This article was updated Dec. 16, 2025.
Ethiopian Anabaptist leaders decided not to host the 2028 Mennonite World Conference assembly after conflict blew up on social media over links to North American churches that accept same-sex marriage.
César García, MWC general secretary, told AW of the decision Nov. 26. The next day, MWC announced the assembly “is postponed to a different date and country . . . due to an internal crisis of unity.”
In an interview, García told AW: “Due to the internal conflict, the church of Ethiopia doesn’t consider it a blessing to host the assembly in 2028. We are sad for that, but we understand the conflict the church is experiencing now. . . . The size of the crisis is so big and so concerning that it demanded these quick decisions.”
In a Nov. 23 statement, the executive committee of the Meserete Kristos Church — the Ethiopian Anabaptist church, with more than 514,000 baptized members, the world’s largest Mennonite conference — said that “associating with a conference that includes churches supporting homosexuality contradicts the core beliefs of our church” (translated from Amharic).
An Ethiopian with knowledge of the situation, who asked not to be identified, told AW by email: “The internet people started saying that ‘the gay people are coming in 2028 to spread homosexuality through MWC,’ and they pressured the MKC to stop its connection with MWC, too.”
Desalegn Abebe Ejo, MKC president, told AW by email that he was not yet able to comment. In a letter to MWC, he said: “Our desire is to uphold unity in Christ while remaining faithful to the biblical convictions entrusted to us.”
The MKC also ended its joint master’s degree program in Ethiopia with Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary. MKC leaders announced this decision in their Nov. 23 release, and AMBS confirmed it the next day.
“A wave of misinformation has spread through social media in Ethiopia, targeting the partnership between MKC/S [MK Seminary] and AMBS and creating a volatile and challenging environment for students and church leaders,” said David Boshart, AMBS president, in a Nov. 24 statement from the seminary. “. . . With deep lament, [MKC leaders] informed us that MKC has permanently suspended the program — not due to any loss of good will between MKC and AMBS, but because the spread of misinformation has created risks for their leaders and students and threatened the unity of the church.”
In an article on his Substack, Henok T. Mekonin, global leadership collaboration specialist at AMBS, said MKC leaders were victims of “character assassination.”
“Social media claims — made largely by people without firsthand knowledge — portrayed AMBS (guilty by association with MC USA) or MWC or MC Canada as attempting to influence MKC’s theology,” Mekonin wrote. “The anxiety and confusion caused by social media influencers pushed MKC leaders to forcefully rearticulate the church’s already discerned positions on marriage and sexuality.”
Garcia said the flood of “rumors, accusations, falsehoods and misunderstandings” spread after a fundraising tour by MKC leaders in North America this fall. The tour included contacts with Mennonite Church USA, which includes congregations that accept same-sex marriage and whose national delegates in 2022 approved an LGBTQ-affirming resolution.
“When the leaders got back to Ethiopia, they found a huge problem going on,” he said. “In Ethiopia, same-sex relationships are considered not only a sin by all the religions in the country, but also illegal. You can imagine the risks of being seen as supporting illegal conduct.”
MWC got drawn into the controversy because “if you google MWC, you find Mennonite Church USA belongs to MWC, and MWC was immediately associated as one of the entities that is promoting same-sex marriage,” García said.
MWC takes no position on same-sex marriage. García said only four of MWC’s 110 national churches — MC USA, Mennonite Church Canada and conferences in the Netherlands and Germany — are “on the more progressive side” on same-sex marriage, though not everyone within these churches agrees, and congregations are free to do what they believe is right.
The assembly, the 18th in MWC’s 100-year history, had been scheduled for Jan. 11-15, 2028.
“We have appreciated the hard work MKC leaders have already invested in planning for this upcoming event,” said Liesa Unger, chief international events officer, in MWC’s announcement. “The love they have shown us through this generous invitation has inspired us. We grieve the untimely end of this process.”
García said MKC’s membership in MWC was not in doubt, but he expects discernment is needed, and not just in Ethiopia.
“This is something every conference needs to ask itself,” he said. “Are we going to keep the unity of the body of Christ? How are we going to respond to the prayer of Jesus that we may be one?”
The controversy’s second casualty is the Master of Arts: Theology and Global Anabaptism program of Meserete Kristos Seminary and AMBS. Offered at MKS in Ethiopia, students worked online in the fall and spring and came together at MKS in Debre Zeit for three two-week courses with AMBS professors in the summer.
AMBS has assured the program’s 28 recent students that they may continue their studies outside the MKS-sponsored cohort structure. The program had nine graduates in Ethiopia last spring.
Due to safety concerns, AMBS declined to comment about Ethiopian students on campus in Elkhart, Ind.
MKC’s Nov. 23 announcement came less than two weeks after MC USA announced MWC had decided not to appoint Stanley Green, conference minister of Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference, as MWC’s regional representative for North America because three U.S. Anabaptist denominations raised concerns about having an MC USA member in that role.
García told AW that MWC staff made this decision because theological diversity was needed. MWC’s two North American executive committee members come from MC Canada and MC USA, which both accept LGBTQ-affirming churches, and so it would be better to fill the regional representative position with someone from one of MWC’s eight other member denominations in North America.
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