United Methodists, Episcopalians Verge on Full Communion

Bumps remain on the long and winding road

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A United Methodist Insight Interpretive Analysis

United Methodists and Episcopalians appear to be on their way to sharing fully in one another’s church life. However, the journey to such a momentous event still stretches years into the future, and there may yet be bumps along the way as there have been in the past.

Bishop Gregory V. Palmer gave the Council of Bishops a summary of the long road to full communion with the Episcopal Church during its April 28-May 5 meeting in Dallas, Texas. His report from the bilateral dialogue offered a proposal for full communion titled, “A Gift to the World: Co-Laborers for the Healing of Brokenness.”

As the accompanying slide from Bishop Palmer’s report shows, talks first began in 1964 as part of an ecumenical movement then known as the Consultation on Church Union (COCU). As time wore on, resistance and divisions among COCU’s member denominations bubbled up. Eventually the idea of merging all U.S. mainline Protestant denominations into a single “super church” fell out of favor.

In 2002, United Methodists under the leadership of Bishop William Oden reopened talks with ecumenical officers of the Episcopal Church. The bilateral conversation hit a major obstacle in 2003 when the Episcopalians elected Rev. V. Gene Robinson as their church’s first openly gay bishop. Some United Methodists resisted the idea of achieving “full communion” with a denomination that had elevated a bishop whose sexuality disqualified him according to United Methodist policy, which still bans ordaining LGBTQ people.

Nonetheless, the talks achieved a 2006 interim agreement, “Make us One with Christ,” in which the two denominations agreed to recognize one another as Christians and to share Holy Communion as often as possible.

Still, both sides harbored doubts. The thorny problem of Episcopalians’ ordaining LGBTQ clergy and consecrating them as bishops hung like Damocles’ sword over some United Methodists, who feared full communion meant they would be forced to accept gay clergy. Meanwhile, Episcopalians looked askance at United Methodists’ creative approaches to worship, especially the concept of an “open table,” in which United Methodists invite all present to receive communion without requiring that they be baptized.

In laypeople’s language, United Methodists didn’t want Episcopalian gays in their pulpits, while Episcopalians thought United Methodists were too free and easy giving out the body and blood of Jesus Christ without checking the receivers’ Christian credentials.

Historic line of leadership

Then, there was the issue of bishops and ordained clergy. Despite its break with the Roman Catholic Church, the worldwide Anglican Communion, including the Episcopal Church, claims for their bishops a direct ecclesiastical descent from the first Christian apostles. In simpler terms, Episcopalians hold that bishops derive their authority over the church from having been consecrated to their office by bishops who were consecrated by preceding bishops all the way back to the Apostle Peter, the “rock” on whom Jesus built the church.

From the Episcopalian viewpoint, United Methodist bishops and clergy faced two problems: schism and sex. The first bishop of American Methodism, Francis Asbury, was consecrated not by bishops in direct apostolic succession, but by his fellow Methodist clergy at the historic 1784 Christmas Conference when the U.S. church was founded. Subsequent Methodist bishops have been consecrated by their fellow bishops (and they were all men until 1980, when the Rev. Marjorie Swank Matthews became the first female bishop of The United Methodist Church).

The election of United Methodist women bishops – indeed the whole idea of female clergy – remained a stumbling block for the Episcopalians for some time. Even today there are Episcopal dioceses that resist ordaining women, even though the denomination was led from 2001 through 2006 by its 26th prelate, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori (a development that also rubbed some other Anglicans the wrong way).

Once again, in laypeople’s language, the Episcopal Church initially saw United Methodist clergy and bishops as somehow “deficient” in their authority as ordained ministers because of the 1784 “break.”

Members of the bilateral dialogue team attempted to identity these and other issues in a 2010 document, “A Theological Foundation for Full Communion,” which subsequently gained support from both denominations. Theologically at least, these longstanding issues have smoothed out over time, said Bishop Palmer in his report to the Council of Bishops. He outlined key features of the current proposal for full communion.

Regarding “interchangeability” of clergy

The full communion proposal defines “interchangeability” as the mutual recognition of the authenticity of ordinations of priests/elders and deacons. Among other features quoted from Bishop Palmer’s presentation:

  • Ordained ministers from one church can be received for service into the other church without the need for “any further ordination or re-ordination or supplemental ordination whatsoever.” As Bishop Palmer put it, “nobody is ‘deficient’ any longer.”
  • Recognition and Interchangeability are always subject to “standards and polity of each church” and “to canonically or constitutionally approved invitation.” In other words, neither church will must accept clergy that don’t conform to the church’s standard, i.e., no LGBTQ pastors forced upon United Methodists.

The draft agreement includes mutual recognition of episcopal ministries “as they currently exist,” according to Bishop Palmer’s report. The document reads: “We affirm the ministry of bishops in The United Methodist Church and The Episcopal Church to be adaptations of the historic episcopate to the needs and concerns of the post-Revolutionary missional context. We recognize the ministries of our bishops as fully valid and authentic.”

However, bishops aren’t to be “interchangeable” as clergy could be under the agreement, i.e. a UMC bishop would not serve an Episcopal Diocese or vice-versa. Bishop Palmer noted that the proposal also includes, if not an outright apology, at least a common acknowledgement of past roadblocks: “We lament any ways, whether intentionally or unintentionally, explicitly or implicitly, that Episcopalians may have considered the ministerial orders of the United Methodist Church or its predecessor bodies to be lacking God’s grace.”

As a sign of this new fellowship, the proposal recommends that both Episcopalians and United Methodists have at least one bishop at future consecrations in either denomination, along with three other bishops from mutual partners in full communion, such as the Moravian Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. And all the bishops present will participate in the “laying on of hands” in consecration, the ritual that conveys church authority to the new bishop.

Active United Methodist bishops now are encouraged to develop relationships with the Episcopal bishops in their areas (assuming such doesn’t already exist), Bishop Palmer said. All bishops have been asked to review the draft document and collaborate in producing the legislation to enact the agreement for the 2020 General Conference. Episcopalians will consider the agreement at their 2021 General Convention.

The question for rank-and-file United Methodists, whether clergy or laity remains: Why go to such lengths to work out arcane technicalities between two denominations? Can’t we just work and worship together without the need for such effort?

The Office of Christian and Unity and Interreligious Relationships, now supervised by the Council of Bishops, gives this response in its FAQ on the dialogue:

“To a world torn by division, mistrust and fear, our witness of Full Communion is a beautiful sign of life and hope. … We are richly blessed by a sharing of resources, as we join forces in crucial mission endeavors and tackle ministry challenges together. We have been in conversations about communion for fifty years. … Naming our oneness in Christ will be the fulcrum that will energize new and creative ministries in our communities, and joint activism for the dawning of God’s justice in the world.”