July 17, 2019 by UMJeremy (Rev. Jeremy Smith, senior pastor, First UMC, Seattle)
One of the options for The United Methodist Church is dissolution: ending The UMC denomination and dividing resources and churches. What does that look like in practice?
Dissolution is not a Divorce
A commonly-used metaphor for the United Methodist Church is to say we are in a divorce proceeding. Divorce makes it seem straightforward and simple. That metaphor is not helpful (if anything, we are in a domestic violence proceeding as an abusive spouse has done harm to the other for 47 years), and, it turns out, it isn’t legally accurate either.
The United Methodist denomination is a government, not a marital relationship. A bishop was the first person who articulated this reality to me: the structure and framework of the denomination is a governing entity. It facilitates the worship of God known through Jesus Christ, but its function and purpose are more like a country more than a non-profit.
The UMC is a connection, a web of relationships, a quantity more than the sum of its parts. This is true. But it is also a government, a corporation without a head. Dissolution is the dismantling of a 50-year-old corporation’s governing relationships. It will be less like a divorce proceeding and more like…well…what would it look like?
...Technically, The UMC does not exist. What exists is a network of separately incorporated entities... [Read the whole analysis at HackingChristianity.net!]