United Methodists’

global relationships

enter ‘new phase’

By LINDA BLOOM

BIRMINGHAM (Alabama) – How United Methodists relate to other religious bodies – both Methodist and ecumenical – is changing as society becomes more globalised.

Dealing with those changing relations is a challenge both for the United Methodist Council of Bishops and the denomination’s Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, said Bishop William Oden, the council’s ecumenical officer.

“We are entering a new phase that the church has not encountered before because of globalisation,” he said. “Old borders and old agreements, both denominational and ecumenical, no longer hold.”

In England, for example, enough United Methodists from Zimbabwe have arrived as political exiles that United Methodist Bishop Eben Nhiwatiwa of Zimbabwe has appointed a district superintendent and some pastors to work with the congregations they have established.

But British Methodists are a separate denomination and relate to the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe, which is also separate from the United Methodists there. Bishop Oden has met British Methodists and bishops from both Zimbabwe churches “to try to figure out how they minister and how they can connect”.

In the US, Methodists from Korea have started about 250 congregations, enough for districts on the East and West coasts, and are preparing to elect a bishop. Starting a congregation is one way for a Korean Methodist pastor to be ordained, Bishop Oden noted.

The Council of Bishops has decided to start a dialogue with the Korean Methodist Church about the situation. “We can’t just pretend that it isn’t happening,” Bishop Oden told commission members.

Another situation has arisen in Canada, where a congregation of Filipino United Methodists has become part of the US Pacific Northwest Conference, with the permission of the United Church of Canada. United Methodists have long had an agreement with the United Church not to plant churches in Canada. – United Methodist News Service. 

Linda Bloom is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in New York.