Bishops and leaders of a number of United Methodist groups have announced a proposed agreement to split the United Methodist Church.
The proposal, called the Protocol of Reconciliation & Grace Through Separation, would create a new conservative “traditionalist” Methodist denomination that would receive $US25 million over the next four years.
People attend the day of prayer on 23rd February, 2019, ahead of the special session of the United Methodist Church General Conference in St Louis, Missouri. PICTURE: Kit Doyle/RNS
“The undersigned, in recognition of the regional contexts and divergent points of view within the global United Methodist Church, propose separation as a faithful step with the possibility of continued cooperation around matters of shared interest, enabling each of us to authentically live out our faith,” the proposal reads.
Pressure to split one of the largest denominations in the United States has grown since last year’s special session of the United Methodist General Conference approved the so-called Traditional Plan strengthening the church’s bans on the ordination and marriage of LGBTQ United Methodists.
Approval of the plan has been met with resistance from progressive and moderate members of the second-largest Protestant denomination in the United States.
And several groups have proposed legislation to split the denomination for consideration at the next regular meeting of the General Conference this May in Minneapolis.
But members of the unofficial group of leaders who wrote and signed the agreement that was announced Friday say their proposal is the only one that includes representatives of all different theological viewpoints within the church, as well as clergy from across the global denomination. It also is signed by both the outgoing and incoming presidents of the United Methodist Council of Bishops.
The proposal is “the most comprehensive in terms of representation and leadership caliber,” according to Rev Keith Boyette, who leads the conservative Wesleyan Covenant Association.
“They’ve all committed to work for the adoption of this plan and to persuade the groups that they are leaders of to likewise support this plan,” Boyette said. “So it’s the most hopeful plan that has yet been proposed because of those things.”
The proposal to split the denomination still needs the approval of the General Conference, United Methodists’ global decision-making body.
“All of us are servants of the church and realise that we are not the primary decision makers on these matters,” Bishop John Yambasu of Sierra Leone said in a written statement on behalf of the group that wrote the proposal.
“Instead, we humbly offer to the delegates of the 2020 General Conference the work which we have accomplished in the hopes that it will help heal the harms and conflicts within the body of Christ and free us to be more effective witnesses to God’s Kingdom.”
Yambasu helped organise a meeting in Chicago over the summer that included representatives of conservative, moderate and progressive groups and bishops from outside the United States, according to an FAQ on the United Methodist Council of Bishops website.
Sixteen United Methodist leaders then negotiated the proposal with the help of mediator Kenneth Feinberg, the attorney who oversaw the compensation fund for victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. They reached an agreement on 17th December.
Among the signers of the proposal were Bishop Kenneth H Carter, outgoing president of the Council of Bishops, and Bishop Cynthia Fierro Harvey, who recently was elected to succeed Carter.
Boyette also signed, as did Patricia Miller, the executive director of the conservative United Methodist Confessing Movement.
Other signers include Janet Lawrence, Rev David Meredith and Randall Miller, leaders of progressive, LGBTQ-affirming United Methodist groups, such as Affirmation, Methodist Federation for Social Action, Reconciling Ministries Network and the United Methodist Queer Clergy Caucus. And they include leaders of moderate or mainstream United Methodist groups like UMCNext, Mainstream UMC and Uniting Methodists.
“I think that many United Methodists are longing for an end to the conflict over this question, and I believe this protocol will provide that,” said Rev Thomas Berlin, one of the moderate voices in the group.
Under the proposal, conferences and individual churches can vote to leave the United Methodist Church. Those churches would be allowed to keep their properties and other assets and liabilities.
Eventually, the “post-separation United Methodist Church” would hold a special session of its General Conference to repeal the denomination’s existing ban on LGBTQ ordination and marriage.
“If a local church or an annual conference wants to remain United Methodist, all they have to do is continue to do what they’re doing,” Berlin said.
The proposal also allocates $US39 million to ensure continued support for the denomination’s ministries to “communities historically marginalized by racism”.
Lawrence, executive director of the LGBTQ-affirming Reconciling Ministries Network, acknowledged the proposal wasn’t perfect.
In the end, she said in a written statement, the proposal “is as imperfect as the table and process, but it provides an opportunity to move at long last into a period of broad reform in The United Methodist Church.”
And Boyette said it will bring an end to the conflict and chaos among United Methodists, who have argued over sexuality for decades.
“We can continue as we have for 47 years to have a conflict that is destructive and harmful to local churches, to our witness, to the denomination as a whole, by trying to hold these irreconcilable groups together,” he said. “Or we can say we’re going to bless each other, and we’re going to send each other forth. We don’t have to war against each other. We’ll go out into the mission field and share the message that God has entrusted to each of us.”
Not all United Methodists are pleased with the idea of separation.
Will Willimon, a professor of the practice of Christian ministry at Duke Divinity School and a bishop in the United Methodist Church, said in a written statement the agreement shows United Methodists’ “unwillingness to stay in conversation with fellow Christians with whom we disagree” and that they love their “take on the issues” more than the continuance of the denomination.
“Schism is always sad for a church,” Willimon said.
