UMC General Conference Staff Refusing to Allow African Participation

Рет қаралды 8,223

Күн бұрын

I was sent a copy of a document submitted to Sara Hotchkiss, the Business Manager of the UMC General Conference. Africa Initiative leadership, on behalf of the many delegates they have consulted, made a formal request on March 4 to meet several needs in order for African participation to be possible. It seems to have fallen on deaf ears, as Hotchkiss has refused to respond.
What is obviously at stake is the legitimacy of the assembled body. If the African delegation, which is already abysmally underrepresented, is reduced by 25%, any sane person is right to ask if any decisions made can be honored. In seeking victory on liberalizing the positions of the church, it would seem the General Conference staff are cutting off their nose to spite their face...

Пікірлер: 77

@themrttttoo490 6 ай бұрын

The African UMCs are being forced to make a decision to disaffiliate.

@Agben35 7 ай бұрын

wow …. just wow i’ve typed my thoughts 2-3 times and it comes out overly harsh and thus, deleted. I’ll just say there is NOTHING Christian about what is being done here.

@user-xp7ju2sd6o 7 ай бұрын

No surprise there.

@JamesAllmond 7 ай бұрын

I re-typed mine 3 times...sigh...not an easy subject.

@talbotdavis1225 7 ай бұрын

Bingo. You just made your own point.

@TRtribal 7 ай бұрын

I wish I could say I was shocked. "Holy conferencing" is only holy when the preferred voices are all that are allowed to speak, I suppose. Or, from a more Orwellian approach, "some animals are more equal than others."

@cherylcampbell472 6 ай бұрын

Just like everything else in this upside down world, voices that don’t agree are being ignored.

@eileenthrift8259 7 ай бұрын

When the UMC leadership receives the votes needed to change the BOD (which they totally disregard), will they cheer their victory and ignore the hollowness of it? Will they allow churches in the Central conference to disaffiliate after silencing their voices? My heart goes out to the African delegates for the way they are being marginalized. They deserve to be treated with respect and dignity.

@eileenthrift8259 7 ай бұрын

James 2: 1-26

@joer5627 7 ай бұрын

The BOD is now called the Book of Non-Discipline and is used only as a door stop

@boooshes 7 ай бұрын

The leadership of the UMC is devoted to do what they want by any means necessary.

@plainspokenpod 7 ай бұрын

It certainly seems so. I have a hard time making sense of this picture outside of this claim.

@JamesAllmond 7 ай бұрын

@@plainspokenpod I talked with a friend and now retired UMC minister. We are both sick of this, he retired, early, as a result. We really don't understand it and he has actually started working with a group that assists retired pastors with medical bills and such that need handling outside the UMC or GMC environment. As far as what is happening with the conference, "Abominable" sounds about right Rev.

@pwcorgi2000 7 ай бұрын

This is really sad. Black UMC churches in the U.S. need to stand up against the UMC on this matter.

@plainspokenpod 7 ай бұрын

Yeah, well, people of all ethnicities need to be uniform in their rejection of such measures. The role of the black church in America has been somewhat confusing to me. I hope they are indeed able to speak with one voice against such behavior...

@JamesAllmond 7 ай бұрын

@@plainspokenpod Our pastors asked, got the answer that they are staying to "save" the UMC from themselves. That is literally what the were told. We wished them well, but that was before this all really heated up. We've been out since last August, so out of the loop now, and that is even sadder.

@pwcorgi2000 7 ай бұрын

@@plainspokenpod I agree. 100%

@deej7928 7 ай бұрын

All Christians need to stand up against this.

@robertwynn5844 7 ай бұрын

Our "open doors" don't include you Africa.

@Ice_Greasy 7 ай бұрын

I am a united methodist. And honestly I'm so close to giving up but I feel like I also should never. We all need to team up and bring the United methodist church back to its original state without theological liberalism✝️

@plainspokenpod 7 ай бұрын

Wouldn't that be awesome? It is so strange that liberalism is actually quite unpopular, but it is so entrenched that it seems impossible to dislodge. If majority sentiment counted for anything, it would have been expelled long ago...

@themrttttoo490 6 ай бұрын

As an active United Methodist for decades, I'm saddened by its infestation by the radical Left Marxists. Most of the disaffiliating churches in Texas did so because this agitator-driven fight has been going on since the late 1970s and, to quote a wise man, "the UMC has become unmanageable" General Conference votes on human sexuality have been ignored in the name of "social justice." We attend church to do God's work as we identify as disciples of Jesus Christ striving to root sin out of our lives and to bring order to the church. Those who have stopped the "fight" and disaffiliated to the GMC or independent churches by the hundreds. This corrupt, underhanded UMC scheme will force African UMC decisions to disaffiliate and/or move to the GMC.

@kennethsanders1694 7 ай бұрын

The U M C should let all churches go who want to leave. They are now apostate.

@paulussiremo8204 7 ай бұрын

If they is black UMC in US may you stand for Church in Africa please!

@mikehunter6975 7 ай бұрын

I wonder if the delegates being left out are from the more conservative areas of Africa.

@JamesAllmond 7 ай бұрын

the entire continent are "the more conservative areas"...

@plainspokenpod 7 ай бұрын

Some areas are more traditionalist than others, less tolerant of liberalism than others. Or rather, there are some African leaders like Ande Emmanuel, Mande Muyombo, or Bishop Wandabula, who are quite eager to cooperate with liberals, and who have many other African UMs in their thrall. There does seem to be different treatment of some delegates who have made it known that they do not plan to give the Americans what they want. Substantiating that would require a level of transparency that doesn't exist.

@davidlivingston6566 7 ай бұрын

As one working for change in the denomination and opposed to what Jeffrey is after, I can tell you that there are delegates from Africa on both sides of the question of regionalization that have had issues.

@bohunker1 7 ай бұрын

Providing meals is less about hospitality and more about controlling who has access to African Delegates, ie. Good News and WCA, who once privided meals, relationship and conversation.

@plainspokenpod 7 ай бұрын

Yeah it would seem to me that Africans, or really all delegates, should be allowed to connect with whoever they want. The leadership circumventing their connection with others is patriarchal. I don't doubt that the dietary concerns mentioned here are real, but there is certainly more to it than that.

@MarthaTholanah 7 ай бұрын

Wow! I don't even know what to say.

@robertfulton7556 7 ай бұрын

Traditionalist UMC clergy here. Any chance you’ve come across where Ande Immanuel was removed from his post as conference secretary? I was trying to track it down but can’t find it. He’s all too eager to post things in the UMC Clergy Facebook group that sling mud at the GMC and traditionalist UMC clergy, and everyone else is equally quick to come around and say “See what terrible things the new denomination is doing.” Which is incredibly frustrating. I’d love to be able to pin down when and how he was removed. He certainly seems to have needed to be. Ugh.

@plainspokenpod 7 ай бұрын

There were judicial proceedings against him in 2021, after which he was removed from conference leadership. Many of the documents pertaining to this haven't been accessible to me. The ones I have paint a pretty good picture, though. I have put them all in a Google Drive folder for you and others to review: drive.google.com/drive/folders/1qeknzpV-4muTAXO4mqcZfwrHdivh1LNk?usp=share_link

@dpbrucks1 7 ай бұрын

embarrassing say the least. I can't imagine the conversation around the conference table when this was suggested to even do this.

@newdawn775 7 ай бұрын

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Nothing has been equal, but I’m proud that the African real voices are standing up. I feel the name of the church should have remained with the true majority vote. Those wanting to embrace the non biblical ideas should have moved on just as John Wesley and Charles Wesley did. And if their position did not need trickery, the LORD would have stood with them and the truth would have set them free. The LORD is still on the throne. We are watching to see where the LORD is standing.

@semvillar5520 4 ай бұрын

Do you have a UMC in Hernani, Eastern Samar, Philippines where I could connect my faith? or a UMC in Talisay City, Cebu, Philippines? I'm interested to join, please reply. Thank you.

@AlanHittverified 7 ай бұрын

I think the lack of comment by any UMC source says quite a bit.

@sonnyboy8957 5 ай бұрын

1 Timothy 4:1. Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils.

@mwolv93 7 ай бұрын

This is just an interesting observation based upon the struggles of the video maker and the commenters to it, but it seems to me that your struggles demonstrates the problems the UMC and the majority of evangelicalism have truth versus tone. We in the West (especially) have bought up into the notion that we must be more concerned with our tone when speaking rather than concerned with truth when speaking. When one is concerned about tone truth often becomes compromised as one struggles with the way to say something without offending. Jesus when concerned with truth didn't worry with tone. "You white washed tombs..." "You brood of vipers..." etc. The early church followed Jesus pattern examine Paul and how he interacts when his concern is truth for another example. When you agree to play the worry about tone game suddenly many truths become harsh and thus difficult to express to those that need to hear the truth. If the UMC desires to reach others for Jesus maybe emphasize what he did truth over tone.

@plainspokenpod 7 ай бұрын

There are going to be issues in the future in which my tone is decidedly harsh. I have just been through too many situations in which I thought I knew the full truth, but then later it was revealed that something was going on that somewhat mitigated how I saw things. While Jesus was omniscient, I am not. I have to take a step back from my own subjective clarity and avoid unnecessarily damaging someone's name. There isn't really anything I wanted to say in this that I couldn't really say because of tone. I just had to check myself at that one point because I was genuinely inclined to go into a diatribe.

@deej7928 7 ай бұрын

Wow. It's obvious your pain is great in holding back emotion while reporting this shameful situation. Praying for you GODs peace.

@Raulgrump 6 ай бұрын

Has there been any movement and updates on this matter? Has anything been fixed, or are the Africans still intentionally excluded?

@plainspokenpod 6 ай бұрын

As of Friday, no movement. I'm a part of a whatsapp chat with some African UMs. Last I checked, congregational leadership was still silent.

@MisterMiller 7 ай бұрын

I would say a quarter of the African vote has been excluded, except that America already had 55% with probably close to 2 million less members, so Africa was already unfairly represented.

@RobertBarnes-q2d 7 ай бұрын

Whether or not this is intentional or accidental, by making the African delegation's stay in America difficult, an implicit argument for regionalization is being raised.

@JoshGale 7 ай бұрын

Around 19:30 you comment that they “have the numbers”. Is there evidence of that anywhere other than a few a people saying it?

@plainspokenpod 7 ай бұрын

The sort of evidence I think you're asking for doesn't exist. It would require a final list of delegates, which hasn't been supplied yet, along with each of those delegates revealing how they intend to vote. However, folks like Tom Lambrecht and Keith Boyette, who have watched and astutely predicted the calculus of these things have also spoken to this upcoming assembly. Of course, they could be wrong. We live in an era in which projections are sometimes revealed as pretty wrong. Even so, this is perhaps the most educated prediction, to my mind.

@dee_ewell_pierce 7 ай бұрын

Does this go back to the Christmas Covenant discussed last year?

@plainspokenpod 7 ай бұрын

Sort of. They tried to make the Christmas Covenant seem like a document drafted by Africans for African interests. Africans, by and large, seem to be eager to reject it, though. So when one cannot win the game, then simply don't allow one's opponents to play...

@user-1ju19ly66 7 ай бұрын

Please verify your source of information. Who removed And as conference secretary?

@plainspokenpod 7 ай бұрын

@charleswhite175 7 ай бұрын

How many delegates are slated to come?

@nathancherolis8033 7 ай бұрын

Take the lesson of Lott’s wife. Don’t look back. When someone shows you who they are, believe them.

@barbaramartin6837 7 ай бұрын

Very disappointing, but sadly not surprised.

@newbengraham4775 7 ай бұрын

if you left the umc why are you even talking about them?

@plainspokenpod 7 ай бұрын

I answer that question here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mafXpYitdtOde7s I find it really strange when folks think people should only speak about bodies they participate in. I can't speak about what happens in other countries? Other churches in town? Other states in the US? Other time periods? It's just a silly way of thinking...