As expected, the General Commission on General Conference deliberated for months upon months, but in the end, COVID-19 vaccine availability, unattainable visas, and the lack of infrastructure for virtual or distributed conferences have postponed the global gathering of United Methodists until sometime in 2024. This means the denomination will be unable to gather and take up any division or LGBTQ+ equality legislation for another two years.
Let’s see what the particulars mean.
So, what actually happened?
As the pandemic continues and the wait time for visas stretches to over two years in some countries, the Commission on the General Conference announced today that the 2020 General Conference cannot be held in 2022 due to COVID-related and governmental policies/constraints.
General Commission on the General Conference, March 3rd 2022
What happened is that the 2020 General Conference has been postponed to 2024. This is significant language in that the General Commission on General Conference did not cancel the conference, they postponed it. That means that everyone who was elected in 2020 is on the delegation for 2024. The bishops have previously committed to no new elections, though there are provisions to replace delegates if the reserve delegates have been exhausted through life’s transitions.
Because 2024 will be the postponed 2020 General Conference, then the legislation that was before the 2020 General Conference, and the legislation that came after (such as the Christmas Covenant, the Protocol, and a few others) will be up for consideration, and any new legislation can be submitted too, for a while. As well, important new legislation like the replacement of the Cross and Flame logo will be considered, which is great as it indicates we are moving into a more inclusive future by listening to underrepresented voices.
This postponement has special meaning for conservatives, progressives, and for the episcopacy.
First, a new calculus for Conservatives to leave
Since 2019, churches have been allowed to leave The UMC by paying two years of apportionments and their proportional pension liability (this was passed with traditionalist support in 2019). But for years, the Wesleyan Covenant Association has called on traditionalist churches to stay in the UMC so they can bargain for better leaving conditions. The Protocol was the result of those years of bargaining and threats: it would not only let churches leave scot-free, but the WCA would get $25 million to continue their ecclesial malpractice in a new denomination of the Global Methodist Church.
The postponement of a resolution for two more years (on top of two previous years—remember this division was supposed to be voted on in May 2020!) means two more years of ineffective complaining (unless that is their thing…).
Furthermore, if a church wants to leave the denomination, they have to (typically) pay 2 years of apportionments + pension liability. But with General Conference now over two years away, that’s…two more years of apportionments to pay, and a higher pension liability by that point! So that financial barrier for churches is lowered significantly if they want to leave the denomination because they will be out that same amount of money in the next two years.
However, time is short. Annual Conferences were just approved by the Judicial Council that they can “add onto” the Discipline whatever they want to these disaffiliating payouts, so if an annual conference hasn’t done that, expect new “favorable to the conference” provisions to pass at this year’s Annual Conferences. Many conservative churches that want the lowest possible payout may find it most cost-effective to leave now. With the GMC on record to launch in the May 2022, there’s a new container coming for them soon, too.
Second, nothing new for Progressives
Progressives will continue to be a minority in United Methodism, and conservatives will continue to be the majority perspective, as they have since at least the 1980s. So nothing new here—and it’s important to name that the Protocol also would not have changed that vote spread. My progressive perspective will continue to call the majority to accountability with the Gospel call for inclusion.
What is important to watch in 2024 is whether the depopulation of the United Methodists in the United States and the rising numbers of global United Methodists push anti-gay votes into the 66% percentile, because then votes that could threaten the safe havens and carved out progressive regions could potentially happen, which would spark the exodus of the American regions from The United Methodist Church rather than lose our hard-won progress. That’s not expected to take place for some time, however, and passing regionalization in 2024 would be the best effort by the global UMC to keep us together.
As melancholic and frustrating as it is, progressives continue to wait for change at the global level, even as we continue to practice hard-won full inclusion at the local and regional level.
Third, new elections coming to get the Episcopacy back on track
With this announcement of the postponement of the General Conference, bishops are expected to call for jurisdictional elections in the summer or fall 2022 to replace the numerous bishops that have retired or reached retirement age six years after our last conferences. Bishops have been delaying these elections in attempts to lower the number of bishops that serve in The UMC, but they are now out of time. Since these are smaller regional events, vaccines and visas are not barriers to safe gatherings.
As a progressive, this is truly exciting—and not only because some of the most virulently anti-inclusion bishops are finally retiring. The progressive and centrist wave of delegates gained majority vote in all five jurisdictions, which means our new slate of bishops—if we organize without hubris—will be fully inclusive. For the first time, bishops willing to create a moratorium on LGBTQ exclusion from their offices on down is possible both in heart and in actual numbers. Imagine 2 years of full inclusion before we hit the 2024 Conference…wow.
But that also means that any hope of progress will be challenged. Already a leaked press release from the Good News movement has said they will fight this postponement as illegal in order to deny the duly elected delegates a vote, and conservative conferences may try to unseat these delegates. We know that the blowback will be fierce as those opposed to the inclusion of minorities in any denominational system will be out in force.
Having a stronger bloc of inclusive bishops is exactly what Traditionalists fear. For decades, traditionalists tried to rule the moderate Council of Bishops by fear. Soon, that fear of their bullying is gone. The WCA failed, just like Good News, IRD, and others before them. And bold bishops like Bishop Sue Haupert-Johnson (North Georgia) are exemplars of even Moderates who aren’t going to take bad behavior anymore, even by megachurch bullies.
But all is not well in the henhouse of the episcopacy. The past few years of refusing to call meetings and trying to reduce the number of bishops by fiat have indicated there’s something terribly wrong with the autocracy of the episcopacy. The nullification of our jurisdictional processes is really disturbing.
So the people elected to the episcopacy in 2022 will need to be those who (1) will commit to a moratorium and hold in abeyance any anti-gay prosecutions, and (2) have a healthy, documented history of the responsible use of power. It will be up to jurisdictional delegates (like me) to make good decisions for the sake of the whole church.
Your turn
Look, I’m as frustrated as you are at this postponement—and that our society and ecclesiology that has been turned upside down in this pandemic. I want us to move forward as a denomination after two years stuck in neutral (and 30 years stuck in the 1950s). You can read Reconciling Ministries and ResistHarm’s statements for their perspectives on the postponement.
But at least now we know, and we will see some movement amongst the different parties. My hope will continue to be that a fully inclusive, global church is attainable and that by working for it, it can become real earlier than any of us expect.
Thoughts?
Thanks for reading, commenting, subscribing, and sharing on social media or in your local church. You are appreciated!
This is a hate-filled screed against orthodox Christianity.
*gives an apparently-needed virtual hug to a sad person*
No one outside the Orthodox Church represents Orthodoxy, and certainly NOT any members of the UMC church..
The American UMC is about 70% center to progressive and does not want disaffiliation. The prediction of 1,500 churche’s leaving is way too high. It will be less than 1,000. Regionalism is what the conservatives wanted in 1939. It will save the UMC today. With regionalism, the American UMC will ordain and marry LGBTQ+ people.
“Regionalism is what the conservatives wanted in 1939. It will save the UMC today.”
No it wouldn’t, it would simply create an American regional conference that is much more progressive that the current UMC and multiple non-American regional conferences that are much more traditionalist than the current UMC. The views of the non-American regional conferences would be so contrasting in comparison to the American regional conference that it would create a de facto schism in the UMC.
I’m not sure how you read the Commission announcement as a “postponed” GC rather than holding the 2024 GC as planned; if it was just postponed, why the discussion about not yet announcing the site—it would just be Minneapolis. Additionally, how are the Bishops getting around the requirement that Jurisdictional Conferences need to follow the GC? Maybe you have some additional unexpressed insights? I would love to hear further—you always have such great ideas and thoughts!
Hey Jeremy, the Judicial Council has added to its docket the question the legality of holding Jurisdictional Conferences prior to GC. In it’s brief, the Bishops state this as conclusive to its decision to hold episcopal elections in 2022:
“That is, when the constitution gives authority for an action (¶¶26 & 27.2) and there are constitutional mandates for a continuance of the episcopacy (¶45) and an episcopal plan of supervision (¶48), but the General Conference cannot be held thereby causing General Conference legislation (e.g., ¶512) to thwart the requirements of the constitution, then the constitutional authority supersedes the General Conference legislation.”
Unless the Judicial Council moves in a different direction, I suspect that the Bishops will be able to hold elections prior to GC; thereby, your question as to which delegates vote for Bishops at the Jurisdictional Conferences becomes quite relevant to whether or not progressive delegates (as currently elected in many Annual Conferences) might swing the tide in electing progressive US bishops.
I think “postponed” or otherwise we will see organizing around electing new delegates in various Annual Conferences. 5-6 years between election and the start of service may just be too long for some, and others may see this as an opportunity to elect a different slate of delegates.
There is, of course, a gracious (even gratuitous) way to end this: annual conferences (like the PNW/GNW) can allow local churches to depart as they will, let them go with pension liability to their next affiliation, and bless them out the door. Yes, “bless them out the door!” Annual conferences can (and should) quit holding up the line until every last penny is paid. Quit the extortion racket, the high bar for departures. “Set the bar low and let them go!”
Allow them to leave “scot free”? Sounds incredibly ungracious. Considering the fact that members of these churches have paid for the property, buildings, and ministry is anything but “scot free”. This is further proof that the UMC holding on to property and money is what this has really all been about. COVID also was very helpful in avoiding the whole thing. By saying that these churches have to “pay” or be punished or penalized for leaving and having a differing opinion is just as ungracious and judgmental as they are accused of being. It’s all hypocrisy and corruption. Hopefully the Global Methodist Church will find a way to avoid this kind of poor leadership, but institutions really can’t help themselves. Just because John Wesley put in this rule that has turned out be a great loophole for sticking it to churches for leaving doesn’t mean that it has to be adhered to. But worshipping Wesley is one of the core tenets of the UMC anyway. He probably would be leaving the UMC as well.
I personally have no problem with a church that wants to disaffiliate to do just that. As long as they are paid up on the portions of their apportionments that relate to pension liability and have reimbursed current year payments of Equitable Compensation or mission support funding to the Annual Conference, then they would be free to go wherever they want as far as I am concerned. My problem with this is that too many of these churches have refused to pay their share of the obligations in the past while benefitting from the connectional support of others.
Always appreciate your analysis. Very likely the Texas Annual Conference will vote on a resolution to leave and join the GMC.
That would be interesting since the current Discipline does not give that option to an Annual Conference. That was an option in the Protocol, but the protocol has yet to be before a body that can grant that option… and then who knows what the protocol would look like after it has been subjected to amendments either in committee or on the floor of the General Conference.
If the Texas Annual Conference passes a resolution to join the Global Methodist Church, I assume that would be the end of any possibility of seeing gay marriages in a Texas UMC church. I also assume acting now is driven by having to pay even more money to cover pension liability as that is probably always increasing with continued retirements. That is sad news for those of us with gay people in our immediate families.
“ I want us to move forward as a denomination after two years stuck in neutral (and 30 years stuck in the 1950s).”
First, the United Methodist Church did not exist in the 1950’s.
Second, if you have trouble with a 1950’s version of Christianity, why believe in a religion that dates back 2,000 (New testament) to 3,500 (Old Testament) years ago?
Third, the “Methodist Church” grew until classical liberalism and religious pluralism took over and formed the “United” Methodist Church in 1968.
Fourth, the United Methodist Church in the United States has been in decline since it formed in 1968 down to around 6.2 million members from the original 11 million members.
Fifth, the Southeastern Jurisdiction has more members than the Northeastern, North Central, and Western Jurisdictions combined.
Sixth, the Southeastern Jurisdiction in the United States, along with the remaining South Central Jurisdiction, favor by far a more centrist/traditionalist view of Methodism than a progressive one.
Seventh, together, these two Jurisdictions comprise almost 4 million of the 6.2 million United Methodist Church members in the United States.
Finally, the Central Conference outside the United States, especially in areas like Africa and Asia, are on pace to surpass Methodism in this country, and have a much more traditionalist view of the Church than even the most conservative Methodists in America.
Unless there is a way to compare apples to apples, there is no proof that the majority of our denomination is conservative. Manipulating statistics and political colonizing are not the same as faithfully following the movement of the Spirit.
If we can get fair measurements of worship & member numbers; if we can have trusting conversations (without someone’s fingers crossed behind their back); then and only then can we move forward as a denomination.
For those whose ends justify any means, I wish them well in their new global Southern Baptist denomination. Just allow those of us who love and follow Wesley to do so peacefully.
There is considerable proof that the majority of the United Methodist Church is traditionalist. All one has to do is to look at the votes for the Traditionalist Plan in the 2019 General Conference vs other plans such as the One Church Plan. However, most of the traditionalists in the United Methodist Church comes from outside the United States, and this is something that the vast majority of American United Methodists on both sides of the debate are blind to. The United Methodist Church is no longer an American mainline Protestant church because of all the traditionalist United Methodists outside the United States.
In addition, if you say that the American traditionalists are basically Southern Baptists in disguise, then you haven’t seen what the non-American traditionalists are like. The traditionalist United Methodists outside the United States are so traditionalist in outlook that they make the American traditionalists look like moderate progressives.
I just happened on this via a Facebook post. Read with interest as I left the Methodist church 5 years back because I heard the Book of Discipline quoted from much more than the Bible. Nowhere in this article or commentary do I see reference to Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit or our Holy Scripture, just Methodist rules and Wesley. Guess not much has changed
Let’s call this what it is. There will not be a “split” in the United Methodist Church. It is now, and always has been, a mainline Protestant denomination. It has celebrated open doors, open hearts, open minds. Most of its membership still does. But a number of people no longer adhere to this motto. And some of this group may leave. Some people left when we ordained women, when we ordained divorced people, when we supported the legal right to abortion, and on many other occasions. What is different now is that a group of disgruntled people within Methodism are conspiring and working hard destroy the UMC, to leave and to take as many people with them as possible. So far, not many whole churches have disaffiliated. Maybe 200 out of 31,000 in the US. But when the Global Methodist Church begins on May 1 as indicated, this group of conspiracists within the UMC will bolt and try to take as many churches as it can. I predict this will not be more than 1,000 under current disaffiliation rules which the traditionalists helped pass. And after this “remnant” is gone, the United Methodist Church will remain, a circumstance specifically lamented in Good News magazine. The UMC will not have “split.” A small group of traditionalist, conservative, anti-pluralistic, anti-modernity people will have left. The UMC will remain. And who knows what the postponed 2020 GC will enact in 2024. Will it be the Protocol? I doubt it. Loss of revenue because of covid and departures may make a $24 million extortion impossible. Sweet irony. Will it be some form of regionalism like the Christmas Conference, a proposal that makes good sense? I hope so.
“It is now, and always has been, a mainline Protestant denomination.”
It won’t be a mainline Protestant denomination in the American sense for much longer if the United Methodists outside the United States become the majority force in the United Methodist Church.
Both American progressives and American traditionalists are blind to the growing force of the United Methodists outside the United States, who are even more traditionalist in outlook and theological practice than the so-called traditionalists in the United States. It is those non-American traditionalist United Methodists, rather than American traditionalists, who are largely responsible for why the UMC hasn’t gone the direction of the other American mainline Protestant denominations such as the ELCA and the Episcopal Church, because none of the other mainline Protestant denominations have such a large worldwide presence consisting largely of traditionalists. American progressives blindly assume that the traditionalists which dominate outside the Untied States would be fine with their policies being implemented throughout the UMC, while the American traditionalists are too impatient to play the long game in the UMC and have instead stupidly gone on to form a new independent denomination.
Hardly, Mr. RJ, this is opening up the church to this century. A long awaited turn towards righteousness and Jesus’ goal of including everyone in the church. The love of God is not limited to only those we understand or even agree with. It is Universal, and it is our job to show and share that love.
Jeremy Smith has some harsh words for those of us who disagree with the progressive wing. The split should have occurred a long time ago. I still haven’t heard the rationale that we have to buy our way out of a bad “contract”.
We will see which side prospers in the new arrangement, and which side is faithful to the Word of God.
The longer it takes for the General Conference to be held, the more Americans of all stripes (whether progressive or moderate or institutionalist or traditionalist) will die or leave the United Methodist Church and the more non-Americans (who are usually traditionalists) will join or be born as United Methodists. This means that the American progressives in the United Methodist Church have very limited time to make structural changes to the United Methodist Church before their institutional power gets overwhelmed by non-American traditionalists and the United Methodist Church becomes a truly global traditionalist Methodist church rather than an American-led progressive Methodist church.
The Christmas Covenant as proposed would most likely lead to a de facto balkanization of the United Methodist Church along regional lines, since according to the Christmas Covenant, no regional conference can impose on any other regional conference. This means that the American regional conference would most likely allow restrictions on LGB persons to be lifted, while the more traditionalist regional conferences outside the United States would keep the restrictions in place. Once this major theological schism regarding LGB persons is officially made in the United Methodist Church, it wouldn’t be long before additional theological drift occurs and the regional conferences all start to go their own way.
Regarding the American traditionalists behind the Global Methodist Church, I think that they are really shooting themselves in the foot there by prematurely breaking away from the United Methodist Church before the General Conference. Without the General Conference and the separation procedure outlined in the Protocol of Reconciliation and Grace Through Separation, I highly doubt that they’ll bring anywhere near the required number of churches to be anything more than yet another small American Methodist denomination (despite the name ‘Global Methodist Church’), while ceding influence in the United Methodist Church in the near term to American progressives and moderates.
Additionally, I find the entire concept of separation that the American traditionalists are promoting to be strategically flawed for the traditionalists. They are well placed to dominate the church in a decade if they hold their current ground against the American progressives and moderates and let the demographic trends listed above continue to their eventual conclusion. That the American regional conference proposed in the Christmas Covenant is likely to be dominated by moderates and progressives in the near term is probably one of the reasons why the American traditionalists wanted to break away so soon and form their new denomination, but the Christmas Covenant would never even have been proposed if the American traditionalists never proposed their Protocol of Reconciliation and Grace through Separation. The American traditionalists, seeing that the American church is currently dominated by moderates and progressives, should have been more patient and continued to enact their long march through the institutions of the United Methodist Church. They were quite successful at thwarting the goals of the progressives and moderates as well as building a traditionalist movement in the Methodist seminaries, until they proposed to separate after the 2019 conference.
Jeremy Smith is right about there needs to be a more diverse set of bishops. The current set of bishops are too US-centric, we need more United Methodist bishops from the rest of the world so that we get more diverse views on how the UMC should be run and what policies it should have, rather than the dominant American viewpoints and narratives that are featured in today’s dysfunctional episcopacy.
I find your article a bit contradictory. Clearly this delay will benefit the progressive branch in their hopes to get more progressive bishops to vote in their motion. You mentioned the traditionalists will get a scandalous $25 millions “to continue their ecclesial malpractice in a new denomination of the Global Methodist Church.” That’s $5 millions short of what UMC is giving the Boy Scouts of America to avoid any liability. So, not really an impressive argument. At the end every Methodist and Christian family will attend the church that reflects their faith values and beliefs. Having more options do not seem bad to me.