“A Spirit of Tyranny”: The Abuse of Episcopal Authority in the UMC
“The Show Down” by Shirly Niv Marton on Unsplash
Something Rotten in the State of Georgia
As a General Conference needed to resolve our conflict peacefully and provide a path to separation is postponed yet again, two recent occurrences in the North Georgia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church (UMC) have shone a spotlight on the corruption of good order and the abuse of authority happening across the connection.
The first is the implicit rejection of General Conference’s authority by the bishop and cabinet. A published statement called “Love is Making Room: Reclaiming the Welcoming Table” suggests the implementation of a version of the “One Church Plan” for their annual conference. That plan, which was rejected by General Conference in 2016 and 2019, would allow clergy to perform same-sex marriages and allow boards of ordained ministry to establish their own standards regarding the sexual ethics and activity for ordination candidates. The statement reads in part:
We believe that harmful language about LGBTQ people and restrictions on marriage and ordination should be removed from the Book of Discipline. Clergy have always had discretion about which couples they will agree to marry, and no clergy will be asked to do anything against their conscience. And Clergy Executive Sessions of the Annual Conferences have always followed the guidance of the Boards of Ordained Ministry and the Holy Spirit to discern who to ordain.
The bishop, who as an elder vowed before God to “support and maintain” the discipline of the church established by General Conference, and whose responsibility as bishop it is to ensure that doctrine and discipline is followed in an annual conference, is clearly undermining it.
The statement then continues, “The Cabinet will continue to discern appointments in which clergy and churches are a good fit for each other, and in which churches will welcome their pastors and follow their leadership.”
This brings us to the second incident. The bishop and cabinet asserted their authority over a fellow elder by removing him from charge of the largest congregation in that conference. Neither the administrative board of the congregation nor the pastor requested such a change, nor was there evidence of a precipitating cause for this abrupt exercise of episcopal power.
What seems to be behind this move is the fact that this congregation is a member of the Wesleyan Covenant Association (WCA), a traditionalist renewal group within United Methodism that has sought to uphold the discipline of the church as established by General Conference, and is now in the process of forming a new denomination, the Global Methodist Church. This congregation hosted a recent global gathering of the WCA. In any peaceful division of the UMC, this congregation (and its millions of dollars’ worth of property) would likely join a traditionalist group, removing it from the authority of this bishop.
This power play has naturally had a chilling effect on any “trust in the system” or sense of being “watched over in love” that traditionalist Methodist clergy in that conference may have still felt.
Such moves are not unique to North Georgia. In the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference, the pastor of its largest congregation, also a member of the WCA, is being moved by a bishop who has publicly expressed antipathy toward the current discipline as established by General Conference. In fact, bishops and cabinets throughout the connection are using the delay of General Conference, which they facilitated, to rearrange the pieces on the ecclesial chessboard to their advantage through the power of appointment. The most vulnerable--licensed local pastors who have no guarantee of appointment--are also the most harassed and bullied, many simply being summarily dismissed.
A Polity to Pursue Social Holiness
These bishops’ abuse of authority, while they refuse to be under authority, points to massive confusion, much apparently in the minds of bishops themselves, about the role of episcopacy and the nature of Methodist polity related to oversight. Allow me to offer a brief polity lesson.
Methodism’s understanding of salvation, including both the possibility of receiving “perfect love” (1 Jn 4:18) and the possibility of “backsliding” (Jer 3:22), and even suffering “shipwreck in the faith” (1 Tim 1:19), requires accountability at every level. To learn to “love one another” (Jn 13:34) we need each other. To watch over one another and prevent each other from “quench[ing] the Holy Spirit” (1 Th 5:19), we need each other. This is what is meant by “social holiness.” We pursue holiness together.
For that reason, the act of meeting for discernment and spiritual conversation under authority with accountability appeared at every level of Methodist polity and practice. Historically, the smallest unit of “church” in Methodism was the class meeting. Members met weekly in groups of roughly twelve with the oversight of a class leader. The next unit of “church” was the charge made up of several classes, which today we think of as a congregation. Charges met quarterly, overseen by a presiding elder. The next unit of “church” was the annual conference made up of delegates from charge conferences, overseen by a bishop. The final unit of “church” was the general conference, a catholic or global council, where delegates from annual conferences conferred under the Lordship of Christ to discern His Spirit for the discipline of the Church. This series of meetings is a form of conciliarism, or government by council, which we call conferences.
While emerging over time, this structure was not simply the result of pragmatism or implementing “best practices” of secular corporations. Methodists believed this pattern was discernible from scripture and the practice of the early church. Francis Asbury, the first bishop of American Methodism, wrote, “In 1784 an apostolical form of Church government was formed in the United States of America at the first General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church…. We must restore and retain primitive order; we must, we will, we have the same doctrine, the same spirituality, the same power in ordinances, in ordination, and in spirit” (Asbury, “Valedictory Address to William McKendree”). Accountable conferencing reflected Methodism’s understanding of salvation, scripture, the work of the Spirit in community, and God’s mission. It was the means to pursue social holiness and “spread scriptural holiness across the lands.”
Bishops and the Ministry of Oversight
Oversight was essential to this structure. The word “bishop” is a degradation of the Greek episkopos which combines two words, epi (which means “over”) and scopos (which refers to sight). John Wesley was convinced from scripture and his study of the early church that all elders were responsible for oversight of word, sacrament, and order in the church. This is why, in New Testament epistles, the terms “elder” and “bishop” often seem to be used interchangeably. In the first centuries, a bishop was simply the lead elder. In larger cities with outlying suburbs, that might mean oversight of several communities and house churches, but not necessarily. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-c.395) was made bishop of Nyssa in 372, a town so small that we are not even certain where it was. Over time, the term “bishop” came to be reserved for a “general overseer.” Many branches of Methodism still use the original Methodist term “general superintendent” for this office.
This brings us another important point, the office of bishop is just that--an office--not a separate order of clergy. This is why Wesley could ordain elders for the work in America. He recognized that he, as an ordained elder, had overseeing responsibility. Furthermore, he was de facto the general overseer for the people called Methodist. That was his office as an elder. No one else was going to ensure American Methodists had access to word, sacrament, and order after the revolution. Thus, as an ordained elder in an office of general overseer he could and did ordain. Indeed, if Wesley was incorrect about the distinction between order and office or his own authority, Methodist ordination lacks legitimacy.
In Methodism, bishops hold an apostolic office, meaning they are “sent,” from the Greek word apostellō, which means “to send.” Thus, in the fivefold offices of ministry described by Paul in Ephesians 4:11-13, bishops and all elders who genuinely itinerate operate as apostles. Each level of Methodist conferencing was held accountable through sent apostolic overseers. General Conference, overseen by the Holy Spirit, sent bishops to oversee annual conferences. Annual conferences, overseen by bishops, sent presiding elders to oversee charge conferences. And every apostolic overseer was accountable to the conference that chose and sent them. Presiding elders were accountable to their annual conference, bishops to General Conference.
In case the trees obscure the forest in this brief description of Methodist polity, here is the takeaway: Methodist bishops do not rule over a diocese. They represent General Conference at annual conferences to hold those conferences accountable to the decisions of General Conference.
From the beginning, Methodism made it clear that the authority exercised by bishops is not theirs to exercise as they see fit according to private judgment. It is derived from General Conference. Debates about the relative authority of bishops versus councils are not new to church history. In Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism, greater weight is given to bishops, even to a particular bishop. Methodism, however, while having bishops, has always asserted the primacy of the council or conference, believing this to be scriptural. The Jerusalem Council’s decisions were authoritative because they “seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us,” the council as a whole (Acts 15:28).
Francis Asbury assumed this hierarchy of authority, even as he defended episcopal authority. “But why may it be asked, does the general conference lodge the power of stationing the preachers in the episcopacy? We answer, on account of their entire confidence in it” (emphasis mine). The power to set discipline for the whole church and send representatives to hold annual conferences accountable to it belongs to General Conference.
Asbury was not naïve. He recognized that power unchecked becomes power abused. “If ever,” he wrote, “through improper conduct, [the general conference] loses that confidence [in the episcopacy] in a considerable degree, the general conference will, upon evidence given, in a proportionable degree, take from [the episcopacy] this branch of its authority.” He then continued, “if ever [the episcopacy] evidently betrays a spirit of tyranny or partiality, and this can be proved before the general conference, the whole will be taken from it: and we pray God, that in such case the power may be invested in other hands!” (Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury, The Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in America, Philadelphia: 1798, p. 38, emphasis mine).
What Asbury did not foresee with prophetic clarity was that bishops might become a main obstacle to general conference meeting.
“Other Hands”
There are many reasons for the breakdown of oversight and the pattern of accountable conferencing in the UMC. Discipline was gradually weakened, and in some cases abandoned, as mainline Methodism pursued cultural influence and prestige. Over time, though technically overseeing the whole church, American bishops became “stationed” in particular annual conferences, losing the objectivity to preside dispassionately. And in 1939, to pander to American racism and segregation, the newly formed Methodist Church adopted a plan that cut the lines of authority that tied bishops to the General Conference. Since then, bishops have not been accountable to General Conference in any real sense. Hence, power without accountability. The results should have been predictable.
This brings us to the abuses of authority in 2021 by UMC bishops in North Georgia, New Jersey, and around the connection. Bishops who act in this way undermine the authority of the very conference that grants their authority. They pretend to have authority in themselves and abuse that authority to preserve positions and finances. They deprive congregations who recognize the legitimate authority of General Conference of quality local oversight, and potentially of the property those congregations hold in trust for the mission established by General Conference. “Sin is lawlessness” (1 Jn 3:4) wrote St. John.
All Christians need oversight, because all of us are redeemed sinners in the process of being made perfect in love in this life. And all oversight must be under legitimate authority. That includes bishops. The situation for traditional Methodist pastors and congregations is dire. “Tyranny” and “partiality” are openly pursued as policy in many UMC annual conferences. The laity, the people of God, are being harmed. Many congregations of faithful Methodists now echo Asbury’s prayer: “may the power be invested in other hands!”
Later this week the Wesleyan Covenant Association will hold a general legislative assembly in Alabama. Could a motion from the floor turn that general legislative assembly into a general conference of the Global Methodist Church? That could play into the hands of these rogue bishops, providing opportunity, in the absence of a protocol for separation, to deprive traditionalist churches of their property. At the same time, the sheep desperately need shepherds who understand their role under legitimate authority. We need bishops who are genuinely accountable to the leading of the Holy Spirit expressed through our catholic, conciliar assembly, the General Conference.
It is time for the power of oversight to be placed “in other hands.”
*Editor’s note: Shortly after the completion of this article, Mt. Bethel announced on its website its intention to disaffiliate from the UMC. Dr. Jody Ray has surrendered his credentials as a UMC elder and has been hired by Mt. Bethel as chief executive officer and lead preacher.
Scott Kisker is Professor of the History of Christianity at United Theological Seminary and a member of Firebrand’s Editorial Board.