An image in Harry Potter gives a lens to view how schismatic powers are so close to victory in United Methodism and may get their final component to their plan this week…maybe even today.
A diversified source of power
In the Harry Potter universe, horcruxes are what gave the Lord Voldemort his terrifying power. They were aspects of himself enchanted into ordinary objects that hidden away in various corners of the world. These diverse enchanted objects allowed him to overcome death and enhance his power. Part of Harry Potter and other good wizards’ mission became to find and destroy these enchanted items. Only when they were all destroyed could Lord Voldemort be ultimately defeated…by the Boy Who Lived.
This image came to mind recently because it’s the best description of what is going on in The United Methodist Church. One side of the church that seeks schism has been collecting the elements needed for the effort to have staying power this time…and this week, they could get their final piece.
The final item…
We know where the elements for schism are because they have told us through their academic leaders. The problem with academics is that they write about everything and don’t usually keep information hidden for tactical decisions by advocates and caucus group employees. If you want to know more about a movement, read their academic thought leaders’ works…or this blog, because I do.
For the groups most adamantly working for schism, their primary thought leaders have been Dr. Tom Oden, a fellow Oklahoman, and Dr. Billy Abraham. And both indicate for us today what necessary element is missing.
First, Dr. Oden, previously featured here and here, indicates in his book Turning Around The Mainline that bishops have the power to overturn the Trust Clause, which would allow individual churches to leave the denomination with their property (which is just held in trust by the local churches–they don’t own it alone), though the annual conference boards of trustees. He dedicates the entire last third of the book to property issues, but here’s the key claim.
If the trust clause is violated by the local church, the property can, through due process, revert to the Annual Conference Board of Trustees (page 227)
In my memory, there’s actually a historical allusion to a Bishop who remitted the property deeds of an entire conference back to the local churches. I can’t find the reference, but perhaps a reader can recall what I cannot.
Second, Dr. Abraham’s contention in his manifesto written post-General Conference 2016 that there’s a secret cabal of conservative Bishops waiting to take over when the time is right. While Abraham’s writing is unsubstantiated other than rumors and “trust me” claims, it does indicate a hinge point in overcoming progressivism is division of the Council of Bishops:
Conservative bishops may be tongue-tied and prudent for now, but this is merely a temporary reality. Once the dam breaks and, say, division emerges, they will come out of the shadows…it would be easy to name a handful who will rise to the occasion and own the leadership they are more than capable of exercising. the details at this point are obscure; the bis picture is clear.
In summary, bishops are incredibly important in standing against or enabling schism. According to Oden, a single bishop can remit the entire annual conference’s trust clauses back to the local churches so they can leave the denomination with their property intact. So who is elected this week matters very much.
…To Join the Others
The other elements of schism have either been around a while or have recently emerged. Through the Mission Society (1984 parallel to the General Board of Global Missions), Bristol House Books (1987 parallel to Abingdon), and the RENEW network (1989 supplemental program to UM Women), traditionalists created their own parallel alternative structure that provides books, women’s fellowship, and missionaries for congregations to support outside of United Methodist oversight, accountability, or connectional leadership. (see more here).
These were followed by many more in 2012-2016. The Methodist Crossroads (2014), Seedbed (2012 – which later took the ashes of Bristol Books under its wings), New Room Conference (2014 – to sell Seedbed books & promote their speakers), and now the Wesleyan Covenant Association (2016–my writeup on this group is next week) offer parallel structures to United Methodism.
What’s the purpose of all these? While various in goals and methods, one benefit of these elements is to make a schism as seamless as possible for the average laity and to claim that the soul of United Methodism has already been split off and enchanted into these alternative structures. They answer the question of “what do we lose in Schism?” with “Nothing…kinda.”
- Worried about losing global missions connections? We have the Mission Society!
- Women’s fellowship without the pesky mission focus? We have RENEW!
- Books beyond Cokesbury? We have Seedbed!
- Conferences that share resources? We have the New Room Conference to sell Seedbed books and promote our authors!
As Pensions Become Wespath…what are they seeing?
And finally, we see that this week, the General Board of Pensions and Health Benefits has renamed itself “Wespath” as if our pensions officers too want to position themselves to offer pensions and health services to whatever denominations might come forth. While I don’t believe they are actively seeking schism, they are the best paid executives in Methodism so they are not blind to the forces at work.
The march to schism is driven by both deeply held values and…market savvy. In our current era of hyper-individualism and our ability to choose our news, neighborhoods, and church such to avoid and dissonance, there’s plenty of appeal for alternative structures that remove dissonance as well and cater to our already held beliefs.
What they need now is the ability for local churches to leave United Methodism with enough resources to sustain the alternative infrastructure. This is the final component to sustain this alternative infrastructure and the owners who have ran it for decades and trained others in their place.
The Trust Clause that Lived
This final component was almost crafted at General Conference 2016. Major efforts to remove the trust clause and to allow for articles of disaffiliation were resoundingly defeated in committee, and no amount of behind-closed-doors wrangling changed that.
Beyond the failed legislative option lies the executive branch of United Methodism in the form of the Bishops, 1/4 of their body is up for election this week (starting today). If we take what Abraham and Oden have said is true, then a 25% swing in votes could empower this alleged group or simply elect bishops willing to give up the farm.
So you can see how these elections matter very much not only to the different regions but also to United Methodism as a whole.
The Power Is Yours…if you are at a JC
As bishop candidates are nominated, interviewed, raised up from the floor, and ultimately elected at jurisdictional conferences, my hope is that you ask which episcopal candidates are endorsed by those conservative evangelical groups most vocal in support of schism.
Then ask yourself whether the depositing of generations of Methodist money and property into the alternative structures outside of United Methodist accountability is our best future. Then vote for those who are the right people to care for the whole of United Methodism’s soul as an entire movement seeks to tear it apart piece by piece. We know how badly that ended in Harry Potter, and I would lament the same for our Church.
The choice is yours. Thoughts?
Thanks for reading and for your shares on social media…and especially to those delegates at Jurisdictional Conferences today.
What a bunch of one sided biased malarchy. It is not the conservative evangelicals who are pushing for schism, breaking covenant, and Have been undermining the denomination for the past 40+ years. Dr. Oden and Dr. Abraham are some of the most faithful, reverant, Godly, Wesleyan Christians in our denomination. ALL the so called progressive groups are little more than heretics hiding behind the ambiguous theme of social justice, which for progressives, means licence for practically every sin imaginable. So much of the so called “leadership” of the UMC has been totally out of touch with, and antagonistic to, the biblical and faithful grass roots church. So, the conservatves have fought hard to take the church back from the humanistic and worldly persons who are practically unwanted in the local church setting. As an elder I’ve seen it time and again. A progressive spends a year or maybe two in the local church and people can’t stand them. This happen 2 or 3 times until they are practically unappointable, so they are “promoted” by a like minded and equally unliked and trusted hierarchy. The sour cream floats to the top and Conferences are manipulated and “guided” in directions people don’t understand but ultimately say “yes” anyway because, after all, “they should know!” So sad!
Who wrote this piece?
Hi Daniel, the author bio is above. If it’s a guest post, it is always clearly labeled as such.
What a great conspiracy yarn you’ve weaved. Thankfully the blog post above has facts, quotes, dates and my consistent analysis so readers can better discern who is closer to accurate.
The post has only one side of the “facts, quotes, dates…” and I think you know that. Those who propose to change the current Discipline have certainly made their voices heard through disruptions on the floor of GC which has led to arrests, breaking covenant with acts that are identified as “chargeable” in our current Discipline, etc. Dates, facts and quotes can certainly be added on this side of the equation so that one has a complete view of the “schism” conversations. If it is left out, there is no real understanding of why the conservative side speaks in the manner they do.
Half-truth. It is well described as being the skin of the truth stuffed with a lie. It looks good on the plate, but it is not something you want to pay for, much less consume.
Circuitrider—-You have no place in the pulpit as an Elder with your unGodly, and ugly attitude to your other brothers and sisters of the cloth. Many progressive pastors continue even in their shortsighted congregations and stay 5, seven, 12 years. You are a closed-minded bigot, who only wants ill to come to people. You do not have the 1st inkling of knowing what “do no harm means.”
You mean “do no harm” to a church that has existed with a Book of Discipline and church vows taken by its pastors for generations, right? I have little respect for people who live in lies and secrets, rather than honesty and the Word of God. Maybe these people should seek another faith, if this one no longer suits their needs. Just a thought.
Wow Harry Potter no less! Do you have a Bible reference for that – or would that be on Saturday Night Live or maybe the Simpsons? I don’t recall seeing any of Harry in John Wesley’s journals..
C. J. Cota, Whittier, CA
People on both sides tend to make arguments that are easily refutable when we really think about. Take “progressives spend a year or maybe two then the local church people can’t stand them.” First, I am in the North Texas Conference where many examples of progressive pastors serving well and long in moderate to conservative churches can be cited. Second, I recall that the One we celebrate and worship each Sunday and who we seek to follow throughout the week only lasted around three years in his context. Much like matters of politics, arguing our religion, doctrine, and polity is not is easy as it seems.
Wow so conservatives think that bishops are failed local church pastors who got promoted because they had no place else to go? This is the kind of logic that results from watching Fox News all day.
Re: Failed local church pastors. Who are the bishops whose pastoral ministry demonstrated a consistent history of actual numerical growth beyond a maintenance level? Are these bishops liberal or conservative? If a bishop has not produced such a consistent history of numerical growth, why should they be in a denominational leadership role?
What a thoughtful and insightful analysis of our current situation as United Methodists. As a 4th generation Methodist clergy and an avid student of Methodist history, I’ve seen all the makings of the Asbury-led revolution to either, fully take over the UMC or to finally create a new Methodist denomination. Jeremy, your thoughts on the parallel structures of the Good News folks (Mission Society, Bristol Books, etc) have been troubling me since my seminary days in Atlanta in the 1980’s as I saw all the birthing of the Mission Society.
The only thing keeping the conservative side of Methodism from leaving is the Trust Clause–I never thought about the Bishop’s role, but it certainly make sense and as your timely post highlights–this week’s episcopal elections are critical for the future of the schism-driven right wing of the UMC.
Thanks for the read and your kind words, Glenn.
Jeremy, can you give some links for following along the jurisdictional work this week? Thanks in advance.
Thank you for putting this in a form that is easily understood.
Jane
When the church I was attending started putting the Good News magazine out, I thought, don’t we all want the Good News? Then I read it. Good News? No. Gay bashing, conservative, political rantings! I was so disillusioned. That was when the schism began. The people so homophobic that they created a whole subculture in my UMC. I understood about Black Pastors having their own group. That is understandable because of how race is still, especially these days, such an issue, that people of color need an outlet since so many serve predominantly white congregations. But the Good News people…years back at General Conference when their saviors stood up, angry, cruel, ugly with the rainbow stolled people in tears. Do no harm becomes, let’s make them cry, and make them feel as horrible as if they have no feelings or no business to be Christian human beings. The Conservatives and the Good News people started this. Blood on their hands.
Dear Madge, If you truly love people and are concerned for them you tell them the truth. Jesus did. Sometimes the hard truth. Read the Bible – I am sure you do.
Exactly. I tell the truth that anti-gay Christians are rejecting Jesus.
As a lifer UMC lay person, the activity at the most recent GC appeared( imho ) to have been a slowly unfolding train wreck for the progressive cause, that was only averted by another can kicking exercise. Because of where growth is occurring in the UMC, the relative strength of traditional elements of the church in future GC’s will only grow with time. The coming out of so many UMC clergy is obviously a point of no return line crossing action. Based on all of this, it appears to me that Progressive’s are the group pushing for a schism in the US based part of the UMC.
Respectively
And of course “The Good News Movement” was created by the IRD “Institute for Religion and Democracy”. All of these movements in the Presbyterian , UCC, ELCA Lutheran, and Episcopalians were started by the IRD. The IRD is a political group that was concerned about the social justice witness movement in main line denominations. (and according to Wesley, “There is no Gospel that is not social”) This political group the IRD funded and recruited to start these group to pull churches back to the “right” “conservative, legalistic side. Groups like; The Good News Movement, Confessing Christ, Biblical Witness Fellowship, Faithful and Welcoming, etc. It started when the mainline protestant churches were involved in social justice issues in South America when The Reagan/Iran Contra Affair was going on. The USA was destabilizing democratically elected governments through South America, (and across the globe) and putting into place CIA picked leaders. The Shah, Sadaam Hussein, Kadafi, Marcos, Noriega were all CIA folks destabilizing governments. The church spoke out against the injustice and priests, nuns, pastors and civilians were assassinated by the dictators we supported. The IRD was created to counter the church witness of justice (something Wesley did in England). Out of the IRD these conservative religious movements were created. They try to turn churches away from social justice, destabilize church and crush churches if they cannot control them. They believe this is their holy crusade/jihad. This is all history. Many books have been written some very scholarly some from pastors in the trenches. Books like “Steeplejacking: How the Christian Right Is Hijacking Mainstream Religion”; “Hard Ball on Holy Ground” , etc, etc.
Good News was started in 1967, long before IRD. You have been misinformed.
Wow! Break out the tinfoil hats and put out your protective spells. The vast right wing conspiracy is about to make its move. The final horcrux is about to be destroyed. May I also point out that the horcruxes were dark magic created by an evil wizard? Destroying them was a good thing.
Take a deep breath, relax go play a round of golf or something. To think that the right wing extremists are that good at maintaining a secret plot over the past 40 years gives them way too much credit.
Then again the idea that the Holy Spirit is moving The UMC in the correct direction never entered anyone’s mind did it?