What I Learned from the Closing of Fifth Avenue United Methodist Church: Bishops Have Way Too Much Power

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 In February of 2023, the Church Council of Fifth Avenue United Methodist Church voted to enter The United Methodist Church’s process of disaffiliation, as established by The Book of Discipline’s Paragraph 2553 and the North Carolina Conference Trustees. The next month Bishop Connie Shelton, resident bishop of the Raleigh Area, and other North Carolina Conference leaders, without prior announcement, visited Fifth Avenue United Methodist Church. They declared to church members that their church was closed on an interim basis, and that its property had been temporarily placed in the hands of the Trustees of the North Carolina Conference. The conference officials based their actions on Paragraph 2549.3.b in the Discipline and its notion of “exigent circumstances” that, they claimed, made such conference actions legitimate according to church discipline. Even so, to church members, this felt like a hostile takeover in the corporate world. The incident became a national news story.

Weeks passed. Late one evening, our family-room telephone rang. A friend from Wilmington was calling. He asked if I would help represent the interests of Fifth Avenue United Methodist Church during the 2023 Session of the North Carolina Annual Conference the next month. Realizing the demands of this task, I hesitated before answering yes. To assist Fifth Avenue United Methodist Church at Annual Conference, I prepared: (1) five somewhat technical questions of law, grounded in the Book of Discipline, that challenged the actions of conference leaders in closing Fifth Avenue United Methodist Church, and (2) a speech intended for Annual Conference debate and opposed to the conference closure of the Fifth Avenue Church.

 In mid-June, with the legal questions and the conference speech finalized, printed, and packed in a trusty satchel, I drove with my wife Marsha to annual conference. The first afternoon, after the conference trustees’ report began, I was recognized to stand and read the questions of law. Mission accomplished. However, when the conference debate on the permanent closure of the Fifth Avenue Church started (and continued the next morning), I was not called to stand and deliver. Mission not accomplished. When the debate was ended, the Annual Conference voted to close permanently the Fifth Avenue United Methodist Church and have the Conference trustees assume ownership of its property.

In due course, Bishop Shelton provided answers, or decisions of law, to my questions of law. Then she referred my questions with her decisions, as a matter of denominational practice, to the church’s standing court, the Judicial Council, for its consideration of and final ruling on the matter. Upon receipt of my questions and the bishop’s decisions, the Judicial Council labeled them Docket Number 1023-06. The North Carolina Conference chancellor (or attorney) and I submitted opening briefs. The chancellor’s was supportive of the bishop’s decisions. Mine was opposed. Later, in a reply brief, I responded to the chancellor’s opening brief. As far as I know, no other briefs were filed.

On November 7, the Judicial Council’s decision on the closure of the Fifth Avenue United Methodist Church, Decision Number 1490, was released. In this decision, the Judicial Council supported each of Bishop Shelton’s decisions. Case closed. (For those interested, my opening brief is posted here, my reply brief here, and the Judicial Council’s ruling here). While preparing questions of law, a speech for the annual conference, an opening brief, and a reply brief, I felt like I was enduring a boot-camp course on Advanced United Methodist Polity. I discovered many details about the structures and procedures of The United Methodist Church. Most of all, I was made aware of the enormous power of the resident United Methodist bishop.

Preliminaries 

Before detailing the extent of the bishop’s power, two preliminary stipulations must be stated.

First, in what follows, power should be understood as a debasement of authority. This is why. According to the Bible and church doctrine, Jesus Christ is Lord and Head of His Church. As such, Christ establishes offices in His Church—including the office of bishop—for the good order, faithful ministry, and vital mission of the Church. Ideally, the office of bishop is inhabited and exercised as Christ commands and leads, and that includes an overriding emphasis on servant-leadership. So, we should say that the bishop has authority—that is, the bishop is authorized—to serve Christ and His Church. Apart from Christ, the bishop’s authority degenerates into power, organizational power or political power. Often such power is exercised by the bishop to promote self-expression or to advance self-chosen preferences.

Second, in what follows, my intention is not to vent against a bishop, conference leadership, or the Judicial Council. My purpose in writing this article is not to retaliate because my judicial challenge was unsuccessful. Sowing sour grapes accomplishes nothing. However, reflecting thoughtfully on the extraordinary power of the bishop just might actually do some good among Methodists.

Glimpses of the Bishops’ Power 

The Power of Appointment and Nomination 

Bishops have the power of appointment, and elders know it. This creates considerable incentive to stay on the bishop’s good side. 

Likewise,  district superintendents are appointed by the bishop and serve at the pleasure of the bishop. Therefore, among superintendents there could be hesitancy to say or do what would displease their bishop. 

Furthermore, serving as “an arm of the bishop,” district superintendents daily advance the bishop’s agenda. Having a designated representative of the bishop in each district, the bishop always has power to advance preferred programs and proposals throughout the conference.

The conference has many boards and committees that serve conference-related ministries. The bishop plays a pivotal role in nominating members of those working groups and to a considerable extent can shape their work by shaping their membership. 

The districts in the annual conference maintain committees that serve numerous ministries in the districts. The bishop who so desires has the power to influence who is appointed to those committees, and what those district committees decide and do.

The Power of Organizational Resources 

The conference staff and its professional consultants provide organizational infrastructure, such as finance and accounting, disciplinary guidance, legal services, communications and public relations, archives and records, and so on. All of these resources are immediately available to the bishop, who at any time can call for their assistance and action. Accompanying these resources are clergy and laity who stand ready, willing, and able to advise the bishop—on next Sunday’s sermon, on the Annual Conference agenda, on denominational and constitutional issues, on most other matters under the sun.

The Power to Preside 

The bishop presides over the business sessions of the Annual Conference. Therefore, the bishop decides which delegates to recognize (or not) during conference business sessions and debates. Furthermore, wanting the annual conference to vote in a certain way, the bishop might arrange for particularly gifted speakers to offer speeches for the bishop’s favored positions and call on weaker speakers to oppose the bishop’s positions. Additionally, during business sessions, the bishop can distract the body, call for expert opinion from the district superintendents or the conference staff, influence the agenda, favor preferred viewpoints and disfavor others, and subtly influence conference votes in many other ways. Finally, when the annual conference is aware of the bishop’s policy preferences, laity know that their floor speeches and votes may please or displease the bishop, and therefore influence who is appointed to pastor their local church. Likewise, clergy know that their floor speeches and votes may impact, for better or for worse, their next appointment. Laity and clergy would be forgiven for falling in line with what the bishop wants.

The aforementioned comments pertain to areas of United Methodist life where the bishop can—not necessarily will—exercise power, as opposed to authority, to get his or her way. More could be noted. I hope that the extraordinary potential power of the United Methodist bishop is clearly described, if not verified.

A Denial of Power?

On October 7, a special called session of the North Carolina Conference met over Zoom. You can view this session online. Prior to the vote that ratified the disaffiliation of congregations, Bp. Shelton commented, in part: “Those of you remaining United Methodist will continue to participate in a denomination with checks and balances on power, where no one person or one group has unchecked power. Now while it may be frustrating at times, when we want a bishop or an Annual Conference or the Judicial Council to overturn a decision with which we do not agree, the reality is The United Methodist Church has many thick processes for accountability. Because we know that unchecked power is destructive and can lead to corruption.” (10:20)

I contend that Bp. Shelton’s comment is partly true and partly misses the mark. Her last claim, “unchecked power is destructive and can lead to corruption,” is certainly true. It reflects Lord Acton’s famous comment that “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” It is reassuring to hear a United Methodist bishop confess that truth.

The earlier claims—that The United Methodist Church has “checks and balances on power, where no one person or one group has unchecked power” and “has many thick processes for accountability”—seem not to be true. In this schismatic time for The United Methodist Church, more and more power appears to be gravitating toward the Council of Bishops. Tasks once carried out by the General Conference are drifting toward the Council of Bishops, perhaps out of necessity due to General Conference postponements or cancellations. The Judicial Council seems often eager to render rulings that please the Council of Bishops and its resident bishops. And some resident bishops do whatever they want to do, even if what they want is against what the General Conference has determined, and no accountability measures follow. Very seldom today, if ever, are the Council of Bishops and the resident bishops successfully checked or balanced by other persons or institutions in The United Methodist Church. In fact, the Council of Bishops and its members seem to have power that is unable to be checked or balanced. That raises the unpleasant possibility of corruption—about which the bishop warned—afflicting The United Methodist Church.

So, why would a resident bishop make decisive declaration on the division of power in The United Methodist Church today? Perhaps to obscure the fact that bishops know that the exercise of episcopal power is not often challenged, not checked, not balanced, not recognized, not known. Too often, the bishops’ preferences are enacted, with few if any questions asked.

Proposed Remedies 

To remedy this problem of perceived, excessive episcopal power, consider these three suggestions. 

First, the wise, faithful bishop should be hesitant, even unwilling, to exercise power (as opposed to authority), even to serve the most high-minded of reasons. The bishop will be especially reluctant to exercise power when it can be perceived to harm innocent people or institutions.

Second, the wise, faithful bishop should make certain that “devil’s advocates,” or those who will reasonably question and challenge the bishop, are sprinkled in positions of leadership throughout the annual conference—that is, appointed as district superintendents, hired as conference staff, nominated to crucial committees, and so on. Such colleagues will speak the truth in love to keep the bishop checked and balanced, and more collaborative and humble.

And third, clergy and laity should be less timid, less sheepish, around the bishop. Clergy and laity must always treat the bishop with respect and love, but they must also be transparent and truth-telling with the bishop. 

These simple suggestions are meant not only for The United Methodist Church but also for the Global Methodist Church. Power, even episcopal power, especially episcopal power, corrupts—no matter the denomination. And absolute power corrupts absolutely, even when such power is exercised for Christian reasons, with Christian vocabulary, and with a Christian prayer.

In my Opening Brief regarding the Fifth Avenue Church closure, I wrote: “The United Methodist Church limits power, separates power..., checks and balances power, maintains the rule of law over power. The United Methodist Church, at its best, does not allow power to accumulate and grow in one person, position, or place” (p. 26). It could be said that The United Methodist Church is suspicious of the accumulation of too much power. In our day, Methodists of all stripes should monitor power, especially when it is in the hands of episcopal officers. Vigilance against power—especially episcopal power—is required in Christ’s Church. After all, our Lord once spoke of rulers lording over the ruled. Then He said to His Church: “It will not be so among you....” (Matthew 20:25, NRSV).

Rev. Paul Stallsworth is the editor of Lifewatch and the president of the Taskforce of United Methodists on Abortion and Sexuality. He is a member of the North Carolina Conference and is retired from pastoral ministry.