Christian Leadership in Africa

The late Anglican Bishop John Shelby Spong had been pushing the church to accept and approve, and normalize homosexuality. His proposal at the 1998 Lambeth Conference did not pass. Former Newark Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong is Dead notes that at that conference, he demonstrated that he was a racist, and he intimated that the African's view of the Bible was "superstitious." My recollection is that the exhange between he and the BIshop from Uganda went something like this:

Spong: “The reason the African Bishops voted this way is because they have been so recently converted from paganism.”

To which the Bishop of Uganda responded: “The reason Bishop Spong rejects the Bible is because he has been so recently converted to paganism.”

It appears that the United Methodist Church is currently experiencing a similar conflict, As a landmark United Methodist gathering approaches, African churches weigh their future.:

Delegate Jerry Kulah of Liberia said he believes it’s time for African churches to leave.

He said that when he first attended a General Conference in 2008, he was shocked by proposals to liberalize church rules. Since then, he helped mobilize African delegates to vote with American conservatives to create ever-stricter denominational rules against same-sex marriage and ordaining LGBTQ people.

But progressive American churches have increasingly been defying such rules and now appear to have the votes to overturn them.

“We know that we are not going to the General Conference to necessarily win votes,” said Kulah, general coordinator of the advocacy group UMC Africa Initiative. “So our goal is to go and articulate our position and let the world know why it has become very necessary to disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church, because we cannot afford to preach different gospels.”

We need to pray for Jerry Kulah and the UMC Africa Initiative as they forge ahead pledging to remain faithful to the word of God.

https://mailchi.mp/4a70793d8ce3/progressive-christianity-trading-sola-scriptura-for-prima-scriptura?e=169825fd77