Orthodox American Methodists That Work With African Methodists Accused of Racism

It does appear that more and more that Africa will save the West. Many Catholic gets that, many Anglicans get that, and now many United Methodist that are trying to save their faith get it. The reaction however from the more "Progressive liberal enlightened folks" in both the Anglican and Methodist bodies is that please put these Africans in the back of the theological bus. I predict that when the See of St Peter is occupied by an African that it will have far more effect on Protestant bodies than the Catholic Church

The National Review has an excellent article on the Recent United Methodist General Confernce that was held. Being around Methodists a good bit one knows that these meetings are always fun.

The article is Saving Methodism The struggle within reflects the struggles without

In this article we see a familar pattern. American Mainline Churches have lost their anchor of Christian Orthodoxy and are losing members. The African Churches are Orthodox , growing, and to the horror of the ruling class are about to have real power because of their numbers.

The whole thing is a good read but this is funny:

However, some members of the laity are fighting back. Back in Fort Worth, a number of United Methodist groups are uniting to make sure their church body remains truer to John Wesley than Nancy Pelosi. These groups, such as Confessing Movement, Good News/Renew, Transforming Congregations, and UMAction, have united under the banner of the Renewal and Reform Coalition to organize against the liberal factions at the General Conference.

To increase its political power, the Renewal and Reform Coalition reached out to foreign Methodists. The United Methodists have approximately eight million members in the United States, making it one of the largest denominations here. But maybe not for long — that’s down from over 11 million in 1990.Meanwhile, the United Methodist Church currently has some 3.5 million additional members worldwide. That’s up from 1.2 million in 1999, and except for a few hundred thousand members in the Philippines and Europe, they reside in Africa.

As Ray Nothstine noted on the blog of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, “African Methodists are much more conservative and evangelical than America’s contemporary brand of Methodism. Denominational leaders in Africa are becoming more critical in their rebuke of United Methodist leaders in the U.S.

Additionally, they are speaking refreshingly about the timeless truths of Evangelical Christianity and evangelism.”Naturally, the Renewal and Reform Coalition saw the African delegation to the United Methodists’ General Conference as allies. “We calculated that even here, close to 30 percent of the delegates were U.S. evangelicals, and then internationals were close to 30 percent, so at least on paper [we had] a majority,” Mark Tooley, the United Methodist Action director at the Institute on Religion and Democracy and author of Taking Back the United Methodist Church, told National Review Online. “But since it’s a brand-new majority, you can’t really call it an effective working majority.”

In order to help the emerging majority work better toward its goals, the Renewal and Reform Coalition threw a reception for the members of the African delegation when they arrived in Ft. Worth. The coalition also provided leaders of the delegation with cell phones to use during their stay so the two groups could communicate at the General Conference. How did the United Methodist leadership react to this burgeoning alliance? Incredibly, they accused the Renewal and Reform Coalition of racism. A member of the church’s Orwellian-sounding “joint monitoring team” from the Commission on the Status and Role of Women and the Commission on Religion and Race declared to the laughably biased United Methodist News Service that providing cell phones “is inappropriate behavior and it destroys community. We have gathered for Christian conferencing, which requires trust, honesty, openness and respect. Whenever there is an imbalance of power relationships with the expectation of reciprocity, this behavior gives the appearance of paternalism, manipulation, exploitation and of course, racism.”

Given that the African delegation has been quite outspoken in its theological and political views, the idea that they could be swayed so cheaply is absurd. Even more troubling than this amazingly patronizing attitude is that at past General Conferences, free meals, gift baskets, and other tokens have been offered by those supporting the political agenda of the church hierarchy to the international delegations. But the use of cell phones, provided by the reformers, is a bridge too far.