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H-Metro Correspondent
SHARP differences over gay issues have triggered a sensational fallout which has led to the Shona United Methodist Church (UMC) splitting into two factions in South Africa.
The Johannesburg Shona UMC was launched around 2008 by some Zimbabwean professionals who emigrated to work and live in South Africa.
It has since grown over the years and has over 1 000 members in the Gauteng province only.
There are other churches in provinces such as Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Free State and Limpopo.
The Shona assembly had made significant progress and has acquired properties that are valued at over R10 million.
It remains to be seen what now happens to these properties as a large number of congregants have left.
There are now two groups in South Africa — the long-standing Johannesburg United Methodist Church (JNUMC) and the newly-formed Johannesburg North Methodist Church (JNMC).
The same issues have also led to problems emerging in the UMC in Zimbabwe.
The UMC has been against the ordination of gay and lesbian clergy for over a century.
However, this changed at the church’s highest decision-making body (the General Conference — GC) in Charlotte, North Carolina, in May this year.
It is now permissible for gays and lesbians to be ordained as bishops or pastors and it is also now allowed to solemnise same-sex marriages in the UMC in the United States.
There has been a mass exodus of conservatives worldwide who deem this as abhorrent.
Reports say there was massive resistance at the General Conference by conservative African delegates leading to the meeting advocating for “regionalisation” where each continent can determine its set of rules of worship and choose whatever suits the region culturally.
This has been vehemently resisted by the parties who have since broken away citing that the UMC is a “connectional church.”
And, whether they stand as a region, they are still connected to the Americans, who have embraced the ordination of LGBTQ clergy.
Following the GC resolution, a meeting was held at the main church in Randburg where the majority of the members voted to cut links with the main UMC.
So heated was the meeting that another session was held with the Bishop of the SA Episcopal Area Joaquina Filipe Nanhala.
It is at this meeting that all hell broke loose with members of the breakaway faction suggesting some of the people in the church leadership were hoodwinking worshippers to go against their principles.
“The truth is there has been some lying as some of the pastors and bishops want to protect their own interests like salaries and perks at the expense of people’s spirits,” said one member of the faction that has formed its own church.
“We cannot continue being part of a church that sanctions such evils that go against the Bible.
“This is why Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed.”
Others, however, have a different view.
“People are just being too emotional over the issue and acted in haste. They have not taken time to assimilate how the new order will work.
“God will always remain God whether the Americans make their own rules. We have always been African in our way of worship and that will not change.
“We all agree that we cannot have gay bishops and pastors in our African set-up and we will not compromise.
“We will have our own Book of Discipline that will not allow Africans to be part of this.
“It is unfortunate there has been politics at play and some members just capitalised on this to further their own agendas,” said another member who has chosen to remain in the JNUMC.
Online Reporter