Petition to General Conference

Studying in the library at Mulungwishi

United Methodists in Indiana will gather this week on the campus of Ball State University for our annual conference session. I am co-sponsoring a petition to the 2012 General Conference, the quadrennial meeting of The United Methodist Church. The petition is to change the formula for the distribution of the Ministerial Education Fund to include United Methodist seminaries outside the United States. Because such petitions can carry with them all kinds of hidden political agendas, friends are asking me to explain why I am pushing this. Since I'll have just 3 minutes on the conference floor on Saturday afternoon, after most have left the building, to advocate for the petition, it makes some sense that I put the explanation on my blog.

I'm advocating on behalf of the United Methodist Seminary at Mulungwishi and its extension, Kamina Methodist University. Mulungwishi has been doing theological training for 60 years, KMU is brand new. Both of these schools have prepared and are preparing pastors for ministry where The United Methodist Church is not in decline, but is growing rapidly, and where pastors are trained not just to fill pulpits, but to build peace, develop communities, and fight hunger and disease.

These schools receive no funding from the Ministerial Education Fund. (There is a line item called Experimental (reduced from 5% to 3% of the MEF budget), to which they can apply for a grant, but that line is also available to U.S. seminaries for their creative programing.)

Historically, ministries done outside of the U.S. were called missions, and funding was from extra mile giving. Missionaries had to raise money for their own support and for the projects they brought to the communities they served. Now, because of the successful work of these missionaries, Central Conferences, like North Katanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, have successfully made the transition from missionary led to fully functional conferences. The question before the General Conference is whether or not the Central Conferences (those outside the U.S.) are full partners in The United Methodist Church, or are they still mission projects.

The 2008 General Conference created several mission projects to help Africa. I see just two problems with these programs. (And this is like attacking Mom and Apple Pie.) First, they have the feel of Us saving Africa. Instead of putting real financial support behind the emerging leadership in the Central Conferences, leadership that has demonstrated tremendous courage in facing down a war that has been called the greatest humanitarian disaster since WWII, we created a new U.S. driven campaign. In a time when The United Methodist Church in the U.S. is fixated on its numerical decline, we failed to recognize the phenomenal growth of the Church in Africa, growth in both membership and in the strength to take on the hard problems.

Second, even using the NBA, the UN, and Pauley Perrette (I'm a HUGE fan.), to sell the programs, our voluntary response has been weak. The North Katanga Episcopal Area, who will send the largest delegation to General Conference again in 2012, has had ONE mosquito net distribution. The war-torn Tanganyika Conference, part of the North Katanga Episcopal Area, has received ZERO visits from the General Church. (unless you count the visit of our boat, the Indiana)

It's time we moved our commitment from passing the hat to putting it in the budget.

OK. I've said my peace, but I didn't answer your real question, which is, "Why are you, a progressive, fronting for the conservative Confessing Movement?"

Yes, my co-sponsor is a leader in the Confessing Movement, and yes, she did ask me if I would put my name on the petition. I know Beth Ann's heart in this, and know that she truly believes that this issue transcends our political differences. (Funny story: I was literally on my way by bicycle to visit Mulungwishi when Beth Ann sent me the request through Facebook. As Paul Simon says, "lasers in the jungle.")

Here's the thing. I read the papers of Africa University students and enjoy robust exchanges on theological and social issues. While delegates from Africa have historically and consistently voted on the conservative side of hot button social issues, the thought process by which they come to their conclusions is different from conservatives in the U.S. Also, there is more diversity of opinion than one might think. And I have noticed a much more generous spirit than Amercans in debate. And one more thing: The Church in Africa has its own special challenges when it comes to human sexuality, the devaluing of women to the point where rape is acceptable being one.

A happy side effect/unintended consequence of funding seminaries in Central Conferences is that the theologians nurtured there can be the ones who help us break the stalemate that has divided and frozen The United Methodist Church in the U.S. into two warring camps instead of sisters and brothers trying to solve the hardest social puzzles with healthy theological conferencing.

Peace,
Bob