As Goes Baltimore Washington…
“The role of the bishop is to be a prophetic voice for justice in a suffering and conflicted world through the tradition of social holiness. The bishop encourages and models the mission of witness and service in the world through proclamation of the gospel and alleviation of human suffering.”
Par. 403.1d of the Book of Discipline
This week, two candidates for ministry were denied a vote at the Clergy Session of the Baltimore-Washington Conference of The United Methodist Church.
Foundry United Methodist Church reported:
Late this evening, Bishop LaTrelle Miller Easterling, of the Baltimore Washington Conference of The United Methodist Church, ruled that Foundry member T.C. Morrow and another candidate are not eligible to be voted at today’s Clergy Session of the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference. The BWC Board of Ordained Ministry had put forth Morrow’s name to be voted upon for commissioning as a Deacon. Morrow remains in the candidacy process.
Commissioning is the precursor to ordination. We deeply grieve this action. We continue in our bold commitment to advancing God’s justice through removing barriers to the ordination of whom God calls based on whom they love.
In previous years, the votes had been taken for at least one of the candidates and fell short of affirmation. That was difficult but understandable given our democratic peer-based system.
But this year, the vote was not even allowed by the Bishop, denying the ability of clergy peers to exercise their right as members of the annual conference: voting on ordination and membership of the clergy body.
It turns out there has been a long road to this moment of denying peer-based election and accountability and instead placing increasing power in the upper echelons or restrictive polity of The United Methodist Church.
The Origins of Wesleyan Accountability
Dr. Kevin Watson, a fellow Oklahoman and a professor at Candler School of Theology, writes in his book on the Band Meeting:
The Band Meeting is an important context for studying the shift away from small group accountability in early Methodism toward approaches to communal formation (such as prayer meetings and camp meetings) that were larger in scale, less intimate, and lacked the element of personal accountability that both the band meeting and class meeting provided. (Watson, 185)
In short, Wesleyan Accountability through the Band and Class meetings (which had different levels of commitment) was face-to-face. You confessed your sins to one another. You were held accountable to your neighbor who you saw during the week. And even though John Wesley would randomly roll through town and purge the rolls of lazy Methodists, accountability was side to side.
In the era closest to Wesley, accountability was close-in, rather than from far-off-people. Read more here in a previous article.
The Beginning of the End
During the past several decades, the Traditionalist wing of The United Methodist Church has increasingly moved away from the peer-based accountability that Wesley preferred. In its place has been decades of top-down regulations, clergy trials, and increasingly serpentine restrictions on local accountability, all the while claiming the mantle of Wesleyanism.
Over the years, Traditionalists removed the abilities of annual conferences and jurisdictional conferences to regulate themselves and replace peer accountability with accountability to a disconnected few.
One example is that General Conference after General Conference has not limited the complaint process to members of their annual conference. Indeed, two members of the Wesleyan Way podcast/blog wrote a letter resulting in the removal of laity from employment in an annual conference that neither of them was in.
But that’s the way they want things. In 2016, the South Central Jurisdiction made a complaint towards the Western Jurisdiction’s election of LGBTQ Bishop Karen Oliveto, a process and situation entirely out of their control or influence.
In short, the Traditionalist brand of Enhanced Accountability removes peer accountability and places decisions into the hands of a few people outside the immediate situation. Even the Wesleyan Covenant Association’s bylaws allow their leadership council to reverse decisions by their participating membership.
Our Present Situation
This quadrennium of the Judicial Council has been particularly hard on Wesleyan Accountability as it has instituted two overreaches from judicial oversight into the creation of polity that violates the structure of peer accountability. We see two of their decisions, and a third action, as creating the conditions in Baltimore-Washington by which even a progressive Bishop in a progressive region would choose to be hamstrung by.
- In the ruling on the Consecration of Bishop Oliveto, the Judicial Council unhelpfully ruled that a marriage certificate is a proof of “self-avowed practicing homosexuality.” Given that T.C. is married to a woman, T.C. was not allowed the peer-based conversation about her status.
- In the ruling on Boards of Ordained Ministry, the JC interfered with Annual Conference Boards of Ordained Ministry’s processes (which vary from conference to conference) by turning expectations into mandates. This is the rationale for why Bishop Easterling decided that the two Baltimore-Washington candidates did not merit a vote: the BOM refused to inquire into their gender identity and sexual orientation. These are questions which they do not ask straight participants (I’m told they asked each candidate if they were practicing “fidelity in marriage and chastity in singleness,” which would be appropriate!). By institutionalizing discrimination and mandating the discrimination take place, these interpretations harmed two candidates for ministry.
Finally, the recent 2018 Constitutional Amendment that gave prosecution powers to the Council of Bishops (away from regional Colleges of Bishops – which are, you guessed it, peers!), means that even progressive bishops in progressive jurisdictions can be punished in some way.
Overall, the legal situation for Wesleyan Accountability has made peer-based accountability a relic of the past. The future is top-down command and control models that quash missional relevance, contextual decision-making, and local authority on an increasing number of topics. For a denomination dominated by conservatives, their reliance on top-down faceless accountability in the church is in contrast to their desire for hands-off approaches by the Federal Government into their local situations.
One Church Versus the Thumbscrews
You can see how the movement away from Wesleyan Accountability and towards Enhanced Accountability necessitates a vicious opposition to the One Church model.
Under the One Church model, annual conferences would have the authority to ordain their peers who are LGBTQ, and local churches/pastors would have the authority to determine if they will officiate same-gender weddings. Both of those actions are against the yearning for top-down accountability that has increased over the decades in The United Methodist Church.
Far more preferred by these people will be the Traditionalist Model of Enhanced Accountability, which removes many local controls and peer-based accountability with automatic penalties and minimum punishments. Its full extent is not yet known, but it will not increase local or peer-based accountability in any form, it is assured.
The General Conference 2019 has a choice to make: Do they want to continue down the road away from Wesleyan Accountability to top-down accountability—the very same that drove Wesley to create Methodism in the first place? Or do we say “no further” and allow peer-based Wesleyan Accountability to begin to rise again in our polity and our practices? The choice is theirs.
Your Turn
Thoughts?
Thanks for reading, commenting, and sharing on social media.
Bishop Easterling’s comments:
http://www.bwcumc.org/news-and-views/a-statement-by-bishop-latrelle-easterling-in-response-to-matters-of-the-clergy-session-of-the-baltimore-washington-conference/
Can you clarify for me, as I am not sure how to read the last section: Are you saying that the One Church model SHOULD be viciously opposed BY people who believe in collegial local autonomy? Or are you saying that those who prefer the model of Enhanced Accountability will necessarily pose a vicious opposition to “One Church” because it so challenges Enhanced Accountability? (I think you’re saying the latter, but I’m not sure…)
Sorry Kristy for my lack of clarity. I mean the latter. If you believe Accountability has to come from the top-down, then you by necessity don’t believe in Wesleyan side-to-side accountability that is more present and honored in the OneChurch model, though it has its problems.
Wouldn’t the “One Church Plan” allow every bishop to do exactly what Bishop Easterling has done? Or do you think that “conservative” bishops will go along with whatever way the Board of Ordain Ministry in their AC decide to take? What happened to Joey and T.C. will be the norm under the One Church Plan.
I admit I don’t understand this argument. Bishop LaTrelle’s statement was she personally supported it but was determined to uphold the Discipline. If the Discipline allowed each region to self-determine, and the BOM brought them forward, she wouldn’t have a reason to deny them.
Bishops have always retained the ability to deny ordination. They’ve never exercised it publicly until now. I would think each region would eventually make it a norm that bishops would serve wherever they go in the jurisdiction. Any bishop would/does ordain LGBTQ persons in the West. Northeast is about 8-10 years behind us.
Your last sentence infers you (“us”) are “ahead.” This is much of our problem across the Connection – who’s “ahead,” who’s “right,” and who will win.
Jeremy,
Could you point to where the Discipline enables the bishop to deny ordination, per se? What Bishop Easterling did wasn’t actually that. It was to intervene in a situation where the BOOM had not actually completed its work to put all candidates before the clergy session.
Once the clergy session has voted on candidates properly before them, the bishop cannot not ordain them.
We are in theory a connectional Church governed by a Book of Disipline as adopted by our General Conference. Yet Jeremy you advocate allowing certain geographical jurisdictions to simply ignore or flaunt our supposed connectivity by blatantly ignoring our Book of Discipline as formulated by General Conference. You just aren’t happy with the will of a majority of General Conference, so you’re simply advocating “to hell with them, we’ll do it our way and dare them to do anything about it.” Just be honest with yourself and don’t pretend to hide behind a spurious argument that the so-called “Progressive” Jurisdictions are the ones following traditional Methodist practices. This kind of Orwellian doublespeak is why the only answer that will end the Methodist malaise is to divide into two Wesleyan tradition denominations and let each go about their business of trying to bring folks into fellowship with the Triune God. I wish you the very best in your journey and hope you wish Scriptural Traditionalists the best in ours.
Your line of argument is invalid from the start. I’m not sure why you’ve chosen to do so, but you are purposely confusing two very different forms of accountability.
From the very beginning, Methodism has always included a strong form of bureaucratic top-down accountability. In the early days, the major concern was stopping wackiness (primarily theological wackiness and immoral behavior) at the local church / itinerant preacher level, hence the top-down accountability model. (As an aside, Methodism also was never structured for the possibility that the bureaucracy itself would ever embrace wackiness, as has happened today, so few internal corrective controls were put in place, which is one key reason we are now in the mess we’re currently in.)
The second form of accountability is the peer-to-peer accountability that you refer to, but misrepresent. Correctly defined, this is personal accountability in the context of faith, holiness, and righteousness. This involves coming alongside your brother and encouraging and helping him avoid sin, do good, adhere to sound doctrine, stay in love with Christ, and grow in grace and faith. All Christians need this form of accountability and it was a distinctive of early Methodism.
They aren’t the same and they don’t apply to the same contexts. Conflating the two and trying to argue that Wesley was not a strong supporter of top-down bureaucratic accountability is both inaccurate and disingenuous.
How can you argue for any accountability when you are not holding yourself accountable to God’s word. Now if you will admit that you believe that it is not authoritative and inerrant then some incite can be given to us as readers as to why you have your stance. For a progressive to make the argument that the wrong kind of accountability is simply laughable being that a majority of progressives do not view the Bible as our standard and view its teachings as flexible. Progressives are not the majority but are raising hell like they are. This at its core has nothing to do with sexuality, ordination, top-down accountability, or any other silly point progressives try to stand on. Its a battle over the Bible and my prayer is that the Holy Spirit would take the veil off of the eyes of your heart and mind and you can see the Word of God as what it really is…Perfect.
Jeremy, how many primary sources of John Wesley have you read?
I place a premium on Watson’s book. However it does not go into detail about John Wesley holding people accountable for scriptural holiness.
Wesley did in fact hold people accountable when the class system did not. He personally held all Methodists accountable. Either you repented or you left.
Read all of Wesley’s journals.
As I wrote in the blog post, yes, Wesley himself held people accountable. In both his sermons and journals, we see him practicing this Accountability with people he knew.
In your opinion, who replaces Wesley in the current UMC? Who has the authority to call people to accountability? Remember that Wesley was always only once removed from the people: his class leaders he knew, and they knew the people.
Bishops are supposed to.
Unfortionately, they do not.
There is an earlier accountability seldom mentioned or even thought of today. The Jewish religion was pretty much top down. The Spirit of God spoke to some through some, but no average person could expect to hear from God personally. As a result, the leadership put heavy burdens, Jesus said, on the common people. Now, new story. The Holy Spirit would be within each believer, to teach, to counsel, to transform hearts and minds. This happened. It didn’t take long for this possibility to be ignored or discounted. Or maybe, the new believers had not yet matured. But that was the point. Maturity (and local accountability. We sheep cannot stand not to have a leader. Any leader but the Holy Spirit. Anything but being intimate with God personally. As a result the church continues to splinter into smaller and smaller shards, all so that someone can say, or prove, that he is right and everybody else is wrong.