Photo Courtesy of Craig L. Adams
Split Church
My email inbox has been filling up with comments from friends on both sides of the theological spectrum of The United Methodist Church, talking about how we ought to divide the denomination. Their visions uniformly seem to be to divide into a “Progressive Methodist Church” and a “Conservative Methodist Church,” as if everything will somehow be hunky-dory if we simply could make such a decree.
I disagree, because my friends are thinking only about their own theological or gender orientation bases. I don’t think they have any idea of all the pillars of support a denomination needs for it simply to exist. We are lucky in The United Methodist Church in that we’ve had 232 years of being a denomination in the United States for those pillars to be developed. The idea of precipitously dividing our denomination without making sure those pillars are in place first is a prescription for chaos and disaster.
Let me present a brief Primer (for that is all it is) on those pillars and what would have to be in place for any form of successful division of the United Methodist Church:
DIVISION
What makes us think a dividing the UMC in two makes any sense? It would ask the vast majority of our local churches, many of whom simply want to be the church in their community, to try to make a decision as to which successor denomination it might wish to transfer its allegiance. There are a wide variety of areas of disagreement other than over “homosexuality” and/or “the authority of the Scriptures” in our denomination, that might make it more practical to divide three ways, or five, or seven? Has anyone thought about how those issues might be worked out?
ORGANIZATIONAL STYLE
Historically, in Protestant Churches in the U.S. (and around the world), there have been three forms of ecclesial organization. The most common form has been the Congregational style, where each local church decides whom to hire as its own pastor, and/or to fire the same. They set their own standards for ordination. They may belong to an Association of other churches that share a similar form of organization for missional or evangelical purposes, but the Association has no control over what any one particular church may choose to do, or not to do. Baptist churches uniformly follow this form of organization.
The second form is called a Presbyterian style of organization. Each church may hire or fire its own pastors, but they are members of a joint service organization that not only does cooperative missional and/or evangelistic work, but it sets standards for persons who are certified or “have standing” to be ordained, AND in the pool of possible pastors from which a local church may choose a pastor to hire. They generally have some form of “Executive Minister” who keeps track of those who “have standing” in that particular organization, and assists local churches in figuring out just what kinds of gifts and graces it needs in a pastor, and then suggests names of persons who might fit that profile for the local church seeking a new pastor to consider.
The third form of organization is called the Episcopal style of organization. The United Methodist Church operates under this style of organization. Each local church is chartered by, and can be closed by, the larger organization in which it has its membership. The organization sets standards for ordination of clergy, who have membership themselves in the organization. The organization ordains and disciplines clergy. An executive, usually called a bishop, is the one who decides which ministers will serve in which local churches. Missional and evangelistic programs often are determined by the denomination, which also sets the rules under which the clergy and the local churches operate.
Our denomination started in 1784, but because of John Wesley’s form of leadership in England, along with Francis Asbury’s assumption of the title of “bishop” in the United States, and the effort of some churches to ordain their own clergy, an Episcopal style of organization was in the minutes of the General Conference since 1792. It remains in our Constitution today, as the third restrictive rule, found at Paragraph19 in the 2012 Book of Discipline.
Before any kind of division of our denomination occurs, decisions are going to have to be made about which style of organization each (regardless of how many) of the successor denominations will use as its ministry will operate. That will control how they organize.
JUDICATORIES
A judicatory is an organization of churches that share commonalities in style, rules, or operational decisions. In the UMC, we call our judicatories “Annual Conferences.” Unless it is an independent local church not tied to any denomination, every denomination has to have some form of judicatory to handle administrative issues. This, too, has to be decided very early if we are to divide as a denomination. Such judicatories may have to deal with setting standards for clergy membership and organization, who gets to vote on group matters, how local churches will be chartered, how clergy will be deployed or recommended to local churches for hiring, to handle fund for cooperative missional and/or evangelistic endeavors, etc.
CLERGY MATTERS
If a successor denomination chooses to act within a Congregational style of organization, this may not be as important as it would be if it has a Presbyterian or Episcopal style of organization. But at some place, a new denomination would have to set its standards for ordination, standing, or commissioning of its clergy. Right now in the UMC, the General Conference sets the minimum standards for ordination and Annual Conferences administer those standards on behalf of the organization. Each successor denomination would have to have these standards worked out before Day 1.
OPERATIONS
Will a new denominational form of organization and judicatories operate in a geographical, theological, or associational format?
Judicatories essentially operate in one of three forms. Our Annual Conferences operate geographically; the Jurisdictional Conference sets the boundaries of the Annual Conferences which, by Judicial Council case law, must be geographically contiguous. Other denominations, like churches that have organized around a set of theological principles, operate based on their theology: regardless of where located, churches within them that don’t subscribe to the approved theological standards, are not part of that Judicatory or even denomination. Some denominations are organized on an Associational format: local churches within them are part of an Association based on whatever principles are important to them. For example, the predominantly African-American Church of God in Christ has each church align itself with one of its bishops, regardless of geography. The church can make an election on which Bishop it will align itself on a periodic basis, a choice often based on with whom their Pastor has had an organizational relationship.
This, too, is a kind of decision that would have to be made before Day 1 of the operation of a successor denomination, or chaos would ensue.
PENSIONS AND UNFUNDED PENSIONS LIABILITY
Regardless of how such a division of The United Methodist Church might take place, I will make an assertion: the General Board of Pension & Health Benefits would have to survive as an organization servicing all of the successor denominations. The accounting and administrative costs of dividing up pension credits of clergy would cut into the amount of monies available to pay pensions already promised or being paid.
Further, while some Annual Conferences have paid off the unfunded liability for pensions due to the work of clergy prior to 1982, many have not. All Annual Conferences were given until 2022 to get those liabilities fulfilled. If the UMC were to divide, and local churches went to various successor denominations, legally there would have to be agreements on how much each local church would have to contribute out of its own funds to its share of the unfunded liability. In cases where some churches have merged, and one of the churches that were part of the merger came from an Annual Conference that had not paid its unfunded pensions liability in full, the merged church might have to assume that debt.
Again, all of these matters would need to be worked out before a reasonable dissolution of the UMC occurred, lest local churches end up paying huge sums to attorneys in lawsuits over unfunded or underfunded pensions.
TRUST CLAUSES
Each local United Methodist Church has one or more trust clauses in its deeds for real property. The Trust Clause is the one that says that if that congregation leaves the United Methodist Church or its successors, or is closed, the title on the property devolves to the Board of Trustees of its Annual Conference. One often hears or reads “If we divided, we’d have to let each local church that wanted to separate take its property with it,” as opposed to a remnant denomination keeping title to properties of local churches that chose to leave that remnant. Even assuming that could and should be done in a dividing of the denomination, it still raises questions, such as:
- If a local church chose to go to one of the successor denominations, would the trust clause on its property have to go to the Board of Trustees of the successor Judicatory?
- If a local church chose to go to one of the successor denominations, should it be a one-time event as part of the dissolution agreement, or should a local church have the right to make further choices as to which successor denomination it might wish to join.
For example, Church A makes a choice, in the dissolution agreement, to go to Successor Denomination X. But the ministry and or congregation over the years might change, and members of Church A, 20 years hence, might want to go to successor denomination Y. Would they have to leave their property with successor denomination X if they wanted to go to denomination Y? Or could they be allowed a period of time to make a final choice on with which successor denomination it might choose to affiliate itself?
What would happen if, in the dividing of the denomination, some local churches said they wanted to go independent from any of the successor denominations? To let them so part would take away a chunk of valuable real estate which successor denominations well could need in the future for church growth.
What would happen if some of the very large churches in the UMC took such a division of the denomination as an opportunity for themselves each to go independent? Such an action could take a sizable chunk of the funds now paid in apportionments that successor Judicatories would need to carry on their ministries.
MINISTRIES BEYOND THE LOCAL CHURCH
Right now, ministries beyond the local church are either created by General Boards or Agencies, or by Annual Conferences. If the denomination were to divide, many of those ministries, which are embraced and supported now by apportioned dollars, would have to find a new way to get their support.
At one time prior to the 1950s, each ministry beyond the local church had to maintain a cadre of promoters, mostly clergy or laymen who were experienced salespersons, who would go to local churches, try to get opportunities to preach, and to have special offerings taken in support of his particular ministry. The Gideon Bible Ministries, for example, still does this. The ministries that had the best promoters were the ones that got the bulk of the funds, whether or not they were the most worthy such ministry. That’s why we established cooperative and collective fund-raising for our ministries beyond the local church, through apportioned giving.
In the event of dissolution of our denomination, how would we help the many ministries beyond the local church make such a transition in receiving funding? How would each ministry have to arrange for its fund-raising? In an era where we rarely have Sunday night services anymore, how many pastors would want to give up their pulpits several Sundays a year to allow a promoter for a particular ministry to preach, and to receive a special offering?
GUARANTEED APPOINTMENTS
If one or more of the successor denominations chose to have an Episcopal form of organization, but did not have enough churches to which they could send the clergy who chose to affiliate with them, could a guaranteed appointment program be maintained? Could an Episcopal form of organization in a successor denomination be maintained if it could not maintain a guaranteed appointment? Example: a Bishop might send me as a pastor to Destiny City, where a church is growing. Two years later, there might be a drastic change in the nature of the community, i.e., its primary industry leaves town, a tornado destroyed many homes, or a sizable portion of the congregation chose to leave the church over some issue that had absolutely nothing to do with my style of ministry. Without a guaranteed appointment, I might be left high, dry--and broke--because my Bishop could say “I’m sorry. I have no place where I can send you. May God bless you in your future endeavors.”
The bottom line is that an Episcopal form of church organization would quickly devolve to a Presbyterian or Congregational form of organization without a guaranteed appointment. They are flip sides of the same coin.
DISCIPLINING CLERGY
Each successor denomination would have to figure out how to discipline its clergy that engage in misconduct, or sadder yet, had clergy who once were effective ministers but no longer are effective. In The United Methodist Church, we are the successors of a form of disciplining of clergy (and of laity!) that has, again, been part of our denomination since 1792: church trials for misconduct, and administrative location processes, for clergy who are deemed no longer to be effective. Whether such processes could easily be transferred to successor denominations would depend upon how they are organized, how they choose whom they will accept as clergy, and who makes the standards for ordination, commissioning, or standing.
DECERTIFICATION OR DISCHARTERING OF LOCAL CHURCHES
Unfortunately, the time comes when any denomination can no longer allow a local church to maintain its existence, because of any number of causes. Each successor denomination would have to have in its rules or by-laws, processes by which evaluation of local churches and continuation of their ministry can no longer be sustained.
CONCLUSION
So, given all these organizational and administrative factors, is dissolution of The United Methodist Church practical or desirable?
I raise these questions because these are all issues that have to be addressed in a dissolution of the denomination. If you doubt that, ask any family law attorney about what questions have to be resolved to a court's satisfaction, before a dissolution of a marriage can be accepted and a divorce approved.
Our society doesn't do well with any kind of a dissolution where the well-being of the participants is not worked out in advance. If a business suddenly quits operation and fires all of its employees, ask yourself how many lawsuits take place in efforts to try to make sure the workers have received their earned pay and pensions? That's why any proposed dissolution of The United Methodist Church needs to be carefully planned before it becomes reality. Consider that it took almost eight years of planning for the merger of The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church. How many years of planning would it take to work out an orderly dissolution of our denomination into two or more successor denominations?
We need to do a lot of thinking and praying before we glibly say, “Why don’t we just divide into two denominations? Most of all we should ask: Is dissolution of The United Methodist Church practical or desirable?
The Rev. Thomas H. Griffith of Chandler, Ariz., is a retired elder in the California-Pacific Annual Conference and an expert in United Methodist polity.