A Gracious and Dignified Resolution: War and Peace in the UMC
The trustees of the North Georgia Annual Conference are suing Mt. Bethel United Methodist Church for control of all assets. Remember the ugly political mess we’d hoped to avoid? Yeah… we didn’t.
I sometimes think back fondly of the good old days--like, six months ago--when we thought the Protocol of Reconciliation and Grace would allow us to avoid a legal rat’s nest. The development of the Protocol was indeed remarkable, and if we compare the proposed Protocol to the legal warfare that has overtaken The Episcopal Church, it is hard to see why we would choose the latter rather than the former. According to the Protocol legislation to come before the next General Conference,
A group of leaders, comprising various constituencies of the Church, came together in an effort to reach a gracious and dignified resolution of the impasse, and agreed to a Protocol of Reconciliation and Grace Through Separation. They proposed restructuring and separation as the best means to resolve our differences, making provisions for The United Methodist Church to move forward as two or more separate entities, each of which remains true to its theological understanding while recognizing the dignity, equality, integrity, and respect of every person. This proposal was crafted in recognition of the regional contexts and divergent points of view within the global United Methodist Church and as a faithful step that maintains the possibility of continued cooperation around matters of shared mission and interest, enabling each of us to live out our faith authentically (emphasis mine).
A gracious and dignified resolution…. Is this possible? Apparently we once thought it was. As time goes on, it seems less and less likely.
The events concerning Mt. Bethel UMC do not bode well for hopes that we might resolve our differences with grace and dignity. To put this as generously as I am able, the circumstances surrounding the appointment of Jody Ray away from Mt. Bethel are…disconcerting. The UMC stands on the brink of division. Mt. Bethel is a thriving congregation, and its assets are in the tens of millions of dollars. Bishop Sue Haupert-Johnson attempted to reappoint Ray, Mt. Bethel’s Senior Pastor, without consultation. The position to which she wished to appoint him was yet in the process of being created. Mt. Bethel and Ray both resisted the move. More than 5,000 members of the church signed a petition opposing Ray’s reappointment. Ultimately, Ray surrendered his credentials and was hired directly by the church as Lay Preacher and Senior Pastor. The church requested disaffiliation--a process that numerous other churches and conferences have negotiated--but the conference would not play ball. Bishop Haupert-Johnson has since been inconsistent in the reasons she has offered publicly for Ray’s reappointment. Regardless of her reasons, however, the conference took legal action to seize the church’s assets, citing “exigent circumstances.” (You can read the conference’s list of grievances on pp. 5-8 of the lawsuit.) Four members of the administrative council of the church filed three separate complaints against Bishop Haupert-Johnson with the Southeast Jurisdiction College of Bishops, but these complaints have resulted in no corrective action. An ephemeral glimmer of hope appeared when the conference and the church went into mediation, but that process failed, and now we are back to legal trench warfare.
The lawsuit alleges that Mt. Bethel is out of compliance with the Book of Discipline. In some ways this is true. Since the bishop’s attempt to reappoint Ray, the congregation has taken extraordinary steps to assure it can continue to govern itself in ways consistent with its mission and values until a formal separation of the UMC can take place. Yet bishops should not insist upon standards to which they themselves will not submit. Bishop Haupert-Johnson’s attempt to reappoint Ray without consultation was itself a violation of disciplinary standards. Additionally, the document “Love is Making Room” expresses an aspirational vision in which conferences, clergy, and congregations will act independently of the Discipline on matters related to marriage and the ordination of LGBTQ people. Such aspiration is consistent with patterns we have seen across the denomination. A number of our bishops have begun to behave as if our superintendency were diocesan, rather than general. In other words, these bishops behave as if they, rather than the General Conference, were empowered to establish the rules for their conference regarding these and other matters. As this practice has become more common, the Discipline has become ever less relevant--except as a legal document to be pulled out of the desk drawer and weaponized when useful.
A gracious and dignified resolution….
Apart from financial and political considerations, the endgame of the conference’s actions is unclear. Were the conference to succeed in its seizure of Mt. Bethel’s assets, what would be the outcome? Would the congregation simply roll over? Would its members shrug and say to themselves, “Well, you win some, you lose some”? The truth of the matter is that most current members and attendees will leave. Many will find different congregations with which to affiliate. Some might band together and form a new congregation of their own. Others may walk away from the church altogether. And yes, some will stay, but the church that was will be no longer. Seizure of the church’s assets will result in the destruction of the congregation.
From the outside, the destruction of this congregation in the interest of holding onto its property looks downright Machiavellian. Come to think of it, Machiavelli advised exactly this: “[I]n truth,” he wrote, “there is no sure way of holding other than by destroying.” Perhaps he was right, but does the end justify the means? The destruction of congregations is one of the outcomes the Protocol was meant to avoid. Those involved in crafting the Protocol realized we can do better. There is a way we can resolve our differences with grace and dignity--like Christians, in other words--but this type of legal maneuvering is not it.
The mess at Mt. Bethel is not the only case of episcopal strong-arming. It is simply a highly visible one. And it forces us to ask the question of how we want the division of the UMC to take place. The Episcopal Church offers us a glimpse of what may lie in our future. This denomination has spent over $50 million in attempts to prevent congregations from leaving with their properties. The cost alone should bring us to a place of sober reflection. Such extravagant legal expenditures, moreover, have delivered mixed results. The 2021 legal decision in the Fort Worth diocese in favor of the Anglican Church in North America represents a significant loss to The Episcopal Church. According to the Episcopal News Service, “The U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 22 declined to hear the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth’s appeal of a state court ruling, leaving more than $100 million of diocesan property in the hands of a breakaway group and potentially forcing six of the diocese’s congregations to vacate their buildings.” Likewise, the UMC could incur massive costs, and with only modest results. There is, moreover, little cause for optimism regarding the vitality of congregations that are forced to stay in a denomination they do not support.
In addition to these financial and legal matters, there is the matter of our public witness. The early Christian baptismal manual called the Didache begins like this: “There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between the two ways.” Likewise there are before us in the UMC two ways: one of peace, and one of war. One will be characterized by grace, another by greed. One will demonstrate our dignity, the other our baseness. There is a great difference between the two ways. People will be watching. What will our actions say to them?
We have the opportunity to pass the Protocol next year. To quote one of my favorite movies, however, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” There are rumblings that the General Conference may again be postponed. Postponing this conference would represent a serious and devastating failure to act. One way or another, the 2022 General Conference must take place, if only to vote on a single item: the Protocol. Without this legislation, the way ahead looks grim.
To be clear, the Protocol is no panacea. Some churches will still be deeply divided. Both clergy and laity may feel the pull of divided loyalties. Church council meetings may turn ugly. I wish there were some way to avoid all of this, though I have no idea what it might be. I can see no way around either division itself or the heartache it will involve. Perhaps this is my own failure of imagination. Perhaps by some reviving act of God my pessimism about the future of the UMC will prove unwarranted. (And for a different vision of our denominational future, I recommend the articles on unity in Firebrand by Warren Smith and Paul Stallsworth.) Barring some great miracle, however, the choice before us is not whether or not to divide, but how to do so. I believe that Bishop Haupert-Johnson has not shown us the best way forward. There is a better way. We can strive to mitigate the rancor that will attend this division, or we can give ourselves over to contention. We can recognize one another as brothers and sisters in Christ who view our faith in ways that preclude our common life in a single denomination, or we can view one another simply as enemies. There are two ways before us. Neither way is without its difficulties, but there is nevertheless a great difference between the two ways.
A gracious and dignified resolution…. It is attainable. The situation at Mt. Bethel is ominous, but there is a better way. Perhaps God will be merciful and lead us in that way after all.
David F. Watson is Lead Editor of Firebrand. He serves as Academic Dean and Professor of New Testament at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio.