I'm sure someone somewhere did a dissertation on this, but I think there is an interesting phenomenon of Western Churches sending missionaries to the developing world, which gains converts, and then changes the church when the number of members in the developing world reaches a high enough threshold to influence the policies of the global church organization.
But the issue of gay rights has proved uniquely divisive in the church, and Tuesday’s vote reflected the growing clout of Methodists from outside the United States. The tightening of enforcement of church law was backed by a coalition of members from African nations, the Philippines and European and American evangelicals.
While membership has steadily declined in the United States over the past 25 years — a trend that is true for most mainline Protestant denominations — it has been growing in Africa. About 30 percent of the church’s members are now from African nations, which typically have conservative Christian views; in many of them, homosexuality is a crime.
