Articles about the rulings of the Judicial Council in April and October/November, 2019.
Here is a quick list of Judicial Council rulings from the October, 2019, meeting. News stories and analysis follow. Decisions are linked to their numbers.
This is a handy chart from UMNS of the rulings in the Judicial Council meeting dealing with the General Conference 2019 decisions. The page has links for a PDF of the chart as well as a chart with the full text. Handy reference.
"Two advocacy groups have backed a delegates’ petition asking the United Methodist Judicial Council to reconsider its ruling on the constitutionality of the Traditional Plan.
"Uniting Methodists and Mainstream UMC, both backers of the One Church Plan recommended by the Council of Bishops’ Commission on a Way Forward, issued separate press releases this week announcing their support for the petition."
Read this article by Cynthia Astle of UM-Insight, with links to the petition and to the two groups' websites.
Committee on Correlation and Editorial Revision Completes Work on General Conference 2019 Legislation
Contact: Amy Smith, Communications
Phone: 615-749-6860
Email:
Date: May 3, 2019
The Committee on Correlation and Editorial Revision (CCER), a standing committee of the General Conference, met during and immediately after General Conference 2019 to execute its duties to correlate all legislation passed by the General Conference....
The editors, in the exercise of their judgment, shall have the authority to make changes in wording as may be necessary to harmonize legislation without changing its substance.
Jeremy Smith of Hacking Christianity blog looks at the word "practicing" and what it means to certain United Methodists. "What's in a word," he asks. After analyzing the legislation which was passed and affirmed by the Judicial Council, he sees that the editorial committee of the Book of Discipline put it back in for "consistency" sake. But the problem doesn't end there, he suggests.
The Problem of “Practicing” in The UMC: A Portent of a Harmful Future
...It was discovered that the Traditional Plan, in several places, lacked the word “practicing” when it referred to gays and lesbians eligibility for clergy membership. In the Discipline as it is now written and affirmed by the Judicial Council, it would seem that even celibate (“non-practicing”) gays and lesbians would be barred from ministry across the board.