Keith Boyette has done an important analysis of the impact of Judicial Council Decision 1366 which dealt with the constitutionality of the plans for a way forward that have been offered to the General Conference. You can find Keith's analysis here.
There are at least a couple of points in Keith's paper to be concerned about, however. First he says, "...the Judicial Council has defined connectionalism in a new way which will change The United Methodist Church. As now defined by the Judicial Council, connectionalism allows “room for diversity of theological perspectives and opinions."
What the Judicial Council has said might be properly conceived as a new emphasis, but it is far from a new direction. Article XXII of our foundational Articles of Religion says, "It is not necessary that rites and ceremonies should in all places be the same, or exactly alike; for they have been always different, and may be changed according to the diversity of countries, times, and men’s manners, so that nothing be ordained against God’s Word."
¶132 of our Book of Discipline says, "Connectionalism in the United Methodist tradition is multi-leveled, global in scope, and local in thrust. Our connectionalism is not merely a linking of one charge conference to another. It is rather a vital web of interactive relationships." The emphasis here is on "interactive relationships." In ¶610.1 the BOD says, "Annual conferences are permitted the flexibility to design conference and district structures in ways that best support the mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ in an increasingly diverse global community and that place secondary any prescribed structure, except for the mandated entities in ¶610 above." Flexibility is not what Keith seems to envision as currently obtaining in connectionalism, yet it is a prominent part of how we define it.
And in ¶701 the BOD says, "The term general agency or agency, wherever it appears in the Book of Discipline in reference to a general agency, does not and is not meant to imply a master-servant or principal-agent relationship between such a body and the General Conference or any other unit of the denomination, or the denomination as a whole." Thus connectionalism doesn't mean that one part of the Church becomes a master over others. Connectionalism is a dynamic, interactive relationship among the parts of the Church.
Regarding the future of the Traditional Plan Keith says, "Each of the points raised by the Judicial Council will be addressed legislatively through minor changes in the Traditional Plan without the necessity of constitutional amendments." Some of the changes required will, indeed, be minor. But the changes required to overcome the critique that Petitions 2, 3, and 4 unconstitutionally denied to the bishops their right to due process will not be minor. Those petitions are crucial to the direction the Traditional Plan would steer the Church, and this part will require a significant alteration of that directional leaning.
Lonnie Brooks
Lonnie Brooks
United Methodist layman Lonnie D. Brooks resides in Anchorage, Alaska.