Resources on the Four Plans for a Way Forward in the United Methodist Church
Many opinions are published on the Conference and the Plans and their consequences. We've posted a bunch here for your convenience.
Committee on Reference Approves 78 Petitions
The General Conference Committee on Reference has approved a total of 78 petitions for consideration by the Special Called General Conference February 23-26, 2019. All petitions submitted by the Commission on a Way Forward were approved, as was The Simple Plan and The Modified Traditionalist Plan. The petition which would dissolve the United Methodist denomination was ruled out of harmony, as were others which dealt with the episcopacy. UM Insight has this good article and a link to the petitions to be considered.
Judicial Council Rules One Church Plan Largely Constitutional, Traditionalist One Problematic
Decision 1366 was unanimous, writes UMNS reporter Linda Bloom in a story filed from Zurich, where the Judicial Council met. The Council of Bishops has released their statement to the Judicial Council here.
The United Methodist General Conference of 2016, meeting in May, 2016, adopted a proposal by the Council of Bishops to establish a Commission on a Way Forward to develop a way that the United Methodist Church could move past the stalemate on its 46-year debate on homosexuality (the original language was “human sexuality” but it was clear that “homosexuality” was the real issue). That Commission finished its work earlier this year and has presented its report to the Council of Bishops and the General Conference bodies responsible to receive it.
Following are links to stories about the Commission, to their report, and to an additional plan, called the “Simple Plan.”
Here is a chart comparing the four plans. Note that the Traditionalist Plan is as presented to the Judicial Council. Seven of the 17 petitions presented as part of the Traditionalist Plan are unconstitutional and some parts of two others are also unconstitutional. The chart does not identify these flaws. This chart, by Commission on the Way Forward member Dave Nuckolls, does identify those changes.
In short, the Commission's report names three plans they call the One-Church Plan, the Connectional Conference Plan, and the Traditionalist Plan. Links to the Report in all four official languages of the General Conference are on this page. The English report (93-page PDF), is here. The One Church Plan is discussed and detailed on pages 11-25 of this document. The first 10 pages are important, too. WMJM has announced support for the One Church Plan. The Love Your Neighbor Coalition (LYNC), of which WMJM is a member, has this statement of values, "A Call To Love." And Affirmation, another member of the LYNC, has produced this statement of their perspective, which matches the thinking of many in WMJM..
The Simple Plan has been developed by the United Methodist Queer Clergy Caucus (UMQCC) and can be found here and includes the proposed legislation. One of the most important aspects of this plan that is missing in the other three is the deletion of the prohibition of funding anything that could be seen to “promote the acceptance of homosexuality.” With this funding ban in place, education events presenting the scientific, Biblical, and historical research about homosexuality must have the UMC position "fairly and equally represented."
The request of the Council of Bishops for a Declaratory Decision on the legislation being proposed for the 3 plans from the Commission contains the complete legislation for the 3 plans as submitted to the General Conference. You can read it here (231 page PDF!).
United Methodist Communications has provided this special article naming “5 Things You Need To Know.” This article gives a good overview of the situation, with many links to additional documents. In particular, it is important to note the link to the Judicial Council's ruling May 25, which pointed out that a special commission established by the General Conference was to report directly to the GC, not the Council of Bishops. (Footnote 6) Read the ruling itself at the end carefully, however. Note, too, that the Judicial Council ruling gives extensive background on how this Commission came to be. A timeline of the work of the Commission is presented on a sidebar.
Kathy Gilbert of United Methodist News Service (UMNS) has written this story about the 4 plans.
The Council of Bishops met in May, 2018 and released this announcement (May 4, 2018), which indicated that all 3 plans considered by the CoWF would be presented to the General Conference with the recommendation of a majority of the Council of Bishops for the One Church Plan. Then, on July 9, the Council of Bishops amended the Call to the General Conference. This amended Call was made in response the May 25 decision of the Judicial Council.
The process for dealing with petitions submitted to the GC has been determined, according to this press release from the Commission. A number of petitions submitted were invalid for technical reasons (formatting usually).
"Nearly 30 briefs, totaling more than 400 pages, confront the Judicial Council as it prepares to consider the constitutionality of three plans for dealing with The United Methodist Church’s schism-threatening division over homosexuality." Thus begins an article by Sam Hodges for UMNS outlining key features of the task the Judicial Council faces. The complete article is here.
The Commission has produced 10 videos about their work. They are introduced and listed on this page.
The longest is this one (the rest are less than 11 minutes): Gil Rendle gives an overview of the Purpose, Principles and Importance of the work of the Commission. This video was recorded during the final Commission meeting in May 2018. The video gives an in-depth theological and technical overview of the work done by the Commission that helps to frame the task given to the delegates to the February 2019 General Conference. (Length 54:18).