As I write this, the Bishops of The United Methodist Church are gathered in Chicago, debating and discerning what proposal they will offer to United Methodism in February 2019.
But it has come to my attention that one element is claimed to be considered by the bishops at the moment, and it is one that I think must be drawn out and discussed.
The Last Line
The Rev. Dr. Christopher Ritter from Illinois has penned numerous proposals to reshape United Methodism away from its current state. Ritter’s newest post is a video outlining a new plan to turn progressive regions into autonomous conferences affiliated with The United Methodist Church.
Usually, these contributions are merely thought experiments (his original proposals didn’t achieve public debate at the GC2016)…except for a telltale line in the last minute of the video.
Ritter claims in his video that “There’s a group of Bishops working on this” type of autonomous affiliate conference model. That’s an interesting claim that I’m not going to treat as a throwaway line! If true, it either means some bishops are advocating for this in the Council this week, or bishops aligned with the Wesleyan Covenant Association (i.e. Bps. Lowry, Jones, Webb, Swanson, perhaps Farr) are writing it into their expected counter-legislation to the A Way Forward report.
And also if true, it is right in line with the history of Ritter’s proposals to ensure that progressives get relegated to a lesser tier of influence in whatever is next for United Methodism.
Second-Class Methodism: A Review
Amidst the various proposals that Ritter has offered, there’s an odd persistent feature: progressives receive significant diminishment in authority and become second class, unable to participate fully in United Methodism as conservatives would.
In his first plan that remade our jurisdictions, Progressives would have their own jurisdiction, separate from the rest. Yes, 50 years after we eliminated the Central Jurisdiction which segregated African-American clergy and churches from white churches, Ritter proposed the same structure but for The Gays and their Friends.
After the outcry, Ritter still submitted the segregation-inspired legislation but also offered the Organic Jurisdictions solution. This would be similar to the non-geographic proposal but allows everyone to choose a jurisdiction equally. It is an anomaly amidst the plans (unless I’ve read it wrong) in that it actually does treat progressives as full people, and not 3/5ths.
Between those two proposals was a half-hearted (but still telling) proposal of a “Flat UMC” that, as we reported, would have eliminated the Western Jurisdiction. Gerrymandering away progressive regions and de-consecrating Western bishops would be the immediate desired effect.
(Edited to add: Come to think of it, the Organic Solution also said a jurisdiction must have more than 300,000 members, which is right on the cusp of the Western Jurisdiction’s membership, forcing it to accept another conference or disband. Maybe I was too hasty in my acknowledgment of equity!)
There are more posts, of course, but this is all a lead-up to the problems in the recent proposal: yet again, Progressives are given second-class status in the United Methodism to come.
The Pitch
Ritter proposes to assign progressive jurisdictions and conferences to be affiliated autonomous conferences, which currently exist in South America, Mexico, Great Britain, etc. These conferences send representation to General Conference and the Council of Bishops but operate their own Book of Discipline and ordination standards. It works for some international communities to do the shared mission with local adaptation in a more defined way than our current flexibility with the Central Conferences.
This sounds nice, except the AA conferences’ representation is limited (not representative based on membership) and they do not have assigned presence on General Agencies, nor are their bishops assigned to any executive leadership in The UMC. By assigning progressive regions to these type of conferences, all progressives would lose any voting power and voice, and all conservatives would retain full privileges, ownership, and power.
Why are we not surprised?
The Turn
Here’s the turn: Attempts to sort out United Methodism by national bodies and individuals is mostly by choice – there would be an opportunity to select which branch we want to be in, or which jurisdiction, etc.
But this attempt, if you listen carefully to Ritter, is by force, not choice. If GCFA (or someone) decides a conference isn’t “upholding the discipline” in a specific way, GCFA places them under restrictions until they take the affiliated status. “Under restrictions” means restricted from receiving money and from using the Cross and Flame logo, all in an automatically-applied category whose appeal is subject to the whims of a disconnected board or committee (or even individual).
The critical turn for each of Ritter’s proposals is to take what is a choice and make it into an automatic expulsion. This move from peer accountability (a hallmark of Wesleyan accountability) to automatic suspension is also reflected in conservative activists attempts to create minimum penalties for LGBTQ-related offenses.
If implemented, the “One Church” model might become “Two Church” but with the progressives having a nominal–not representative–presence on General Agencies, Council of Bishops, and all decision-making bodies of United Methodism. It’s less like the multi-branch and more like a caste system, a dream of conservatives to legislate away progressive influence forever.
Your Turn
In summary, one always has to ask “who has the power?” at the end of a reorganization, and it is disturbing that at the end of each of Ritter’s proposals, the Progressives are either disbanded, diminished, or outright denied a seat at the table in the Next United Methodism. Progressives are a minority perspective in United Methodism anyway, but apparently still need to have their status diminished to “fix” United Methodism.
I appreciate Ritter’s persistence and our shared (but antithetical) interest in reshaping United Methodism. I name the above today to draw out a persistent bias in his proposals, and one that I hope will not be reflected in either the A Way Forward legislation or the Wesleyan Covenant Association counter-proposal, which Ritter (who sits on the WCA Board) will undoubtedly have a hand in penning.
May mutual affection reign and we move forward together in shared ministry.
Thoughts?
Thanks for reading, commenting, and sharing on social media…and with your Bishop this day!
“No. No. No. This deck chair goes over there. THAT deck chair goes on the other side. I think there are still some deck chairs stacked on the aft side. Please move them to the port side. That should take of things.”
Strike up the band! Haha
What you mean is . . . you will lose your voice to call us who hold to traditional Christian ethics bigots and compare us to racists. Progressives will also have to fund themselves, which is something that they have a hard time with since their churches are full of old, white people.
Ritter’s plan is the most gracious one out there for progressives. I don’t know if you are out of the loop or not, but there is some absolute anger and frustration out there on the conservative side. Folks are tee-eee-ed off . . . to the max. I don’t know if the bishops thought that kicking the can down the road for 3 years might allow things to cool off . . . but it hasn’t.
Folks are coming to these next two annual conferences with pitchforks. There is no way that I would want to be there. It’s sad to me that it has come to this but not surprising. Progressives/ liberals/ whatever have treated the church like a body of politics, thinking that they can get the upper hand and force people to go along with them. But the church is not a political body! It’s a voluntary association. I’m glad I’m not going to be at either GC. It’s going to get ugly. Hopefully, there is some sort of body left and not a bunch of churches scattered everywhere. It’s easier to destroy something than it is to build something.
Let’s hope our circles of people are far removed from sensible middle Methodism that handles such frustrations with grace beyond measure.
You better be hoping that folks like Chris Ritter are heard. He is someone in the Methodist “middle,” whatever that is. There is a LOT of folks out there who just simply want to exit the UMC with their assets, more than I actually thought. And there are a LOT of folks who want some strict penalties and accountability for clergy, bishops, etc. And the proposals that they have prepared have some strong support.
The Local Option is not going to pass. If the bishops present it, it will be rejected and they will, by their own hand, lost their position of leadership. They will also lose whatever respect they have left because offering such a proposal will show how out of the touch that they are with the people in the pews.
But hey, if you want to live in this mythical world where everyone lives in this “middle Methodist” world and believes just like you do, then go ahead. Change is coming and it’s about to bring a wake up call to a lot of folks. And hopefully, the wake up call will be redemptive in their lives.
How about we follow the teachings of Christ and be the inclusive church we say we are! This makes me very disappointed in the UMC. The church I grew up in walked the walk and talked the talk. The world is changing. If Methodists want to see their denomination diminish even more-keep going in this downward spiral. Very sad
The world is changing and so we should let the “world” tell us what our ethics and morality are? The “world” in the Gospel of John and the epistles of John is not described as something positive that we should imitate.
And the whole idea that becoming more inclusive will somehow “save” the UMC from it’s long period of decline is not based upon and kind of fact or rational thought. Those churches that have embraced a sexual ethic that is not what Christians all around the world have believed for hundreds of years ago are in a membership death spiral.
And I don’t know what Methodists you are talking about but the original gansta’s sure would not approve of embracing anything that contradicted Scripture. They were a bunch of “Bible bigots.”
And yet he (oddly) persisted…. I’ll take that criticism. Thanks for offering your thoughts and reservations, Jeremy. Groups of bishops were assigned to flesh out multiple proposals, I understand, on behalf of the Council. My comment at the end was in reference to this work where the affiliated autonomous model was/is considered. This was all done under the official banner of the Council, not covertly. The 300,000 you reference from one of my earlier proposals was straight from the current BOD in relation to jurisdiction size. If you are worried about second class United Methodists, you need to look no further than how we currently treat the Central Conferences and their participation on our General agencies. An AA plan can be written as generously or restrictively as you like. The one I wrote is quite generous and includes lots of continued representation from both sides. I don’t feel like you have fairly summarized my work in this regard. What is clear is that strong forces don’t want to see a structural solution that can be accomplished with a simple majority. They would rather have a structural solution that is impossible to pass so that the Local Option is the only way forward by default.
Chris,
Can you address the part of Jeremy’s article that observes your summary of the affiliated autonomous proposals empowers an actor in the church can pressure some to leave the UMC, that people aren’t asked, but told to leave under this model?
Under my version of the Affiliated Autonomous plan, each annual conference is asked whether or not they will uphold the Discipline of the UMC. Those that will not are withheld from using the United Methodist name and logo except under the terms of a standard concordat agreement. Everyone is welcome to stay in the UMC as long as they accept our Discipline and polity. Those that cannot retain a strong connection. This is simply a way of getting us under separate ministry rules so that there can be peace. You can read the full legislative package I wrote at https://peopleneedjesus.net/2017/12/21/hybrid-way-forward-legislation/
I think you will find it quite generous.
You forgot to mention the part in the video where he says that a conservative group (WCA?) could form their own autonomous affiliate conference as well. I feel that you left that part out because it didn’t fit the agenda of your article. I think Chris has a true genuine concern for the church as a whole not just those whom with he agrees.
The WCA could (and like Ritter said, far right conservatives could form their own), but at that point of Progressive Expulsion, they would not need to. “To the victors go the spoils”, in this case, generations of General agencies, shared ministries, foundation resources, and the name of United Methodist.
What if the progressive wing wins? What if they actually pass the one church model? This plan could be possibly looked at as the “gracious exit” while staying loosely affiliated.
Never comfortable when one group of people assign secondary status to another.
Retired UMC Clergywoman, NEAC? Yes, Progressive!
Never comfortable when one group of people assign secondary status to another.
Retired UMC Clergywoman, NEAC. Yes, Progressive!