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Liberia is a highly religious country with a Christian majority of 85% of the 5.2 million population.
Article 14 of the Liberian Constitution provides for the “freedom of thought, conscience and religion and no person shall be hindered in the enjoyment thereof except as may be required by law to protect public safety, order, health, morals, or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.”
Some Christian denominations practised in Liberia are Lutheran, Baptist, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, United Methodist, African Methodist Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal Zionists, and several Pentecostal churches.
An American-based Christian organisation called Set Free Alliance said the Methodist is the largest Christian denomination in Liberia.
The Methodist church is almost everywhere in the world and was derived from John Wesley‘s teachings, which posit that salvation must produce holiness of heart and life.
At its most recent 2020\2024 general conference held in the U.S., the United Methodist reached a decision, removing from its Book of Discipline all language that restricts or singles out non-heterosexual people for disparate treatment, effective upon the close of the conference on May 3, 2024.
The church also made its clergy free to preside over same-sex marriage or union ceremonies where they are legal. The church said they are also equally free to choose not to do so. The church says it remains neutral and inclusive, saying, “Sexuality is God’s good gift to all persons.”
Since then, the United Methodist Church in Liberia has been characterised by claims and counterclaims of homosexuality being adopted in the church of Liberia.
Barely a few months after the conference, in June this year, a protest was staged against same-sex marriage in the Methodist church in Nimba County by people believed to be members of the church. The aggrieved members claimed the Resident Bishop of Liberia, Samuel Quire, is gay, and he is trying to infuse same-sex marriage in the church.
Also, on Oct 13, 2024, a simultaneous protest occurred in two United Methodist churches in New Georgia and 72nd communities. The protestants alleged that Bishop Quire suspended their pastors and replaced them because of their stance against homosexuality. They also alleged that a gay wedding was officiated by the bishop on that same day, at one of the churches.
In response on Oct 14, 2024, Bishop Quire said the allegation of him officiating a gay wedding came from the New Georgia branch but was false.
He stressed that the Liberia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church would not conduct any weddings or ordination of homosexuals.
Bishop Quire explained that two of the pastors of the New Georgia branch and a clergyman of the 72nd were suspended because they disobeyed the church’s book of discipline. He said he could not reveal their exact offenses because they were administrative decisions.
The bishop said the pastors rejected the suspension letters and decided to continue pastoring their different churches, which disrupted their churches’ services.
He said the “United Methodist Church of Liberia is not a gay church, nor will it ever adopt such an identity.” He added, “They firmly uphold the definition of marriage as the sacred union between one man and one woman– nothing more and nothing less.”
