Mountain Sky-area Methodists who withhold their tithes in protest miss the mark.
Withholding Tithes
Recently, 60-ish Methodists in the Montana area, one of the regions in the Mountain Sky episcopal area under Bishop Karen Oliveto, gathered together. The purpose was to express concern over Bishop Oliveto’s election and strategize how to stop paying her salary, and with it, cease funding the greater United Methodist Church:
“People are very upset…and for [The Western Jurisdiction] to break the rules and expect the members to go along and agree and to give money to them, that is when people are saying ‘uh-uh'”…
[They] heard from others who have left their congregations or have withheld their financial contributions in protest. There are ways to give money but designate it for the local church’s use only, he said — information his group is glad to share.
Indeed, long before this meeting (which included a plenary by a Good News staff person), the withholdings had already begun. Pastors and regional leaders in the Mountain Sky area started receiving form letters that had signatures at the bottom. These form letters outlined their grievances, but ended with this statement:
Withholding…from what?
Money that goes beyond the local church are called “Apportionments,” also called Church Tithes or Mission Shares. Apportionments are part of the covenant of the local church to the greater church.
Payment in full of these apportionments by local churches is the first benevolent responsibility of the church ¶247.14, ¶812
The apportionments for all apportioned general Church funds, as approved by the General Conference, shall not be subject to reduction either by the annual conference or by the charge or local church ¶811.4
Per the Book of Discipline, the first benevolent responsibility of a local church is the paying of apportionments. One could say that, technically, a church is not benevolent unless it pays its apportionments!
The letter-writers and the Montana group (and the Wesleyan Covenant Assocation, overall) no longer want to fund the greater United Methodist Church, out of protest of one Episcopal leader.
A Long Tradition
Letters like these fall directly in line with a 50-year tradition of Methodists withholding tithes in response to LGBTQ and abortion-related issues (see previous post). As briefly as possible:
- In 1969, the United Methodist student magazine motive published an article on LGBTQ issues. Local churches withheld their apportionments in protest (or threatened to withhold) and eventually motive magazine was removed from the GBHEM’s portfolio.
- In 1979, five Nashville-area churches withheld their apportionments in protest of the GBOD’s “Sexuality Forums” which included videos on LGBTQ issues. The forums were then dissolved at the 1980 General Conference.
- In 1990, Bethany UMC in Eastern PA conference withheld its apportionments in protest of a abortion-related issue, donating that money instead to a pregnancy crisis center for one or two years.
- In 1998, First UMC in Marietta, Georgia, at the insistence of the IRD’s UMAction rightwing advocacy, decided to withhold its apportionments to the general church agencies in response to the Jimmy Creech trial. They resumed their apportionments that same year after further review of the finances of the General Agencies and the news report includes a comment that “UMAction had their facts incorrect.” Now THAT’s a news flash! Ha!
- In 2004, St. Peters UMC in the North Carolina conference sent a letter to their new bishop threatening to withhold apportionments due to sexuality disagreements.
- In 2011, as a response to the clergy who pledged to offer same-sex marriages, the authors of the FaithfulUMC petition repeatedly threatened that if the Bishops did not condemn those clergy that the denominations’ largest churches will begin withholding apportionments.
- In 2014, the only named schismatics over LGBT inclusion were from the largest churches, constituting $4,200,000.00 in apportionments.
- In 2015, Mt. Bethel UMC in Marietta, Georgia, withheld apportionments out of protest of the Bishops’ handling of Biblical Obedience. Their Lay Leader was recently elected to the Leadership Council of the Wesleyan Covenant Association.
- In 2016, Evangelical UMC in Greenville, Ohio, pastored by Wesleyan Covenant Association convener Rev. Jeff Harper, voted to withhold apportionments this year.
Collateral Damage
Withholding church tithes is a big topic here at Hacking Christianity. We’ve taken to task the large churches that seek buyout power, we’ve taken to task progressives who see this as a tactic for divestment, we’ve done the only major opposition research on the Langford proposal to defund the General Agencies, and we’ve examined the anti-institutional roots of the Wesleyan Covenant Association. Click those links for the full arguments.
The enduring argument from these years of conversations is this: withholding a church tithe is NOT a line-item veto. While withholding a payment is at least arguable if you are just withholding from that one cause, the way that the UMC is set up is that our ministries are bundled together. Read here for at least six different ways how withholding a congregation’s ability to pay apportionments hurts real people. There’s just too much collateral damage to good ministries and works to defund the UMC in this way.
Indeed, as conservative pastor Teddy Ray comments on this topic:
Because most of their apportionments are used within conference, they’ll hurt their own conference (who tend to be on the same side of the issue) much more than they’ll hurt the GC (where the decisions they’re upset about are being made)…If a full congregation is so unhappy with the UMC that they refuse to keep their part of the covenant, it’s time for them to hand over their property and stop being UMC.
The United Methodist Church is a shared life together: our resources benefit causes we agree with and causes we disagree with. Folks have to ask themselves if the collateral hurt is worth protesting a particular hurt.
Ultimately, the article is correct here:
Of every $1,000 a church gives to support the mission of the UMC…less than $1 goes to support the bishop. With a drop in giving, other ministries within the denomination are impacted as well, he said.
A More Methodist Way
In conclusion, there’s a ton of Methodist ways to express disapproval. We can express our disagreement through conversations, through prayer, through speaking out against individual official UMC actions, electing people to positions of power to influence policy, writing petitions to General Conference, being elected to serve those meta-church agencies, refusing a bishops’ re-appointment, writing petitions and getting signatories…hey, we are a Methodist church and there’s a method to do almost anything, including express dissent.
But withholding of apportionments–refusal to pay a tithe as a church or as an individual–is not a Methodist way of doing things.
Thoughts?
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If apportionments are in the BoD and part of our covenant then we should pay them. We must always follow the BoD and uphold our mutual covenant. Anything else would be schismatic.
I can’t help but think you’re being a bit hypocritical here. The BoD has very strong and clear language about the ordination and marriage of homosexuals too – language that you disagree with and want changed.
More often than not, I feel you offer a valid argument for your side, but in this case I think you are the pot calling the kettle black.
For the record, I would like nothing more than for the BoD to be changed to allow for homosexual marriage and ordination. I’d also like to see each congregation pay 100% of their apportionments every single year. But to call out brothers and sisters in Christ because they “sin differently” is not something I’d expect to read from a UMC clergy person.
This was not written in love – you can do better!
I believe that is the point. Churches that break the covenant because they’re upset about something they see as a breach of the covenant are hypocrites. They lose any claim to wanting the covenant to be upheld as soon as they willfully break it.
Withholding apportionments is also a bad strategy if a person or Congregation wants the UMC to become more accepting of LGBT. If someone wanted to make the denomination more accepting, they should employ the same strategies that Jeremy suggests. Our Church is Reconciling and our Pastor says not contributing to the General Church is not a good idea. Besides, it is more unofficial groups like Good News, which is not funded by apportionments, which oppose LGBT persons.
Thanks for the quote, Jeremy. Many people didn’t appreciate it when I posted it to that Good News article. But all willful breaches of covenant are schismatic. Anyone who violates our covenants or advocates for those violations loses the moral high ground for protesting when others break covenant.
You’re right that we have Methodist ways of expressing disapproval and enacting change. None of them involve willful violation of our agreed covenants. Let “conservative” and “liberal” alike hear.
We make a mistake when we think that members of our churches believe they are part of some larger UM covenant to which they have a sense of loyalty. A huge number were simply swept into the UM church by birth. Others came because of friends, or a particular preacher. Some came out of convenience. But I’ll bet not one in 10,000 came to be part of a larger covenant. And now that the elected leaders of the church have themselves egregiously violated the covenant is there any real reason the members should remain true to it?
I understand in some conferences apportionments are meted out to the church as a lump sum- here’s your share. In some, such as mine, we get a line by line apportionment summary, and we pay them line by line. So you could, in essence, have a line item “financial” veto from a church.
Some churches have used that to control appointments. “Send us who we want, or we will not pay.” The churches withheld payment, and unfortunately the Bishop and Cabinet surrendered. That only works in the larger churches, though. Smaller and midsized ones are basically ignored.
Having said all that, there have been people in our denomination who have refused to pay taxes because of a moral disagreement with the government. And the church, by and large, has stood by them. (This usually dealt with war or civil and human rights.) We have also supported financial boycotts of companies, cities, states, and products as a way to get things changed.
Now some want to do the same thing to the church bureaucracy. We don’t have much leg to stand on in arguing against it since we have supported it in the past in other areas.
(For the record, my church, while disagreeing with some of the rules of the BOD, and some of the actions of some conferences, bishops, and churches, pays 100%.)
Brothers and Sisters, We all have to base our Christian conduct as to what the Word of God says, If you don’t believe the Word of God then it doesn’t really matter what you do or believe. God does not need your tithes, he needs your heart. Genesis tells us to be productive and procreate. When one simply looks at all of God’s creation that is what all life strives to do. Humans have reduced procreation to simply entertainment and recreation. If all of nature became homosexuals or lesbians it would not be very long before life as we know would end. Paul addresses this issue in the letter to the Romans. My father left the U.M.C. because the pastor at his church supported a lesbian for city council. He said, if the lesbian was the only viable candidate it would have been OK with him, but there were multiple candidates for the same office. So he left the U.M.C.; but not Christianity. He continued doing the Lords work by working very hard at another Christian denominations inner-city food bank until he was over 85 years old. I tried to work within the UMC denomination until I was 64 years old. Then I realized that I was still a Methodist in the Rev. John Wesley tradition and not a U.M.C. and had to leave. One of our former pastors told us once, when a denomination becomes ‘united’, they usually sink to the lowest common denominator. It is difficult making the decision to leave when you have grown up in the denomination and served it faithfully and have many dear friends still there and raised your family in that denomination. But my faith, I finally realized is based on Jesus and NOT a denomination. Dr. McGee said once I recall, That he was in a denomination, but he was aware that at denomination could become an abomination. History has proven him right. My wife and I now serve several Bible based fellowships and help an orphanage in Rosarito, Baja California that is supported by several Christian Churches. It is so wrong to be labeled as a ‘hate’ monger when you act on good solid Biblical principles.I pray that God through the Holy Spirit will bless you with spiritual insight as to what path you are to take.
Brother Chuck
Since when would or could everyone become Gay or Lesbian? This implies that sexual orientation and gender identity are conscious choices. I certainly for awhile wanted to be married and have kids- why would I have chosen to be Gay? I now accept myself as Gay. I couldn’t have handled having children anyway. You also seem to be unaware that there are plenty of people in the world now. We don’t need everyone to reproduce, when already having so many people puts an enormous strain on our natural resources.
I’ve been in two churches where parishioners have withheld “pledging” because of the UMC’s anti-gay policies. I’ve shared with them the covenant arguments that you include along with more personal reasons why commitment to the church family is a value. I’ve found they usually end up giving just not through the form of pledging.
I’ve noticed that most misunderstanding of our covenant is due to the lack of clergy teaching members about the connectional nature of our church. At times I do this deliberately to shelter them from the painful divisiveness in our denomination and other times, doing so is less important than immediately applicable matters related to their lives and community. Most people ARE interested in “mission” while fewer and fewer are loyal to “brands.” While admitting to skirting the structural issues on occasion, as a regular teacher of Confirmation, I’ve found that I address the Wesleys and our connectional nature from the pulpit far more often than most of my colleagues.