10/06/2024
AT LEAST ONE MILLION AFRICANS EXIT METHODIST CHURCH OVER SAME-SEX CONTROVERSY.
By: Melchizedek S.P. Dologbay
June 10, 2024
Monrovia, Liberia
At least one million African Methodists from Cote D’Ivoire, West Africa, have exited the United Methodist Church, in repudiation to the governing body’s acceptance and inclusion of LGBTQ, a situation that has shocked faithful Christians around the world. The Ivory Coast’s Annual Conference,representing the denomination’s largest jurisdiction outside the United States, departed on May 28, 2024, and declared its incompatibility with “the new United Methodist Church that distances itself from the holy Scriptures and sacrifices its honorability and integrity to honor the LGBT.”
This mass exodus of Ivorian Methodists, in Albert Mohler’s words, “serves as an example of what biblical faithfulness and Gospel witness will require of us.” To Pastor Paul Rika of Holiness Revival Movement Worldwide, it is “withdrawal from a backslidden congregation that is headed towards God’s wrath.”
It can be recalled that from April 23 - May 3, 2024 in Charlotte, North Carolina, the United Methodist Church’s historic General Meeting took place where its world-governing body “took actions to remove from the Book of Discipline all languages that restrict or single out non-heterosexual people for disparate treatment..” The meeting further resulted into acceptance of same-sex church and clergy members and freedom to officiate or preside at same-sex marriage or union ceremonies, amongst others; thus, infuriating members worldwide.
Predicated upon this decision, the Ivory Coast’s Annual Conference, on May 28, 2024 at the Jubilee Temple of Cocody in Abidjan, boldly disaffiliated from the mainland denomination.
Considering Africa’s large Methodist population, faithful believers around the world are concerned if other Methodist Conferences will follow the great fall to whoredom or follow the example set by the Ivorian brethren.
https://www.umc.org/en/content/ask-the-umc-what-is-the-churchs-position-on-homosexuality
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