Posted on 04/19/2024 9:10:19 PM PDT by Morgana
The United Methodist Church Council of Bishops has elected its first African American female president, who will take office in the coming weeks following the departure of over 7,000 churches from the denomination in recent years.
Bishop Tracy S. Malone of the UMC East Ohio Conference will take office during the second week of the UMC General Conference, scheduled for April 23 to May 3. She was elected president of the COB last November.
Malone told The Christian Post on Thursday that it was "an honor to be elected by my colleagues," calling it an "historical election" that "is a testament to the Church's commitment to celebrating diversity." Get Our Latest News for FREE
"I will continue to provide leadership to the Church that inspires hope, helps to unite The United Methodist Church and our collective efforts to becoming a more inclusive grace-filled Church," Malone wrote in an email.
Malone hopes to champion efforts that help "deepen and expand our commitment to discipleship, mission, equity, and justice in the Church and in the world."
"The United Methodist Church continues to have a thriving witness and missional impact throughout the world," she added. "The mission of the Church has not changed, and the commitment to making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world continues to be our focus."
Malone was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, but raised in Chicago, Illinois. She felt a call to take part in ministry at the age of 13, according to her online biography.
Malone earned a bachelor of arts in Religious Studies and Sociology, with a minor in Computer Science from North Central College in Naperville, Illinois; a master of divinity from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois; and a doctorate of ministry from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio.
She was assigned as resident bishop of the UMC East Ohio Conference in 2016, having previously pastored several congregations in the UMC Northern Illinois Conference.
Malone's installment as COB president follows the disaffiliations of thousands of congregations from the UMC in 2022 and 2023 due to disagreements over the mainline denomination's official stance on homosexuality.
The UMC Book of Discipline labels homosexuality "incompatible with Christian teaching" and prohibits the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of noncelibate homosexuals.
Although efforts at the General Conference to change the Book of Discipline have failed, many progressive leaders within the UMC have refused to follow or enforce the rules.
In 2019, at a special session of the General Conference, delegates voted to add Paragraph 2553 to the Book of Discipline, which created a temporary process for churches to disaffiliate over the debate.
From 2019 to 2023, according to numbers compiled by UM News, more than 7,600 congregations, most conservative, were granted disaffiliation.
This number of departing congregations included 250 churches from Malone's East Ohio Conference, representing more than a third of the regional body's member congregations.
Due to the many theologically conservative churches that left the denomination, many expect this year's General Conference to finally amend the Book of Discipline.
Last October, as part of an event held by The Church of the Resurrection of Leawood, Kansas, Malone said that her conference's annual meeting felt "like a revival" after the churches left.
"There was a different spirit in the place," Malone recounted. "It felt like everyone could breathe. There was a renewed sense of hope and excitement, and really believing that we are ready to forge ahead."
"We were tired of the fighting, tired of all of the conversations being dominated by separation, disaffiliation. … People were tired, and the conference was ready and is ready and has already forged ahead."
Conservative congregations left and they’re feeling a fresh air.
What could go wrong.
“Battlestations!!”
>> Conservative congregations left and they’re feeling a fresh air.
Those winds of UMC change smell like a fart!
They can’t get to whoredom with satan fast enough. May they be increasingly few and increasingly poor, and may they entice few to join them in their iniquity.
“..UMC is in freefall....”
Yep....right down into the devil’s bottomless pit with a demonic black female making sure it all happens as planned.
I wonder if UMCRevMom was ever in the running?
Let’s be real. How many church-going Methodists are still around? it’s a dying church. In fact, it’s almost dead.
My parents dragged me to this church decades ago. They were just as liberal. Only it wasn’t as “cool” as it is now. I think the minister there performed the first gay marriage of all of them.
If this is an identity hire, the United Methodist Church is taking a big gamble. I hope is misses their foot.
“There was a different spirit in the place,”
Yep, that’s for sure. They are following a different spirit.
Lord help us...another “first”!
The faux Wesleyan Quadrilateral was the downfall of the UMC.
Wesley NEVER proposed or endorsed the idea. He never used the term Quadrilateral. It came out of Duke Divinity school in the 1960’s under that fake name and gave Methodists’ and excuse to ignore biblical teachings.
The great falling away continues.
One CAN get spiritually noseblind to the smell of Brimstone/sulfur after a while!
>> Wesley NEVER proposed or endorsed the idea.
Nope, he sure didn’t. ANd Albert Outler, the guy who DID propose it, later lamented publicly that his concept was grossly misused.
The whole “homosexual” gambit within the Protestant denominations was never about DEI, but rather about the destruction of those entities. If the supporters of that agenda were truly and honestly driven to embrace what they espoused they would have formed their own churches and denominations. This has always been about access to the money and the destruction of Christian denominations. As usual, they have been very successful at destruction, but dismal failures of anything constructive.
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