Against the Grifters at General Conference

When Renewal Groups became Removal Groups, they lost their credibility at the General Conference.

All Part of the Plan

For the past few decades, the traditionalist caucus groups in The United Methodist Church have called themselves “renewal groups.” Their stated purpose has been to renew United Methodism by reforming its practices and polity to reflect the renewal groups’ antigay and power-obsessed theology.

Back in 2019, Hacking Christianity was the first reporter of a buried text: a 2004 strategy document by Renewal Group leaders that outlined five different ways they would achieve their method of undermining United Methodism to the point of outright takeover or destruction of the denomination. Even if they chose to leave, they lamented it would leave the UMC “somewhat intact, with the accumulation of resources to potentially continue for decades on a progressively revisionist track.”

We knew about this 2004 document since it was written. I had a copy of it since circa 2008. We knew this was happening. And renewal groups have not been quiet about their opposition to “minority mania” and their creation of a shadow denomination and constant queer-bashing in order to quote “make the environment of the church so hostile to the minority party that they choose to leave or agree to amicable separation.”

For decades these groups have operated in plain sight. Their practices have gotten more extreme each time I’ve attended the General Conference since 2004. And yet the denomination has bent over backwards to accommodate their demands.

Why is this year different?

Have Renewal Groups Left?

United Methodists with traditional theologies will always be part of United Methodism, but in the past year, their political leaders have abdicated their decades of organizing power.

Traditionalists abdicated their political power in 2022 with the launch of the Global Methodist Church denomination, a container for disaffiliating United Methodist churches. Their decades of work and a successful disinformation campaign resulted in 25% of churches exiting the denomination, along with a vast majority of those traditionalist leaders and USA delegates to the General Conference.

Progressives and Centrists may be tempted to have rose-colored glasses headed into the General Conference after reports of longtime antagonists within United Methodism finally leaving, caucus groups shutting down their UMC operation after the 2024 General Conference, along with the progressive wave of bishops elected in 2022, and reports of super-majorities of progressives and centrists in the USA delegations this year.

But, that is not the case.

…Nope! Not even close.

While we’ve known since 2022 that the WCA would continue to operate in the denomination through the disaffiliation season that ended in 2023, the reality is that they are continuing still today in order to re-open the disaffiliation season again. That’s right: the renewal groups have become removal groups.

This doesn’t sit well even with international Central Conference delegates. Sam Hodges at UMNews reports:

“How can I feel OK with Good News and WCA being active politically at General Conference while they are strongly motivated to create chaos by doing all they can to destroy our United Methodist Church, which we love so much,” said the Rev. Robert Kilembo, a Zambia Conference delegate, by email.

In short, while the majority of Traditionalists have left with disaffiliating churches and with their own feet leaving their local UMCs, Traditionalist caucus groups are operating at strength with the intention of removing more churches from United Methodism and crippling relations in the denomination to the point where it cannot recover. Remember: it’s all in the plan.

There will always be caucus groups promoting traditionalist values in United Methodism. That’s fine, that’s part of our denomination–and I’ve been part of a minority progressive caucus for my entire ministry (and progressives will continue to be a minority in United Methodism). But this mutation of renewal groups to removal groups should be too far even for United Methodist Nice. You can’t be part of the “loyal opposition” if your heart is not with the denomination going forward.

Underhanded Tactics

This year, it seems there are two tactics from the renewal groups: messing with delegations and poisoning UM worldwide regionalization efforts in order to try to exit more people and property from United Methodism to their own benefit.

First, the facts: the vast majority of Central Conference delegates have visas and are already in or on their way to Charlotte for the 2024 General Conference. Here’s the latest update.

The renewal groups have been harping on central conference delegate representation troubles, knowing traditionalists in the central conferences are their only hope of getting another round of removals happening. So the WCA/GMC have battered The UMC in the press even as they might have created the problem themselves.

• One thing to note is that visas to the USA require letters from USA organizations. It is alleged that Good News pre-empted the General Conference by providing visa authorization letters to friendly elected and reserve delegates and observers last summer, and since each US embassy doesn’t offer unlimited visas in a particular time frame, it’s possible that those handpicked persons received their visas earlier and easier than the official General Conference delegates. We don’t know yet if these alleged actions by Good News have resulted in some elected delegates being denied visas.

It’s important to remember the WCA/GMC doesn’t care about giving authority to central conferences to disaffiliate. Central Conferences already have that authority. They only want to re-open the USA disaffiliation process (with even more agreeable terms) so they can attempt to remove more churches and communities into an even more antigay denomination of the Global Methodist Church. That’s it.

Second, while COVID concerns and travel logistics are barriers to the full participation of the entire denomination, missing delegates has happened every recent conference, and we SHOULD denounce and fix this problem with representation–and there is a simple solution. As Upper New York delegate Ian Urriola writes in an excellent letter at UM-Insight:

The proposal for worldwide regionalization coming from our Central Conference leaders who are on the Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters presents a pivotal opportunity to repair historic harms…And so it is all the more concerning that there is continued resistance to worldwide regionalization by some U.S. caucus groups. Those who say they will stand against this necessary paradigmatic shift and hold it hostage to advance their own financial agendas do so at the risk of plunging our church back into a normalcy riddled with the same toxic, colonialist behaviors that the UMC must overcome.

A simple and faithful solution, but the remaining renewal groups recently vowed traditionalists would vote against Regionalization unless The UMC re-opens and expands disaffiliation processes again. Remember: they lamented in 2004 that their exit would leave United Methodism “somewhat intact” and that’s an outcome to avoid, but it also exposes their hand that worldwide regionalization glues a broken church back together and begins to heal the harm from decades of traditionalist hardball politics.

One final fear: Disinformation

Recently, the Dakotas-Minnesota conferences suffered a fraudulent use of their website. While most folk who take advantage go for money, these particular opportunists inserted disinformation and informed anti-UMC language into official conference documents that were then distributed to churches. As their bishop writes:

It has come to our attention that the General Conference Webinar Question and Answer document highlighting the mission and ministry of our delegation, published on April 8, 2024, was infiltrated, and altered on April 9. This counterfeit document was littered with disinformation about our denomination and reeked of a spirit of divisiveness and deceit. Further, not only did it seek to do harm to our relationship together, it was distributed as an official document of the Dakotas Conference of The United Methodist Church. This action is not only outside the bounds of human decency, it is also counter to the very character of Christ.

As of this writing, the WCA and Good News have not denounced such tactics.

Things will get worse before they get better. You can bet I’ll continue to be attentive to the misuse of technology, AI, fake videos or photos, and other tactics by those opposed to the health and wellness of United Methodism going forward.

Going Against the Grifters

As I outlined since 2016, renewal groups reflect culture more than Christ. Our American culture’s celebration of grifters like the former president and people who “get away with it” have influenced United Methodist politics in devastating ways in recent years. So also, the opposition to the health and wellness of United Methodism has used such fake concerns to exit people and property from the denomination in the last few years.

The current language of concern and of wondering if votes will be legitimate sounds nice, but they are opportunistic. If there were 100 central conference delegates missing to vote on the Protocol in 2020, you can bet the WCA/GMC folks would not call a successful outcome illegitimate. And even though regionalization is in the worldwide church’s self-interest, renewal group opposition to it is not to make United Methodism better–it’s to make it worse so they can use disagreement to exit more property and people easier.

My prayer is that General Conference delegates see through these machinations and vote for efforts that center the health and wellness of United Methodism’s operations, care for the people harmed by the church, and empower our mission fields to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

Your Turn

Thoughts?

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