two traditions thought about the relationship between their missions and the church in the US. This set of differences has implications for how autonomy, connection, and dependence played out in the former missions of each tradition. Harman also argues it has implications for how we think about The United Methodist Church as a global body. The piece is worth reading, even several years later, as the UMC reconsiders its global nature, especially if autonomy for some parts of the church becomes a part of the answer to current questions.

Missional Ecclesiology: Affirmations about Mission: Viewing Our Place in Mission Rightly

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

As indicated previously, I had the honor of preparing a document for the Commission on a Way Forward for use in developing their Missional Framework. This is the third post in a series explaining what I sent to the Commission and why. In these posts, I speak about my own writing and am not commenting on how the Commission used that writing or the final Missional Framework they developed.

The document I prepared is structured into three sections: a set of affirmations about mission, a set of affirmations about the church, and a set of values flowing from these two sets of affirmations. In this post, I want to reflect on the affirmations about mission.

As I noted in the introduction to this series, these affirmations were not intended to reflect my own personal thoughts about mission but rather important pieces of consensus on mission United Methodists and others reached over the last half century. In particular, the six affirmations included in my original version, reduced to five in the condensed version, reflect important ways in which missiologists have sought to move past a colonialist model of mission.

At the height of the Western missionary movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, mostly white missionaries went from the United States and other Western countries to mostly non-white countries, where they sought to convert the people there to Christianity and get them to adopt Western culture. This effort often was entangled with political colonialism and capitalist expansion. Such a model of mission has been rightly critiqued for its pride, harm, violence, and misunderstanding of the gospel.

Yet echoes of that model still persist in The United Methodist Church. We still too often think of mission as something that goes from the “haves,” who are more often than not well-to-do white Americans, to the “have-nots,” who are more often than not the poor, people of color, and/or non-Americans. Any decent missiological document, I thought, had to be based on some of the most significant mission theology pieces that have been used to deconstruct such a view of mission and instead construct a view of mission in which all Christians, regardless of who they are, have a part in God’s mission.

The first affirmation, about the missio Dei, is one that relativizes all human contributions to mission. The notion of the missio Dei, that mission belongs to God, undercuts human pretenses to control mission. In particular, it undercuts Western pretenses to control mission, since Western Christians have traditionally been the ones to control mission.

In my longer version, the second affirmation was about the role of the poor and marginal in mission. I cut that from the condensed version in an effort to save space, though I now regret that decision. If the goal is to see mission as something belonging to all Christians, then the affirmation that the poor and marginal have roles as agents of God’s mission is very important. I should have left this affirmation in, and I repent of not doing so.

The affirmations about the missional nature of the church and that mission is from everywhere to everywhere both get at this notion that all Christians regardless are part of mission. Since the church is missional, all Christians should be involved in God’s mission, regardless of background, role in the church, or any other factor. Since mission is from everywhere to everywhere, all Christians regardless of geographic location can be both agents in and recipients of mission.

At the same time that I wanted to emphasize the universality of participation in mission, I also wanted to stress the particularity and therefore diversity of ways in which mission is expressed. I see the two points as intertwined – since all Christians are called to be in mission, we must not expect mission to look exactly the same in all places. If we define just one type of mission as true mission, we run the risk of setting up new forms of inequity in mission.

The affirmation that mission is incarnational draws on a lot of the conversation about inculturation/contextualization in the missiological community. Although understandings of the relationship between gospel and culture vary, missiologists have definitively agreed that respecting cultures and contexts is an important aspect of mission done right and failure to do so was one of the most grievous sins of the colonial era of mission.

An affirmation about the distinctive gifts and graces given to Christians for mission both follows Paul’s writings on spiritual gifts and missiological discussions about the varieties of mission work. Whether one uses the Five Marks of Mission or some other scheme, it is clear that mission contains a broad range of activities. This acknowledgement allows Christians to find their place within mission. Thus, answering the call to mission is not about fitting into one particular box, but about identifying the places in which one’s God-given gifts and graces connect with the varieties of mission work.

The goal, then, of these affirmations, is that none would think about their relationship to mission either too highly or too lowly. One is not more important in mission because of one’s social location. At the same time, no one is excluded from mission because of their social location or other factors, and all have something to give in mission. May we all view our place in God’s mission rightly.