A call to reduce the number of bishops by almost 25% is a drastic overreaction to the financial and governance problems of The United Methodist Church.
The Proposal: no new Bishops…but why?
As reported by United Methodist News, the Council of Bishops* are proposing to reduce their numbers in order to return solvency to the Episcopal Fund, which is used to pay for bishops. This would effectively reduce the number of bishops from 66 to 51, mostly in the USA. That’s a lot!
The Episcopal Fund is like an HR budget: you have mostly fixed costs based on the number of bishops. Solvency is either from more money coming in (increasing apportionments), or reduction of fixed costs (elimination of Bishop positions).
Back in the Summer when this proposal was first pitched, the numbers seemed dire: without a drastic reduction of bishops, it was doomed to insolvency in 2024.
Or is it?
Turns out 2020 wasn’t as bad (financially) as expected
UMNS reported that a large chunk of apportionments came in December 2020–so much that they met their spending plan. In 2020, the balance of the Episcopal Fund actually raised a small amount. While that’s not cause for relaxation (2020’s expenses are significantly reduced because of COVID-19, and that’s not expected to continue at the same low level), it does make the impetus for drastic change to be reduced.
Even as General Agencies and General Commissions reduce expenditures or lay off staff, the apportionments coming in actually met the expectation. 2021 will be much worse, though, because GCFA sent lower apportionment expectations to annual conferences, and annual conferences budget on allocating the vastly reduced number of apportionments. We’ll come back to this topic in a follow-up article.
Regardless, the financial picture has changed. And people are noticing the numbers don’t line up with the bishops’ proposal.
Northern Illinois Open Letter
The Northern Illinois Annual Conference Delegation ran the numbers and determined in an open letter that this proposal is short-sighted.
At the end of 2016, the Episcopal Fund had a reserve of $19.1million, the highest level in at least 20 years. 2016 General Conference decided to spend $10.9 million of that reserve while reducing the apportionments to the jurisdictional conferences by .7%. We also added an apportionment for the Central Conferences at a more affordable apportionment formula. (see 2016 Daily Christian Advocate pages 1682-1691). Simple math would suggest that we set a course of reserve use that would leave us with $8.2 million (19.1 minus 10.9) at the end of 2020. In fact, we ended this quadrennium with $14.1 million; the reserve even went up slightly after 2020, during the pandemic. It is the second highest reserve level to the Episcopal Fund over the last 20 years; reserves are about two thirds of the amount of annual spending. One would think being $5.9 million above expectation would be cause for celebration. We are told it is not. We are told this is a crisis.
And yet on Saturday, February 13th 2021, the Bishops are hosting a webinar and all delegates will get to hear the same information and host jurisdictional gatherings to discuss it.
So what is going on? And why is this a big push?
A manufactured crisis from 2016
Let’s be clear: the expected reduction in solvency of the Episcopal Fund didn’t happen because of COVID-19. It happened in 2016, and we voted for it. As the Northern Illinois delegation notes, we approved deficit spending in 2016, and ended up better than expected. Indeed, back in 2016, Hacking Christianity even reported on this defunding, expecting that the funding would run out before it did.
So why did we approve this deficit spending in 2016? We approved the budget from General Council on Finance and Administration (GCFA), which called for deficit spending from what was the high-water mark of the Episcopal Fund reserves. GCFA recommended deficit spending, cut the apportionment to the jurisdictions, and the 2016 General Conference approved it.
Instead of increasing the apportionment and actually paying for the bishops, GCFA’s budget defunded the bishops and caused this crisis in the first place. It has nothing to do with the COVID-19 pandemic. But instead of call them to accountability, the Bishops are falling on their own sword.
Problematic sidebar: 2016 Constitutional Amendment on Episcopacy
A quick sidebar of concern for fans of the separation of powers in The United Methodist Church: Currently, no single group of Bishops has a majority in The United Methodist Church. Progressives don’t have a majority, moderate centrists are closest but don’t have a majority, Traditionalists have a majority in the South Central jurisdiction but not elsewhere. This is also true by region: no single region (jurisdiction or central conference) has a majority number of bishops. This means the body works together across geographic and theological lines to come to good governance decisions.
But the Bishop’s proposal of no new elections would change that drastically. Removing 15 US bishops (14 plus Bishop Elaine Stanovsky, who recently announced her retirement) would give the WCA-aligned bishops in the USA (along with Central Conference conservative bishops who might vote with them on some issues) a slim majority. This is significant because in 2016, the power to kick out any bishop, no matter their regional accountability through the colleges, was changed to be a majority vote of the whole council. By reducing the number of bishops on that council by 15, we for the first time give a slim majority to a single group (the Traditionalists, buoyed by the Central Conference bishops, most of which are more conservative) to censure and remove any progressive or centrist bishop they wanted. And first on that list would be Bishop Karen Oliveto, whose removal would leave the West with even less representation than before (down from 5 bishops…to 1).
For the true conservatives on our delegations and bishop’s seats, this should be a cause for concern, even though the stick is pointed at progressives and moderates. The federalism of United Methodism will be unbalanced if you let the tyranny of the majority be unmoored from collegiality and consensus-building. To move accountability further from what Wesley proposed and practiced is as un-Methodist as we could get. We’ve seen this corrosive effect on the US Congress, and to see it at the top of the United Methodist Church’s executive branch would be detrimental to any shape of the church moving forward.
Back to the numbers: how many bishops do we need?
The Northern Illinois delegation includes in their analysis letter an encouragement to reduce the number of bishops by one per jurisdiction (a reduction of 5 bishops instead of 15) and an encouragement for local decision-making. Quote:
At the 85% apportionment payment rate, the US jurisdictions could elect 10 bishops and reserve our high $14.1 million reserve level until 2024. 10 elections could be achieved by reducing the number of episcopal bishops by 5, one per jurisdiction…
If resources are present for more than zero elections, how many bishops is the right number? We encourage jurisdictions to think about the missional needs for leadership through these moments of the church, and not default to electing the same number we have now without some reflection. This requires jurisdictional conferences to develop a new capacity for evaluating missional needs, how episcopal leadership functions in our denomination, evaluation of the number of episcopal areas into the future and other considerations.
It turns out there IS legislation to accomplish the latter.
Since 2016, the Jurisdictional Study Committee has been hard at work determining how many bishops are needed for each jurisdiction, in order to replace the arbitrary formula of one bishop per 300,000 Methodists, in place since 1992. They came up with a way for jurisdictions to determine their own number of bishops, but any bishops over a certain number would be paid for by the jurisdictions themselves. So that legislation, discerned over 4 years, would effect a reduction in bishops on par with the call above, and in line with a timeline that avoids insolvency.
It’s good legislation: take a read of it here. Its passage would allow The UMC to reduce the number of bishops and retain missional decision-making until the 2024 General Conference.
(Full disclosure: I’m the clergy delegate from the Western Jurisdiction on the 16 member Jurisdictional Study Committee)
The elected delegations must save the Episcopacy from itself.
My hope is that the jurisdictional delegations stand firm in support of the Episcopacy and reject the “no new elections” approach. The Bishops claim it is a grassroots movement, but the truth is that neither GCFA, jurisdictions, or annual conferences have called for this action: it is being shepherded by a small group of bishops. A few cranks and caucus group employees writing letters for years aren’t the grassroots, folks!
Reducing all jurisdictions by one, instead of electing none, would address the solvency problem, and passing the Jurisdictional Study Committee’s legislation (whenever the next General Conference is) would allow future missional decision-making to be made by the jurisdictions instead of top-down by the bishops or arbitrarily by a formula.
Dear delegates, this is not a done deal, or an irrevocable solution. It is a solvable problem that we’ve known about and studied for four years. A crisis of swirling pandemics is a time for cool-headed decisions, not knee-jerk reactions, or willful ignorance of the forces (GCFA’s austerity budget) that led us to this decision.
The choice is in the jurisdiction’s hands, not the bishops and not General Conference. May yours be wise to its task to discern, not roll over, on the decisions ahead.
Your turn
Thoughts?
Thanks for reading, commenting, subscribing, and sharing on social media.
* Updated February 16th from “small number of bishops” to “Council of Bishops” because it was reported to be a vote by the full Council, not merely a task force recommendation.
Well presented Jeremy!
Thank you. Very helpful for me.
Jeremy makes some good observations. There are many complex factors to consider. And I wonder if we can’t get out of our own way with our assumptions and comfort zones. Consider this: when the NEJ had 2 million members and 21 annual conferences, it had only 6 bishops. In 2021 there are 1 million members, 10 conferences, and 9 bishops.
Jeremy, good analysis! In my ideal world, maybe it is time to call all superintendents District Bishops and call current bishops Regional Bishops. (Will never happen) All it would take is a change in nomenclature in the Discipline. Everything else remains the same. This is already the practice in the Southern Africa Methodist Church. We would then have about 620 bishops, roughly the same number as Catholic bishops. When I was a D.S., every time I gathered with Lutheran, Episcopal, and Catholic bishops, we all knew our responsibilities and territories were about the same. As it is, there simply aren’t enough bishops to give churches and clergy the attention and presence they deserve. My real preference would be to eliminate the title of bishop completely in accordance with the preference of John Wesley and call them General Superintendents. As we know, there are no bishops in the British Methodist Church, but for several years they continue to struggle with the question of whether to have bishops or not. It is somewhat scandalous for the church to spend a lot of time on this because the world needs more direction action from the church to address its challenges. Of course, maybe we could simply move to Regional and District Sales Managers.”
As concerning the Word of life, Luke 10 section 25-28 says: On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” He answered: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'” “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
Luke 18 section 18-25 says: A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good–except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.'” “All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said. When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth. Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
Matthew 5 section 43-48 says: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
In Old Testament, the Jewish people and their ancestors were given the Law to observe. First, What Adam and Eve should observe was that they could not eat the fruits from the tree of wisdom. Then, their son Cain was told that he should not kill. As sins became increased, the laws were also added more. Up to the generation of Moses, the Law in Old Testament was given to Israelites. We know that the Law is good and the Law is used to punish people who commit sins, but people cannot obey the Law because the sinful spirits are in people. Even that we know stealing and giving false testimony are sinful, but greedy and pride spirits in us drive us to do sinful things. So as Old Testament prophesied we need to get rid of our sinful nature from our spirits.
Jeremiah 31 section 31-33 says: “The time is coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
Ezekiel 36 section 24-27 says: “‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
The prophecies are fulfilled when Jesus begins to teach love. The two greatest commandments are ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'” Love is above the Law and if people have love they are free from the law of sin and death. People who are full of love will not think about stealing or giving false testimony but are merciful and they feed hungry people or give thirsty people something to drink or invite strangers in or clothe people who need clothes. The Law is for people who commit sins. Nobody will say that he will get reward because he does not steal before. But love is the grace we get. And with love we will get eternal life.
Romans 13 section 8-10 says: Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
Luke 17 section 20-21 says: Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say,’ Here it is,’ or ‘ There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.”
John 4 section 23-24 says: Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
We need honesty in the numbers. The assumptions behind the numbers need to be fully explained. At a time where travel is dramatically reduced and a lot of churches made sacrificial efforts, expecting that to be sustainable in the long term is at best foolish or wishful thinking or just a scam.
The Jurisdictional Study Committee has set five as the floor for jurisdictions. There is no rationale presented besides inertia. Currently, the Western Jurisdiction has fewer members than North Georgia as well as Virginia. Two other conferences may have exceeded the WJ membership at the end of 2020. The JSC plan actually reduces the Episcopal Fund apportionment to the WJ by TEN PERCENT. To add insult to injury, the WJ would be asked for LESS than they actually paid toward the Episcopal Fund in 2019! Everyone should be aware that amount does not pay for their five bishops which means the rest of us subsidize a bishop. Not only do they not pay for their own bishops but they make NO contribution toward their connectional obligations toward the retirees (including their own) and the central conference bishops. None of this is sustainable.
There is also the equity and justice question regarding the new bishops for Africa that have been promised. Are they included in the “alternative facts” presented here?
The assumption that a new bishop will be selected by a jurisdictional or central conference to fill any vacancy they are allowed to fill tests our stated theology that the Spirit works through the election process. I’ve never heard discussion of the possibility that perhaps no one will be elected even when there is a fillable vacancy. Could not the Spirit lead voting delegates to discern that none of those who have offered themselves for service as a bishop of the church should be selected for that office during a gathered jurisdictional or central conference? The unspoken mantra has always been if there is an opening, we will fill it.
Jeremy, I think you’ve laid this out very nicely. You are pointing towards a solution that adequately addresses the real depth of our current funding challenges around the Episcopal Fund rather than succumbing to panic.
So far as I’m aware, the Episcopal Fund is the only general apportioned fund for which GCFA has authority to borrow money. While borrowing should only occur as a last-resort and temporary solution for immediate cashflow needs, I do think it’s important jurisdictional delegates understand there is quite a lot that can be done before the next General Conference to still ensure bishops and their offices are fully funded. I highly doubt that funding would stop entirely if somehow the Episcopal Fund’s balances went to zero.
Yes, the sustainability of the Episcopal Fund is a definitely a problem, but it’s not a crisis. I hope your idea gains traction.