In his first official address as president of the United Methodist Church’s Council of Bishops, Bishop Thomas Bickerton of the New York annual conference called out conservative groups that are encouraging United Methodist churches to join a splinter denomination, citing divisive rhetoric and “accusations and statements that are just not true.”
Bickerton accused the Global Methodist Church, a Methodist denomination launched earlier this year, and the Wesleyan Covenant Association, a network of theologically conservative United Methodists, of winning new churches to their movement with fear.
“I want to urge you to stop this tactic of trying to coerce people to join your effort by making them afraid of or angry with the very church that gave them life. I would invite you, as I have for the past two years, into a collaborative, grace-filled engagement in how God might work in the midst of our disagreements and rise above the tactics that look more like a primary race for public office then a compelling race to give salvation in all and with all,” he said.
“It damages our public witness as Christians and does little to invite people into the hope-filled story of God’s love,” Bickerton added Monday during an open session of the Council of Bishops’ summer meeting, which was streamed live on Facebook.
His remarks come as the Wesleyan Covenant Association has called on its members to withhold membership payments known as apportionments to some regional annual conferences, as Methodists call their administrative jurisdictions. The WCA believes those conferences are making it difficult for churches to disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church and join the Global Methodist Church, the splinter denomination fostered by the WCA.
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The association has also encouraged its members to file complaints against clergy who have violated the denomination’s Book of Discipline by officiating weddings for same-sex couples or by being openly gay themselves. WCA leaders had agreed to a moratorium on such complaints and church trials while waiting for the United Methodist Church’s General Conference to take action on a proposal to amicably split the denomination, largely over disagreement on the ordination and marriage of its LGBTQ members.
It had brokered the proposal, known as the Protocol of Reconciliation and Grace through Separation, with several bishops and leaders of moderate and progressive advocacy groups.
But as the General Conference’s 2020 meeting was delayed by the pandemic to 2021, then 2022 and finally to 2024, some conservatives went ahead and launched the Global Methodist Church. Moderate and progressive groups, meanwhile, announced they no longer believe the proposal is the best way forward.
“If progressive leaders no longer wish to keep their word and no longer believe the Protocol is viable, we consider the moratorium against church complaints/trials to no longer be viable and therefore at an end,” WCA President Jay Therrell wrote in a post on the association’s website on Friday. “Called to be good stewards of God’s resources, how can traditionalists continue to see those resources entrusted to us used to support a broken and sometimes unfaithful system?”
More than 300 United Methodist churches disaffiliated from the denomination at this summer’s annual conference meetings, according to The Tennessean.
Other congregations have taken legal action. Thirty-one churches in western North Carolina have demanded they immediately be allowed to disaffiliate from their annual conference, and more than 100 churches in Florida have sued to do so.
Bickerton, who was elected in November and took office earlier this year, responded Monday in his presidential address, saying: “As you encourage people to stop paying apportionments and start filing complaints, I want to encourage and call upon all United Methodists to stop listening to negative rhetoric and start filing earnest prayers for one another in an act of humility and grace.
“Can we not be better than this?”
Bickerton asked bishops not to respond in kind, not to be reactive, but to focus instead on what the next expression of United Methodism might look like.
“Has God not opened the door for us to walk into Methodism’s next expression? I do not doubt that,” he said. “But the real question is whether or not we will have the courage to walk through that open door.”
The Council of Bishops meeting runs through Friday. In addition to conversations about disaffiliation, bishops will discuss new bishop orientation for the first time in six years and how to respond to issues such as gun violence.
Josh Shepherd contributed to this post.
Emily McFarlan Miller is a national reporter for Religion News Service.
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10 Responses
The UMC is no longer a church, and it hasn’t been one in quite some amount of time.
It is obvious to me that the UMC has gone in a dangerous direction when I see them flying the gay pride flag ????️???? outside their buildings.
It’s no wonder so many lifelong Methodists are looking for different leadership.
If I understand the main issue correctly, all the Bishop has to do is to declare that all the breakaway churches can keep their property…period. If that’s not the issue, I would suggest that the writer of the article didn’t make the primary issue clear.
David,
There’s a little more nuance. I don’t believe this article fairly expressed a couple points, particularly about the launch of the Global Methodist Church in May, and the property issue. 19 of the Annual Conferences have violated the Book of Discipline and altered the legislatively approved disaffiliation policy by either adding additional requirements, some of which are essentially impossible, or they have declared that they won’t use that disaffiliation policy, known in shorthand as 2553 (paragraph 2553). The call to withhold apportionment dollars is specific to those conferences.
Bishop Bickerstaff’s comments are those of a politician, not a leader or churchman. It is akin to shoving someone in the back and then crying help when they round on you angrily.
Para 2553 declares that a disaffiliating church must pay 2 years of their apportionment and pay a market value dollar amount for the unsecured pension liability of their previous pastors. Property is not withheld under 2553. However, both physical and financial property is an asset that Conferences can use to threaten a congregation, and have done so. Going to court to seize bank accounts, and going to local law enforcement to lock up buildings. 2553 expires next year and no other policy fills its void; this is why the General Assembly was postponed, to close the door on churches leaving. Not COVID. That has been thoroughly debunked by members of the GA Committee.
Thank you for this. One always has to go to members of the church/organization to get the real scoop nowadays. Knowledgeable religion reporters have just about gone the way of the dinosaurs.
Stay strong,”progressives”. Terrell said it best, “resources entrusted to us used to support a broken and sometimes unfaithful system?” I’ve heard about CHINOS, Christians in Name Only”. Indeed, we, the Ekklesia can do better and we will. The old ways are not necessarily the best ways. God is shaking things up for His Glory and Kingdom Come.
I am just aghast at some of the things I am seeing in some of these “churches.” Don’t they read the same bible that I do?
Let me get this straight, this bishop is slamming people because of what his own denomination has done? Got it.
While I strongly disagree with many of the stances and overall direction of the UMC, I DO join the Bishop in being disappointed with HOW we disagree. As I’ve said on other threads, it’s disheartening to see the same condescending attitudes, generalizations, name-calling, and other unloving behaviors that SHOULD be more indicative of the world prevalent among professing Christians. Just remember that when you’re doing that to the UMC (or whoever else you disagree with) you are actually saying – and showing – a lot more about your own faith than theirs. The end does NOT justify the means.
Let’s get back to having conversations, pointing one another to scripture, etc. Let’s leave the ugly behavior to the world.
I speak from the experience of having watched, from the inside, the Episcopal Church fall apart. There was, and even still is, plenty of loving disagreement, and (in your words) pointing people back to the Scriptures. It was sometimes still characterized as “hate.” So, please don’t think that anyone who talks about negative rhetoric the way this administrator does, is doing so from a heart of gold.