Inclusive Leadership Matters
By Rev. Dimpho Gaobepe, 19th Episcopal District
Martin Luther King, Jr. said: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Robust discussions are taking place throughout the continent of Africa and the Diaspora focusing on issues surrounding the upcoming 2021 General Conference and the elections of bishops and general officers of the AME Church.
The epoch of slavery in the history of mankind remains one of the most poignant episodes that consolidated the drive for the emancipation of the African people. The AME Church was an important instrument in uniting African people.
Richard Allen, the activist and abolitionist, was born into slavery and went on to buy his freedom. Allen joined St. George’s Methodist Church, which was predominantly white. He stoodchurch
History teaches that since the establishment of the AME Church in the continent of Africa, there have been only five bishops elected and nothing is mentioned about any general officer elected from Districts 14-20. The first bishop from the continent of Africa, elected in 1956, was Bishop F. H. Gow. The second, elected in 1984, was Bishop Harold Ben Senatle. In 2004, Bishops Wilfred J. Messiah, Paul J.M. Kawimbe, and David Daniels were elected out of a consensus called “The Covenant.” General Conferences held in 2008, 2012, and 2016 did not elect a single candidate outside the borders of the US. The floor was swept clean with impunity, once again, by the US Bloc.
If the AME Church membership in the US (Districts 1-13) fails to consider inclusive leadership between itself and other districts, more especially with Districts 14-20, chances are that the development of other districts outside the US would be undermined. The kind of leadership greed within the higher structures of the Church is problematic and the Church must address it as it continues to fuel tensions. The hailed power imbalance is tilted in favor of candidates residing in Districts 1-13.
A lack of sensitivity to inclusive leadership in the global AME Church may lead our glorious Zion of Allen, John Hurst Adams, Mangena Mokone, Charlotte Maxeke, Gow, Senatle, and many others to repeat a dark history of groupings and lack of unity. It will more fundamentally introduce not racism but the politics of exclusivity, class, inequality, and segregation in our denomination. The lives of these leaders were dedicated to fighting humanity’s intolerance represented by white racist supremacy and any exclusion that was concerned with maintaining power in white hands and silencing outspoken voices that spoke against segregation in Africa, the diaspora, and the US.
Inclusive leadership is the only direction the Church must traverse to avoid potential acts of schisms repeating themselves, the development of elitism in the church based on regionalism and economic power, and the game of numbers. This is a clarion call to Church leadership and delegates who will be participating in future General Conferences to ensure that clergy, young people, women, and are people who are differently-abled be representative in terms of demographics in Districts 14-20 as well as in the Lay Organization’s administrative and leadership roles.
We cannot have the global AME Church almost be a replica of the United Nations Security Council where only five nations’ states have power over a number of countries. Leadership in the upper echelons of the AME Church should and must reflect the geographic spread of the Church internationally. It is not correct to have positions in the Bishops Council, Judicial Council, and Connectional leadership of church auxiliaries being dominated by Districts 1-13!
Ephesians 4:16 says, “from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.”
The Rev. Dimpho Gaobepe is a Ph.D. Candidate at North West University in South Africa. He serves as the senior pastor of Montshioa Chapel AME Church in the West Conference of the 19th Episcopal District.
