Every system is perfectly designed to get the results that it does – W. Edwards Deming
This year, delegates from all United Methodist Church (UMC) Annual Conferences will be voting on four constitutional amendments that were passed at last year’s General Conference, but need to be ratified. One of the amendments, Worldwide Regionalization, has been couched in the language of doing ministry within context. In reality, this is nothing more than an institutional push to prevent Africans from taking over the UMC, since more than 1.4 million Americans disaffiliated. Additionally, Regionalization will allow the UMC in the United States to codify same sex marriage, if it chooses, while maintaining a racist structure with no published action plan to dismantle it! Also, lay members in the UMC have more rights than their licensed local pastor does. Who created this system? Oh, I forgot. The General Conference did.
There are Americans who reject the Regionalization amendment because they want Africans to play a greater role within the governance of the UMC. Furthermore, there are Americans who will not conduct same sex marriages, yet they feel that what is currently optional, will be become mandatory if Regionalization passes. And finally, there are people who believe that the UMC is inherently racist, and they will be using their vote as their voice.
Regionalization must be rejected, and below are six reasons why.
• The General Conference passed legislation to form a US Regional Committee, making a US Regional Conference duplicitous.
“. . . as part of the regionalization legislation it passed, the 2024 General Conference adopted and put into immediate effect a new body authorized to review and make recommendations to the whole General Conference about all legislative and business matters relating only or primarily to the United States. This is the United States Regional Committee, comprising all U.S. delegates to the General Conference plus one lay and one clergy delegate from each of the central conferences” Part 1: Decentering the United States: The United States Regional Committee. The Regional Committee will meet to conduct church business on behalf of the United States when Regionalization fails!
• Regionalization does not get rid of the Jurisdictional Conference system that was established during segregation and was weaponized by liberals and progressives against evangelicals who disaffiliated. But now that the evangelicals are gone, liberals and progressives are silent on Jurisdictional Conferences.
“The Methodist Church established jurisdictions when it formed in 1939 as a way to keep U.S. southern and northern bishops separate and a way to keep Black Methodists segregated from the wider church. The formation of The United Methodist Church in 1968 eliminated the segregated Central Jurisdiction. But many United Methodists agree that the racist history taints the jurisdictional system” General Conference gives regionalization green light. However, this is just rhetoric. There is nothing that has been published, with action steps and a timeline, nor has a committee been formed!
• Many African Methodists have left the UMC in large numbers because of same sex marriage passing at the General Conference, after they were blamed for the failure of same sex marriage at the Special Session of the General Conference, because they came from Traditional African Societies and have rejected the ecclesiastical colonialism of American Methodists.
“Côte d’Ivoire Conference members, meeting in a May 28 special session in Abidjan, unanimously voted for the conference to leave The United Methodist Church” Côte d’Ivoire Conference. “Fifty-eight local United Methodist congregations in Kenya voted to withdraw from The United Methodist Church and then announced they would align with the Global Methodist Church. The congregations made their decision at the UM Church’s Kenya–Ethiopia Annual Conference held in Nairobi, Kenya, on August 24, 2023″ Kenyan Congregations. “. . . many within the Liberian Annual Conference have still decided to break away from the UMC and join the GMC” Liberian churches. “Bishop John Wesley Yohanna announced on July 29 that he and his cabinet are leaving The United Methodist Church” Nigeria bishop leaves
• There are no African Methodists in charge of any general agency of the United Methodist Church, which has created a power imbalance that Regionalization will not fix.
“The Connectional Table (CT) executive committee announced at their October 6th meeting the transition of the CT Chair. Bishop Mande Muyombo will transition to the role as the chair of the Connectional Table on December 1, 2022” Bishop Mande Muyombo to transition to Connectional Table Chair. However, the Connectional Table is not a general agency of the United Methodist Church, Agencies.
• All 10 petitions before the General Conference to give local pastors the right to vote at Annual Conferences were defeated.
“Nine petitions to amend the constitution to allow more or all licensed local pastors to vote for General Conference and jurisdictional or central conference delegates have been submitted to General Conference 2020 officials from geographically diverse conferences” ‘Sacred Trust’ report touts local church leadership. “Beth LaRocca Pitts (North Georgia Conference) came to the microphone to remove several petitions dealing with the voting rights of local pastors from the bundled motion.” All the lay delegates from churches with a licensed local pastor should vote no to Regionalization to send the UMC a message, A Lay Delegate’s Guide to Understanding What Happened at the 2020/24 UMC General Conference.
• A previous Regionalization attempt made by the UMC, was rejected in 2010 by Annual Conference delegates.
“More than 49,000 representatives of the worldwide church rejected 23 amendments to the denomination’s constitution that would have allowed for the organization of groups of annual conferences in a single nation or area into a larger regional conference. The term “central conference,” referring to the church outside the United States, could have been replaced by “regional conference” in other parts of the world” Church rejects move toward regional bodies.
In conclusion, a vote for Regionalization is a vote to maintain white supremacy, deny licensed local pastors their voting rights, and is duplicitous.
Odell Horne, Jr. is a doctoral student studying Contextual Theology. He has a degree in African and African American Studies. He has more than 20 published articles for Ministry Matters, Theological Voice of Africa, Firebrand Magazine, United Methodist News Service, and the Journal of Sociology and Christianity.
