The denomination’s Supreme Court could violate one of Methodism’s core principles in order to throw out a gay bishop.
A Bishop Elected
I was one of the 100 delegates who participated in the election of Bishop Karen Oliveto at the Western Jurisdictional Conference in July 2016, and I voted for her in the final round. Like my three fellow delegates who recently made a video about their support, I did so with full awareness of what her election would mean for our Jurisdiction and for United Methodism at large.
Or so I thought.
It seems I underestimated one thing. No, not the churches who would point fingers at a far-off bishop as their reason to try to leave. No, not the money-making appeals and financial hostage-taking that the large churches and renewal groups would make. Those were expected responses, some of whom who would use her as a scapegoat to achieve their own calculated ends.
No, I underestimated the extent to which conservatives in the South would go to try to break The United Methodist Church by seeking a particular form of retributive action against Bishop Oliveto.
A Bishop Challenged
By a 12 vote margin in July 2016, minutes after Bishop Oliveto’s election, the South Central Jurisdiction requested a ruling from the Judicial Council that challenged the circumstances surrounding the Western Jurisdiction’s election of Bishop Oliveto. The hand-wringing and analysis have been going on for months (here’s a helpful Q&A), but let’s be clear: It’s fruitless to predict with confidence what the Judicial Council might do. Millions of United Methodists are subject to the congealed beliefs of five faithful ones, so anything is possible (see Judicial Council 1032, for example, which allowed gay members to be excluded from local church membership).
But consider the worst case scenario: that Bishop Oliveto’s appointment is immediately voided or that her consecration itself is voided. Both results would leave 1/5 of the Western Jurisdiction and a land mass the size of several southern Annual Conferences without episcopal leadership, and do further harm to LGBTQ people in The United Methodist Church. All the queer children who over the past year could see themselves as participating at all levels of the Church would again sit back with glassy expressions at the scriptures and sermons, knowing again that their church isn’t professing love for them.
The worst case scenario is really bad for United Methodism as a whole, no matter what cheers come from the self-professed winners shooting their weapons of doctrine in the air celebrating their pyrrhic victory.
But it is even worse for any future of United Methodism at all.
The Plan Of Union
While conservatives are pointing to Bishop Oliveto’s marriage to her wife Robin as the reason for the complaint, that’s not actually the content of the case. The case revolves around regional autonomy, a necessary component of United Methodism, and the ability for a region like the West to elect a bishop alone.
Regions are important in a worldwide church like The United Methodist Church, and it is illuminating to note who were the original provocateurs of our regional makeup.
During the era of the Civil War, The Methodist Episcopal Church, South split from the Methodist Episcopal Church located in the North, to maintain their autonomy. After a century apart, the two denominations joined together again in 1939. The 1939 Plan of Union brought forth our current model of regional connectionalism, meaning American Methodism is broken up into jurisdictions, or groups of annual conferences, who elect their own episcopal leadership (bishops).
This model was demanded by the Southern States at unification between North and South. The Southern Bishop John Monroe Moore gives context to and arguments for this regional autonomy in his 1943 memoir book The Long Road to Methodist Union:
There is a still a North and a South in this country, and there is an East and a West, and they are not merely geographical. To be clear, they are not so extremely so as to be divisional, but they are sufficiently distinct to create varied human characteristics and values. Each of these great sections has produced values that should be conserved and promoted…
In producing an ecclesiastical structure for an American Methodism that would establish an acceptable and binding unity of all these sections, it was necessary to provide for variety in expression, in administration, and in promotion. The Plan of Unity was built with that view. Provision was made to protect and promote regional rights, thought, ingenuity and resourcefulness, distribution, cultivation, responsibility, control, and the development of regional interest, loyalty, and action. That is the meaning and purpose of the Jurisdictional Conferences.
The Plan of Union provided the South with their freedom from having Northern bishops and, by consequence, it provided the West and North with incubators for more inclusive ministry to those on the margins, including the LGBTQ community. Sadly, it also placed African-Americans in their own sixth Central jurisdiction, a racist action which was a stain on our denomination from 1939 until it was eliminated in 1968.
In short, the regions we have in American Methodism were the result of the South wanting to have their own oversight and supervision of their ministries by their own episcopal leadership, without involvement by anyone else.
The Plan Of Disunion?
I write about this Plan of Union because it is in danger of being broken, and The United Methodist Church is at the precipice of a Constitutional Crisis.
You can see how it is without irony or a sense of history that the SCJ complaint before the Judicial Council (implicitly about the WJ actions) violates the very structure of the church that they themselves advocated for placement in our Constitution. They made the challenge in order to remove a single individual at all costs in an overreach of the very polity they wanted for themselves.
But a Jurisdiction behaving badly is not the crisis. The crisis will come about if the Judicial Council agrees and allows the Southern Jurisdiction to invalidate the election of a bishop in another annual conference. That’s a breaking of the Constitution and–ironically–a failure to “uphold the Discipline,” no matter how you read it.
I’ve heard the cries of conservative churches in the South who are claiming it would be the End of Methodism if Bishop Oliveto is allowed to continue. It’s an odd position to have since the South placed in our polity precisely the conditions that allowed the West and North to develop differently and have autonomy in election of bishops.
But the crisis is more than the individual. It’s about whether the Judicial Council will overreach and break the structure of the church.
The denial of the call of God on Bishop Oliveto’s heart, affirmed by her community closest to her, would be a travesty. But to break Methodism and throw more uncertainty into its viability before the Commission on A Way Forward has finished its work would be a tragedy beyond repair. My hope is that the Judicial Council sees through the presenting issue to the overreach of a privileged Jurisdiction and retains Bishop Oliveto’s ministry.
Seeking Our Best
Honestly, the South had it right in 1939. We are a collection of distinct regions–and I should know, I’ve served churches in three jurisdictions. So I am hopeful of the news coming out of the Commission on A Way Forward of a looser connection which would allow more regional autonomy with a central connection.
I am not naive to the unplaced optimism of such actions. After all, LGBTQ inclusion has been recommended by church bodies for decades, always to lose to the rhetoric and shenanigans of the GC floor. Every year we get closer to justice in the hearts of the average Methodist, even if the GC votes don’t tilt our way.
But a more just Church can be made by revolution or evolution, by massive change or by incremental change. While the election of the first out LGBTQ bishop seems revolutionary, it is the logical evolution of the very system of regional identity that we have operated under for over 75 years and whose further refinement is on the table for an anticipated 2019 conference.
My hope is that the coming weeks of ecclesial drama, conflict, and pain move us closer to reconciliation and a path forward together. But we cannot have that option unless the Judicial Council retains its apolitical stance and allows the people’s elected processes to move forward unencumbered by a broken church at their hand.
Your turn
Thoughts?
Thanks for reading, commenting, and your shares on social media.
You overstate your case. You could rightly say that there is a certain *irony* in a southern Jurisdiction seeking general church control over another Jurisdiction, when the South was the region which pushed for Jurisdictions in the first place. OK, sure.
But there is a disconnect in your logic here. It really doesn’t matter who started the whole jurisdiction thing. The irony doesn’t make it right or wrong. Jurisdictions are still part of the General church, and the General church still has rules. The meaning and intent of the relevant church law is not mysterious.
So bishops in the previously-schismatic region proposed Jurisdictions as a way to make unity workable in 1939. But let’s not forget that it was the same *region* of the church failing to enforce the duly-constituted rules of the *general* Church back in 1840 which caused that caused the division in the first place.
Let me say that again: the schism that actually divided the Methodist church regionally for 100 years was caused by bishops and annual conferences in one region not enforcing the discipline of the general church. They insisted that slave-holding was necessary in their cultural context and that their region required a different expression of the gospel. And then they got what they asked for, their regional denomination lasted for a century, and thankfully we were able to be reunited after about 4 generations.
Obviously we are looking at this from two different places, but that piece of history seems much more relevant to me. You want to draw the connection between present-day United Methodists of a particular region and their *ancestors* of 75 years ago, and say if they supported regionalism now they should support regionalism then. I want to draw the connection between present-day United Methodists of a particular region and people who were *behaving* in the same fashion in a different region 175 years ago, and say that that kind of behavior now will lead to the same kind of result it did then: division. There have always been rules that bound church faith and practice in every region, and for Methodists, those have always been hashed out at General Conference and then in Annual Conference ratification. When the Discipline of general church has been flaunted, schism has resulted.
Think about it, Jeremy. You know it is a fair comparison. Maybe if we set aside for the moment the question of who is right or wrong that would help. Obviously we both agree the South was in the wrong in 1840. We disagree on whether the West was right or wrong in 2016. But perhaps we can both see the writing on the wall of what the result will be. Where we might disagree again, and neither of us really know, is what the consensus of church and/or culture will be in 100 years when the warring parties might be able to get back together.
Well put, James. Jeremy’s logic tilts to irony as the basis for his claims instead of the broader scope of history. The reality is that if the church cannot hold enough trust that our covenant is actually worth following (including upholding very basic rules in the BoD) then it may very well be the end of United Methodism as we know it.
Exactly what I was thinking! Well put James…
Well put, James. I might also add that it was not just the south that wanted and recognize the need for regional variations a.k.a. jurisdictions. The north was just as involved in that process.
I would also add that there is a lot of sweeping generalization here. A particular part of the south-central jurisdiction, namely from the Kansas area of the great plains Annual Conference brought forth the resolution. It was passed by the jurisdictional delegation. However, it’s by no means represents the thoughts or desires of everyone in the south-central jurisdiction or in the “south”. I currently serve congregations in southwest Missouri which tends to be very conservative. However, in both of my conjugations there are those who would be sympathetic with Jeremy’s position, those who would be more sympathetic with the position of the good news movement and a majority of people who feel caught in the middle.
But I do think there is a very valid question of whether United Methodist polity is going to be deformed beyond recognition by activist judges. Must everything about United Methodism’ structure be twisted into a pretzel in order to keep the gays out? Under our polity, the way to respond to perceived violations of the Discipline is through filing charges and pursuing the prescribed trial process. Asking for the Judicial Council to bypass our prescribed process is akin to lynching a criminal suspect because you’re convinced that they’re guilty and that the jury is going to find them innocent. Whatever else is true, if the Judicial Council does the bidding of the right wing, they will be violating the Discipline in order to enforce the Discipline.
The very valid question is whether UM polity has been deformed by activist bishops and boards of ordained ministry. Read our BoD. Rules expressed there have been violated by “activist” clergy who have decided that keeping their own word and their responsibility to uphold the covenant they promised to be a part of at their ordination / licensing are less important than heeding our popular culture’s current ideas. When a violation of the Discipline has been perceived, too often the consequences for that violation have been so minimal as to be nonexistent. If there is no penalty, they are not actually rules.
Note the Apostle Paul’s warning to those in Ephesus, “We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine” (NRSV, Ephesians 4:14). Likewise, that of the author of Hebrews: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings” (NRSV, Hebrews 13:8-9).
You are looking at the wrong part of the scriptures. If you claim to be a Christian, you must read all the scriptures in light of the gospels. There Jesus points out, time and time again, that God’s earthly children have a far too limited understanding the scope of God’s love and salvation. Peter in Acts 10 is but one of many examples. This whole tempest in a tea pot is based not in over reach, but in the cultural influences which try to limit our God.
Even if one goes back to 1844 the irony is still there. The central “relevant law” then as now is can the general church discipline/remove a bishop chosen by a region of the church. In 1844 the Southern delegates were the ones that disputed the idea that General Conference had the authority to discipline bishops. When the merger happened in 1939 the jurisdictional system was seen as the solution to prevent a constitutional crisis like the one in 1844 that led to schism. So yes, it is ironic that the church is once again at a constitutional crisis because a region of the church is trying to tell another region of the church who their bishop can be. Looking at the full arc of Methodist history I would argue that the pattern is when the General Church attempts to enforce laws/rules that part of the church sees as unjust, schism happens. If we wish to remain united then a diversity of opinions must be respected and allowed. This reinforces Jeremy’s main point that the regionalism of the church needs to be respected by the Judicial Council.
If we are to be a world church and stay united then we’re going to have to accept a much wider range of opinions. While I believe that the church was wrong in 1972 to say that “homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” The bigger picture is that it’s wrong for the church to discriminate against a person based on any single characteristic/classification. Any such stipulation leads to injustice and oppression. We covenant in our membership vows, to accept the freedom and power God gives us to resist evil, injustice, and oppression. The church should look at the whole person to determine if that person has a valid call to ministry in the United Methodist Church.
Also, another bit of UMC legalism. The only qualification for a candidate for the episcopacy is that the person is an elder in full connection. The elder’s annual conference decides if the elder is in full connection or not. So as long as an elder’s annual conference determines that the elder is in full connection the elder is in full connection.
Jeremy I agree with you. However, I am more optimistic than you seem to be. I am not even certain that the South Central Jurisdiction has any standing in this matter. The Judicial council has often held that they do not rule on hypothetical questions. Since the BOD is so clear about the Western Jurisdiction having the right to elect it’s own Bishops; and the right of the Annual Conference to vote on matters regarding ordination and a clergy person being in good standing; I think that the question as asked by the SCJ is hypothetical and moot. If not, the BOD is solidly on the side of the Western Jurisdiction anyway! As a member of the Illinois Great Rivers Conference who was originally ordained a Deacon in my “:home” conference (Oregon-Idaho) I stand in solidarity with the Western Jurisdiction and prayerfully commend this moment to God!
This article sounds more political. It is going to take US Americans decades to understand the world as beyound the USA.
The United Methodist Church is a world wide connectional denomination.
The 1800s are over when US American used to think and decide like they are the mother Church and the rest of the world was coming to their Church.
Now it’s The United Methodist Church a global denomination until US Americans wake up to that reality they will continue to do things with an imperialistic, colonial attitude. I hope the restructuring process will help this thinking.
I am specifically referring to the tone in this article that is looking at the United Methodist as structures along USA north and South decision ignoring that we have Europe, Asia, and Africa as parts of the denomination.
Actually the other two regions are the growing parts of the denomination in terms of fulfilling the mission of the denomination. Making disciples for Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
I am sick of hateful, exclusive Christians who weaponise Bylaws and Roberts Rules of Order in a thinly veiled attempt to disguise their bigotry. No wonder people are leaving the church in droves.
I am with Kate. As an ally, I am tired of waiting, I’ve grown weary from the work, and after 63 years in this denomination, I will be joining the UCC this year.
As the French proverb goes “the more things change the more things stay the same”! Even as early in the New Testament era we see conflict over “episcopal oversight” and doctrinal differences, with Rome eventually demanded after centuries of essentially councillor governance that it alone had the ultimate authority, a position both the Reformed and Orthodox Traditions reject. Recently those on far left of centre in the Episcopal Church have tried a similar tactic by insisting the “national church” not the diocese has the final word, a position which is not very Anglican. So now the conservatives on the far right are demanding an action which from what this non-Methodist understands about that action is essentially the same old same old overruling local decisions and insisting on a national agency of the UMC to do so. Isn’t it ironic that a section of the nation that broke with its counterparts in another section citing its autonomy to do so now is refuting that by demanding that tradition be over ruled. Remember no more than you need a papacy to be Catholic you do not need a Judicial Council to be a Methodist.
“Variety in expression, in administration, and in promotion” cannot include, if unity is desired, promotion of that which is in opposition to what forms the basis of our unity. First and foremost as a unifying principle is Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, perfect sacrifice, resurrected Lord, everlasting Father, King of kings. If he, as Lord, is what unifies, that unity must extend to His clearly defined will. First and foremost of His will is that we love Him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and that we love our neighbors as ourselves. All of the law is contained herein, and herein we know that we love God; that we keep His commandments. These are His Word. We will not understand the totality of His Word until we are perfected in Him in His presence eternally. That does not mean we cannot know that which has already been specifically revealed. Sexual immorality, including homosexuality, and gluttony, and gossip, and envy, and drunkenness, and pride and a host of additional behaviors are specifically proscribed in the Word. It’s not what we don’t understand in the Word that should bother us, but rather what we do, or should be reasonably expected to, understand that should bother us. How can any group be unified when they can’t agree on clearly stated principles of behavior?
This comment is off topic regarding Methodist structure and jurisprudence, but more to the point of the basic debate. If we cannot find unity in that which is basic, perhaps the search for unity is a search for something that no longer exists. Unity in rebellion against God’s specifically revealed will is simply mass spiritual suicide.
Taking the jurisdictional argument to the extreme, a jurisdiction which rejected Christ’s resurrection and propitiation for our sins should be allowed to remain in connection, such interpretation being their variety of expression. None of us are without sin, but church leaders calling that good which is specifically called sin in the Word cannot be accepted by a polity which holds to that word. The Methodist church cannot unite two irreconcilable positions. It is best to spend time seeking the best coarse to separation.
To me it is simple, ancient American disputes be darned.
There is no way the UMC can be ONE church if entire conferences or jurisdictions can violate the BoD so flagrantly as the Oliveto case does, no matter the actual issue.
If the JC vote that Oliveto can remain a bishop on a technicality…then it’s over. Schism will happen. The progressives can’t afford that so it will be interesting to see when and how that happens.
If they vote her down, then schism will happen. Progressives will be so upset that they will leave, if they get financial “help”.
Either way, the UMC will cease to be a united church since the Way Forward will recommend some sort of federation or Baptist solution where our covenental connection will be broken up to the sound of pious but ultimately insulting words.
Tree or vine and the branches is no longer a sufficient metaphor for unity in the UMC. The larger view would be different trees in a forest but only one Creator gives them life and whose power and authority is praised by all in the forest and beyond.
I suppose it is not unity for unity’s sake, but unity in diversity that is at stake when one jurisdiction wants to have only one kind of tree.
In the Philippines where I had served three quadrennial terms as Central Conference Secretary, there were 16 of 19 annual conferences that sought autonomy in 2004 but nine failed in technical language as Bishop Brown ruled them to be out of order, and subsequently technical requirements to fulfill the process for affiliated autonomous structure were not fulfilled within the quadrennium.
In 2008, there were those who played with the thought they could make it appear the extended retirement age for bishops applied also to Philippine bishops and they campaigned to reelect a retirable bishop against applicable Central Conference rules The long drawn parliamentary game ended when a ruling was asked of Bishop Brown on the question of which rule applied: the GC legislation of 2008 or the old Central Conference rules. The ruling upheld the Central Conference rule.
The same notion of trees in the forest was at the back of affiliated autonomy advocates in 16 annual conferences in 2004, but those against them always tried to make it appear it was schismatic to pursue this change of structure over global organic connection. And yet Wesleyan heritage churches in the Philippines are on separate ways and are on separate interdenominational councils (NCCP or PCEC) and have not had effective expression of unity in this country, not even like a forest of many trees while we remain organically tied like a branch to one tree we call the global UMC. A united Wesleyan-toned voice of Christian values could be a vital instrument of needed social change in this country, instead of merely quoting GC resolutions so popular as a formulaic expression.
Because of the discrepancy of support for pastors and bishops in this country (where there is vast disparate economic opportunities between the laboring class and the political and business elites) and owing to global UMC policy and structure, to become bishops is a coveted honor and privilege that so many seek it. Partisan groups line the episcopal contestants. Thus the need to keep one retirable bishop in active episcopal office in 2008 for the sake of the partisan group’s interests. They failed with the ruling of Bishop Brown favoring autonomous policy in the Central Conference for the retirement age.
Annual conferences are also being organized here at minimum clergy number requirement levels (also at risky financial capacity levels to meet needed support for apportionments). Well, who doesn’t want to go to the US for the GC session at near end of the quadrennium? And Brown’s advice for consolidated annual conference numbers and capacities fell on deaf ears. We now have 26 annual conferences. And there is no policy restraint for more. All petitions for affiliated autonomous structure lapsed in 2012. It is not hard to see that the Philippine church will be financially challenged to meet apportionment targets when financial capacity is diluted by increasing annual conference numbers faster than real membership growth and overhead costs at Central level grows above reasonable effective capacity.
Every part in the UMC is playing politics about GC standards and regional autonomy. We need to define core standards for GC to keep the forest and leave regional expressions that lets each tree grow in their distinct terrain within the forest. No tree should say to another that it is the only tree in God’s care.
As a 75 year old life long Methodist and Lay Leader of a dynamic church in North Texas, I still do not understand the obsessive devotion to the man-made Discipline rather than to the love we are taught through the study of Jesus life and ministry. I still don’t know how many angels can dance on the head of a pin–and I don’t really care. By any other name it’s homophobia and prejudice couched in legalize–and I’m a retired attorney and I do recognize legalize.
Carl Johnson,
You said it perfectly, without long winded paragraph after paragraph defending discrimination. I, too, am a life long Methodist and a Texan. I grew up in a conservative Methodist Church, and with their help (I might add), managed to come away learning of Jesus’ love for all and that peace that passes all understanding. Thank you for your comment.
Thanks, Carl, for the rare moment of clarity!
I am an 85 year old Methodist who still remembers the cradle roll room in my first church. I agree completely with Carl and pray for the day when his views will be pervasive.
I am a 57 year old life long United Methodist, I come from the EUB tradition. I am also clergy on location. As an ally I have been fighting this issues since seminary, longer really and am weary of the fight. I often consider transferring my orders, because my church sickens me.
Thank you, Carl.
Why can’t all agree that we follow the same Christ and are trying to follow His lead to the best of our abilities? Why not reaffirm faith in the triune God, worship and follow Him, and love one another as best we can, even if we have differences? It’s a test of LOVE and is a matter of the heart and spirit, not of the mind’s attempt at reasoning? Just agree to LOVE unconditionally and let the Spirit be our guide. Let go of judgmentalism.
I am ordained clergy in the UMC. I have been involved in the Reconciling movement since 1993. In the 90s and early ’00s we thought things were really going to change. I celebrated Bishop Karen’s appointment. I am saddened that we are still fighting this.
I no longer serve a church. Hiding in the closet caused health issues for me. But I have not and will not turn in my orders. I am going to be a thorn in the side of this “connectional” church.
We are all connected – equally. Southern, Northern, Eastern, Western, we are connected – like strands of a web. We have our own perspectives, but we commit to being connected, whether we like contemporary worship or not, like the NRSV or NIV, prefer coffee or tea after worship – we are connected.
God created us all in our variety. Let us be that blessed variety.
If our denomination cannot agree on following the two commandments Jesus said were most important rather than elevate the BOD as scripture, then we do not deserve to survive. Jesus said love God with all that you are and love your neighbor as yourself. I doubt that any doctrinal exclusivists would thinking of treating each other as neighbor the way they are treating the LGBTQ community. Bishop Oliveto was duly elected and no other jurisdiction should even have the “right” to file a complaint about that election. We are even violating the precepts of John Wesley. As Christians, our “flavor of the day” is meaningless. It is our actions toward those Jesus told us to serve that is important. No wonder people find the church meaningless.
I am willing to bet people find this church meaningless because, as this article and series of comments explicitly demonstrate, the United Methodist Church has become a mish mash of conflicting theologies and other understandings that cancel each other out leaving the church saying absolutely nothing. I’m all for variations on a theme but this is diversity run amuck! If everybody was on the same page theologically, the BOD would make sense to everybody. Unfortunately that is not the case. We are learning just how divisive doctrine is–especially completely different doctrines. A better name for the church would be The Unintelligible Church. It ceased being truly Methodist when it embraced theological plurality. And if you doubt that then spend some quality time with John Wesley’s sermon “The Catholic Spirit”; make sure you read the entire sermon. What I discovered was the UMC is working off an incomplete understanding of who the person of a truly catholic spirit really is. And that is not the only Wesleyan precept the church only has partially right.
Two points not discussed or barely touched upon: 1) The influence of the African UM churches which are, at least in part, a product of a U.S. colonialism wherein culturally bound traditions were exported and embraced and now come back in another era to limit the home church’s expression of the Gospel. 2) The only other practice labeled by the Book of Discipline as “incompatible with Christian teaching” is war, yet the BOD recognizes both participation in the military and conscientious objection as acceptable and even provides for denominational participation in military chaplaincy (part of military values and the command structure.) It is a sociological characteristic of elitist societies that they focus on personal morality to the blind exclusion of social injustice.
Shame on the United Methodist Church. I have been a member 84 years and believe all people are to be treated with love and no one no manner what color or sex or anything should be held against. My children were brought up in the South and we moved to the Rocky Mountain Conference and this was much more open minding and loving. I believe the Bishop is a loving, capable and Christian person and NOTHING this petty should hold her from being a Bishop. The South needs to open up to a more loving and educated opinions and not let hate rule this wonderful person.