UMC Seeks To Cut Off Funds, Take Property From 1M Conservative African Methodists
Months after the United Methodist Church’s largest overseas jurisdiction voted to cut ties with the denomination over their support of same-sex marriage, resulting in a loss of over a million members in a single day, UMC leadership has revealed their plans to retaliate against them: cut off all funding and take their property.
Earlier this year, The United Methodist Church in the Ivory Coast (EMUCI), which has been vocal about the denomination’s drift, held an extraordinary session on May 28th and pulled the trigger, casting their votes to disaffiliate “For reasons of conscience before God and His word, the supreme authority in matters of faith and life.”
Denominational leaders within the EMUCI have been unyielding in their resistance to the LGBTQ, declaring that their American counterparts “deviate from the Holy Scriptures” and prefer “to sacrifice its honor and integrity to honor the LGBTQ community.”
Unlike the UMC, the EMUCI has been growing steadily and has long been the denomination’s largest conference, along with being one of the most vocal against the direction they’ve been heading. This split was foreshadowed at the General Conference, when the President of the EMCUI, Bishop Benjamin Boni, told those gathered as a result of their move to embrace LGBTQ deviancy: “The United Methodist Church now rests on socio-cultural values that have consumed its doctrinal and disciplinary integrity.”
But the UMC has a plan. According to a news brief from the denomination’s website, “The United Methodist Council of Bishops is asking the denomination’s finance agency to suspend all funding for bishop compensation and related expenses in Côte d’Ivoire.”
Along with ceasing all funding, they’ve also requested all UMC property and assets in the country. With the bishops agreeing with the motion, the General Council on Finance and Administration Board must vote on it:
Council of Bishops President Tracy S. Malone told her colleagues that at the time, the bishops received indications that the conference was willing to follow the procedures under The United Methodist Church’s Book of Discipline for becoming an autonomous denomination. Using that process, the conference would continue receiving denominational funding and not become fully independent until the end of 2028 at the earliest.
However, for months, the bishops did not hear any responses when they tried to reach out to conference leaders. Instead, the week before the November meeting, the Council of Bishops office received notice that the conference had other plans.
“The United Methodist Church is no longer registered in Côte d’Ivoire,” Malone, who also leads the Indiana Conference, told her colleagues. Instead, she said, the conference is registered as an independent entity.
“So in light of that, the executive committee took action, and in order for the funding to be suspended, we needed to bring a motion before the full council.”
In a discussion about it with the Christian Post, Institute on Religion & Democracy president Mark Tooley described the measures as “very punitive and vindictive” and suggested that they would have a hard time putting it into practice:
Are they talking about the church buildings or other denominational property? Local church buildings are held in trust not by the global denomination but by the local annual conference, which in this case is the Ivory Coast church, which has now become independent.
…They can successfully cut off funding from the United Methodist Church based in the U.S, (but) “I don’t know how successful they will be in seizing property based in Ivory Coast. I would guess Ivory Coast will not be very sympathetic to United Methodist officials in the U.S….This might intimidate some from trying to quit the UMC. But it also might motivate others to get out as quickly as they can.
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