Unfinished Business of a Worldwide Nature

by

Why Sanctions on the Episcopal Church Matter to United Methodists

A United Methodist Insight Special

For the next three years, the Episcopal Church (USA) is being sanctioned for its support of same-sex marriage rites, avoiding an Anglican schism, for now.[1] Depending on your stance on homosexuality, this recent news may elicit elation or heartbreak. As United Methodists prepare for General Conference in May amidst various calls for denominational division over the same issue, we may do well to consider, What does this action by the worldwide Anglican Communion have to do with The United Methodist Church?

Our “Worldwide” Nature

The UMC is still coming to terms with what it means to be a “worldwide” rather than US-centered church. Unlike its Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Episcopalian ecumenical partners, the UMC is not constituted solely of regional bodies within the US. Like the Anglican Communion, the UMC includes churches in many countries, though the structural relationship of those churches to each other is much different. Whether denomination, communion, or connection, the UMC must figure out what it means to be a moral community across many languages, cultures, races, and nations.

American Methodism addressed this challenge in the years before and after the formation of the UMC in 1968 by encouraging central conferences to become structurally autonomous. This effort resulted in the “Americanization” of a previously more international denomination. From the perspective of the predecessor Methodist Church, the membership gain by embracing the 750,000-member Evangelical United Brethren Church was nearly offset by the loss of international members. In 1964, the Methodist Church included central conferences of China, Latin America, Pakistan, Southeastern Asia, and Southern Asia, all of which became autonomous of the UMC. However, the UMC continued to include an international component within its structures. Central conferences in Europe, Africa, and the Philippines remained constitutive parts of the denomination. Since 1996, central conference membership in the UMC has grown rapidly while US membership has declined. As international membership has increased, so have pressures for the UMC to once again grapple with the challenge of being a community inclusive of persons beyond the United States.

The Merger of 2008

The merger of the UMC and the Methodist Protestant Church of Côte d'Ivoire in 2008 accelerated the challenge of becoming a “worldwide” church. Spectacularly, in 2004, the UMC General Conference preemptively voted to admit the Methodist Protestant Church of Côte d'Ivoire into the denominational structure, declaring a one million-member increase for the UMC. Both numerically and percentage-wise, this decision represented a merger of institutions on a scale similar to the 1968 merger that created the UMC.

After the initial euphoria and a more precise census, the Judicial Council ruled that the appropriate Disciplinary procedures had not been followed and that the next General Conference would have to confirm the full integration of this 700,000-member conference into the UMC. In 2008, General Conference officially effected this merger, leaving unaddressed many aspects of how US and African conferences were to relate to each other and to conferences in Europe, the Philippines, and other parts of the world. Rather than streamline the process, the UMC had merely postponed working through the details.

A Tale of Two Mergers

The contrasts between the mergers of 1968 and 2008 are startling. The merger of 1968 took years of preparation and planning; the vote in 2004 was initiated by an unexpected motion from the floor of General Conference. The 1968 union required supportive votes of the annual conferences; the 2008 action of General Conference required no such ratification. Special sessions of General Conference met two years prior and two years following the 1968 union; General Conference convened no special sessions in relation to Côte d'Ivoire. In 1966, both denominational entities separately approved a 307-page Plan of Union; no such plan was prepared or discussed in relation to the 2008 union. Restructuring of boards and agencies by both churches anticipated the union of 1968; no such structural preparations took place prior to 2008. As part of the 1968 union, former Evangelical United Brethren were guaranteed spots on the boards and agencies of the UMC; members of Côte d'Ivoire had no corresponding promise of inclusion at the general church level. The 1968 merger occasioned the racial integration of this church through the dissolution of the segregated central jurisdiction; the 2008 merger maintained the inequalities and disparities of the central conference structures.

Some may argue that the 2008 joining of the UMC and the Methodist Protestant Church of Côte d'Ivoire did not require such preparations, that it differed qualitatively from the institutional union that resulted in the UMC in 1968. However, why would greater differences in language, culture, geography, institutional history, and socio-political context justify less rather than more preparation and attention to the details of being church together? After all, it was largely a difference in language that prevented the German-speaking predecessors to the Evangelical United Brethren Church and the English-speaking predecessors to the Methodist Church from uniting sooner.

The answer, I am afraid, is that from the UMC’s perspective, joining with the Methodist Protestant Church of Côte d'Ivoire was seen not as a merger but as an acquisition. These institutions did not view each other as equals. It was clear who held the power and controlled the finances. Nevertheless, the UMC could not continue church as usual after absorbing what immediately became its largest central conference.

Unfinished Business of a Worldwide Nature

The unfinished business of the merger of 2008 reveals the UMC struggling to become a “worldwide” church rather than a US-centered denomination with overseas missional outposts. General Conference continues to conduct all of its business in English; General Conference has yet to provide adequate and timely translations of legislation for all delegates; General Conference has yet to meet outside of the United States, although there are now plans to meet in Manila, Philippines in 2024 and in Harare, Zimbabwe in 2028. Each of these issues points to a need to remediate paternalistic and neo-colonial structures of oppression and dependence within the UMC, including disparities in education, healthcare, salaries, pensions, and apportionments. The 2008 merger did not create these issues, but Côte d'Ivoire tipped the balance, prompting General Conference to address the hard work of living in “worldwide” covenant together sooner rather than later.

These things are changing, and as they do, the UMC may grow into the “worldwide” church it desires to be. Belatedly (and implicitly) acknowledging the need for a plan of union to address its “worldwide” ambitions, General Conference 2012 declared a subset of the Discipline to be a global Book of Discipline and called for clarification about which of the remaining paragraphs are subject to change or adaptation. Greater awareness of the cultural specificity of past General Conference proclamations has also prompted an effort to revise the Social Principles to be more globally relevant.

The UMC needs to find new ways of being church together to avoid the problems experienced by the worldwide Anglican Communion. United Methodists have important choices to make as we prepare for the 2016 General Conference. Will we do the hard work of de-centering the United States to become a truly “worldwide” church? Will we embrace John Wesley’s “catholic spirit” to allow differences in opinion on homosexuality and other social issues? Will we continue to battle U.S. culture wars through our Social Principles? Or, with God’s grace, will we find our way out of old patterns of conflict and distrust that have plagued churches through the centuries on a litany of issues?

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/15/world/europe/anglican-archbishops-sanction-us-episcopal-church-over-gay-marriages.html and http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2016/01/15/world/europe/15reuters-religion-britain-anglicans.html

The Rev. Darryl W. Stephens is Director of United Methodist Studies at Lancaster Theological Seminary and a clergy member of the Texas Annual Conference. This article includes excerpts from his forthcoming book, Methodist Morals: Social Principles, Marriage, and Sexual Sin in the Public Church (University of Tennessee Press, May 2016).