- Judicial Council Decision
- Arkansas Defers Decision on Disaffiliation
- Florida Denies Whole Class of Ordinands
- Missouri
- Lousiana
- Note that many US ACs are holding special sessions between regular sessions in 2021-2023 to handle disaffiliations.
Recent Rulings Affect 2022 Annual Conference Agendas
By Heather Hahn, | UM News, May 26, 2022
As U.S. annual conferences start gathering this week, recent decisions by The United Methodist Church’s top court are influencing their agendas.
The Judicial Council has ruled that for now, individual churches — if they meet certain conditions — can leave the denomination while entire U.S. annual conferences cannot.
The recent church court decisions have left some United Methodists relieved and others frustrated.
But no matter where they stand, many United Methodists agree that annual conferences — regional church bodies that meet each year — will need to deal with the rulings’ ramifications. ...
The Judicial Council determined that annual conferences are a key part of The United Methodist Church’s connectional system of governance. Because of that, the church court ruled that only General Conference — the denomination’s top lawmaking body with authority over connectional matters — can establish the process by which an annual conference can leave the connection. But at this point, General Conference has not approved such a process for U.S. annual conferences. ...
On May 1, some theological conservatives launched the breakaway Global Methodist Church — no longer waiting for the COVID-postponed General Conference to take up a proposed protocol for separation. After struggling with a lack of visa availability, General Conference organizers postponed the international legislative assembly to 2024.
That leaves annual conferences adjusting to a new challenge: providing a path for potential departures from The United Methodist Church with no formal separation plan in place. ... More here.
Arkansas Defers Decision on Disaffiliation
HOT SPRINGS -- A plan that would have made it easier for theological conservatives to leave the United Methodist Church was derailed Thursday by members of the Arkansas Annual Conference, a development that surprised and disappointed many traditionalists.
A motion to defer the legislation passed 366 to 270 after opponents argued it was premature to consider the proposal.
Referred to by its drafters as a "Comity Agreement," it would allow any of the conference's 630 congregations to join a new denomination, the Global Methodist Church or another evangelical body. ...
The Book of Discipline, which contains United Methodist doctrine and laws, already includes a provision, Paragraph 2548.2, allowing a congregation to transfer to another evangelical denomination with the consent of the presiding bishop and the annual conference, among others.
But skeptics have questioned whether the 2548.2 would apply to the new body, which was only launched May 1.
Last month, the United Methodist Council of Bishops asked the church's Judicial Council to rule on the application and meaning of Paragraph 2548.2.
A declaratory ruling would "provide the clarity we need concerning a disciplinary paragraph that is very ambiguous and open for misinterpretation," said Thomas J. Bickerton, the Council of Bishops' president.
Rebekah Miles, a member of the Arkansas conference and a professor at Perkins School of Theology in Dallas, made the motion to defer Thursday afternoon shortly after the legislation was introduced, proposing that it be put on hold "until the judicial council rules."
Read the whole article here. Read Jeremy Smith's analysis of the issue of "comity" here.
Florida Rejects Whole Class of Provisional Clergy
On June 9, 2022, the Florida Annual Conference Clergy Session voted not to commission an entire class of provisional Elders and Deacons because two of the candidates are openly LGBTQ+. A 75% threshold was needed to approve the candidates. The candidates were 7 votes shy of approval. -- RMN
A resolution of apology to them was approved by the conference membership.
A commentary on this action from Rev. Jeremy Smith of Hacking Christianity: "The cruelty is the point: behind Florida’s veto of an entire class of new UMC clergy"
Excerpt:
In secular politics, The Atlantic writer Adam Serwer coined the phrase “the cruelty is the point.” It means that repeatedly targeting particular minority groups is not just scoring cheap political points but is intended to exclude that people group entirely from any positions of power or from even being able to vote at all. Antagonizing people out of politics and power entirely is the point.
That phrase now applies to 28% of voting clergy in the Florida Annual Conference who voted down an entire new class of clergy, 16 people in all, solely to target and remove two LGBTQ+ candidates, no matter the collateral damage to straight candidates and fellow conservatives. Unbelievable.
Disaffiliated (14): First, Vero Beach; St. Paul’s/Highland Avenue Fellowship, Melbourne; Lake Helen UMC, Lake Helen; First, Dunnellon; First, Williston; Solomon Chapel, Orange Lake; Wesley Chapel - Cotton Plant, Ocala; Fort Caroline, Jacksonville; Greenville UMC, Greenville; Hanson-Madison, Pinetta; Cherry Lake, Madison; Rocky Springs, Madison; Davie UMC, Davie; First, Punta Gorda
disaffiliating churches (10): Belle, First (Puxico), Grace Community, Iantha, Koenig, Liberal, Marble Hill, New Hope (Carl Junction), Pleasant Hill (Carl Junction), Polo and Prairie Chapel (Urbana)
disaffiliated (9): Mt. Mariah UMC, Arcadia; Columbia UMC, Columbia; Barksdale UMC, Bossier City; Indian Bayou UMC, Rayne; Haynesville UMC, Haynesville; Vacherie UMC, Vacherie; Lake Vista UMC, New Orleans; Hurst United UMC, Plaquemine; Athens UMC, Athens
Bishop Harvey: “Continue to be the people of God that boldly and courageously tell the story of a church that is big enough for the left, the right, and the in between,” Bishop Harvey said in her Episcopal address. “Our churches must be more than echo chambers made in our own image, arguing with each other while neglecting our central purpose.”
“I am a big-tent church person who believes that every voice is important to the whole, that every part of the body is important to the whole,” she said. “I also realize that it is time to bless and send our sisters and brothers who cannot remain under the big tent.”
Bishop Malone: “This church is not ours; this church is God’s church,” Malone said to a crowd of delegates re-gathered for the first time in three years. “And we are invited to be stewards of God’s church. How dare we determine who’s in and who’s out and who’s worthy and who’s not when it’s not even ours.”