A recent court ruling has decided the ownership of church properties in a dispute between the United Methodist Church and the theologically conservative Global Methodist Church.
Judge George W. Smith of the 6th Judicial Circuit, Civil Law Court in Liberia, ruled last month that the UMC rightfully controls several church properties, and not the GMC.
“The GMC and Rev. Jerry P. Kulah hold no legal or equitable right, title or interest in UMC Liberia Annual Conference properties, including worship centers, schools, hospitals and other facilities,” Smith ruled.
Smith also wrote that GMC leadership “forfeited all beneficial ownership and interest” when they disaffiliated from the UMC, calling their claims to the properties “legally unfounded.”
“The UMC Liberia Annual Conference, the trustee, holds its properties in trust for the use and benefit of its members, present and future,” Smith added, which was in keeping with Liberia’s Civil Procedure Law.
UMC Bishop Samuel J. Quire Jr. of the Liberia Episcopal Area said in a statement quoted by UM News that the ruling was a positive development and “has helped to ease tensions and prevent further confrontations with those contesting the church’s properties.”
At the UMC General Conference last year, delegates voted to remove from the UMC Book of Discipline bans on same-sex marriage ceremonies, the ordination of noncelibate homosexuals and the funding of LGBT advocacy groups. The UMC also omitted a statement declaring homosexuality “incompatible with Christian teaching.”
These changes occurred largely because around 7,500 mostly conservative churches have disaffiliated from the UMC in the last few years over the refusal of many progressive leaders to enforce the rules in the Book of Discipline on LGBT issues.
In June 2024, shortly after the UMC approved the changes, Bishop Quire issued a statement saying his conference would retain the traditional rules on marriage and ordination.
However, many argued that the West African regional body should leave the UMC due to the General Conference vote and believed that the properties should go to the GMC of Liberia.
The Rev. Jerry Kulah, leader of the GMC of Liberia, claimed that Quire had previously agreed to have the regional body leave UMC if the Mainline denomination changed its rules on sexuality and LGBT issues.
“Bishop and all of us agreed that the day the UMC worldwide passes this law, we will leave from there (UMC),” Kulah said in recent remarks, as quoted by the Monrovia-based Women Voices Newspaper in March.
“Bishop is on video, where he went from church to church, district to district, to inform the districts that when this happens, the UMC Liberia will leave. … We have chosen not to follow him.”
