Alaska Delegates Propose Omnibus Legislation to Move UMC Beyond Impasse

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A United Methodist Insight Exclusive

After half a century of often-acrimonious debate over human sexuality, The United Methodist Church staggers toward a twice-delayed global legislative conclave that appears likely to split the 12-million-member denomination. Now delegates from the Alaska Conference and supporters from other conferences have put forth a proposal to tie together diverse ideas on schism and unity that they hope will break the impasse over which approach should take precedence and relieve the limbo in which the UMC finds itself.

The Alaska Omnibus Proposal was crafted in late 2020 and submitted in January before General Conference organizers decided to postpone the UMC’s top legislative assembly until 2022 because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, said the Rev. Jim Doepken, Alaska clergy delegate and writing team member. The AOP, as it’s called for short, combines two proposals – one focused on separation and another one focused on unity – with a recommendation from its ministry coordinating council on regional governance and a plan from the UMC’s pensions agency to maintain financial support for clergy and church workers. The result is a document with a three-page introduction and 66 pages of legislation.

The AOP was sparked by concerns among Alaska delegates that other General Conference delegates were debating which legislation should be considered first:

  • The Protocol of Reconciliation & Grace Through Separation, which lays out a negotiated plan for splitting the UMC because of its long-standing dispute over the authority of Scripture and opposition to same-sex marriage and ordaining LGBTQ clergy; or
  • The Christmas Covenant, a proposal developed by United Methodists outside the United States for maintaining worldwide church unity by establishing international regions with authority to legislate mission and ministry according to their cultural and social contexts, reflecting the recommendation from the ministry coordinating council called the Connectional Table.

The omnibus proposal also incorporates legislation from Wespath, the UMC’s pensions and benefits agency, that would preserve clergy and church workers’ pensions and insurance accounts no matter what denomination they may choose in the future.

A major motivation for the omnibus proposal was to enact changes without the need for constitutional amendments, a complicated process that requires supermajority approvals from all the church’s annual conferences around the world. Alaska delegates also wanted to overcome the longtime acrimonious General Conference debates that resulted in “winners” and “losers,” Doepken said in a statement on the conference website.

In order to explain the AOP’s background and development, United Methodist Insight sent questions by email to the document’s writing team. Alaska layman Lonnie Brooks, a longtime church leader, and the Rev. Amy Valdez Barker, a North Georgia Annual Conference delegate who consulted on writing the omnibus, responded to the questions. The Rev. Meg Lassiat of the Indiana Annual Conference also consulted on writing the AOP, said Doepken.

How did the idea come about to combine the various proposals before the church?

Lonnie Brooks: The Alaska Omnibus Proposal (AOP) was a cooperative effort almost from the beginning. The foundational ideas were the avoidance of two perceived problems in the conversation at large in the Church in the closing days of 2020. First was the polarization that had developed over whether the Protocol ought to be considered and adopted first at the upcoming General Conference, or the Christmas Covenant and the regionalization it envisioned ought to be first. And second was the problem that both the Christmas Covenant and the regionalization proposal from the Connectional Table required extensive amendment of the Constitution, which seemed to us to be a prohibitive process unlikely to succeed in the divided and contentious atmosphere that prevails in the Church at this time.

The first testing of the idea outside the Alaska circle was with a perpetual GC delegate from Great Plains who expressed immediate sympathy. With that encouragement, we recruited Amy Valdez Barker from North Georgia and Meg Lassiat from Indiana to be part of the writing team.

Amy suggested that it would be important, in addition to bringing together the Protocol and the regionalization plans, to get advice from Wespath to ensure that nothing was done to jeopardize the pension and benefit plans.

This omnibus proposal appears to remake the structure and governance of the denomination while allowing those of divergent theological perspectives to leave the UMC and form new churches. Is that an accurate layperson’s description of the proposal [without going into details of the legislation]?

Brooks: That is accurate as far as it goes, but it’s not a full expression of the effect of the AOP. The AOP does more than that. In fact, it does what this question presumes because it includes the Protocol exactly as it was submitted by the Michigan Annual Conference, and if that’s all we had intended, we wouldn’t have needed the rest of the AOP.

The AOP proposes the regionalization of the post-separation UMC along the lines proposed in the Christmas Covenant and the Connectional Table’s plan, but without including the parts of those plans that require amendment of the Constitution. It proposes the adoption of the Protocol to enable the separation of the church by permitting clergy, local churches, and annual conferences that no longer want to be part of the UMC to depart with their property intact, thus avoiding costly and divisive prolonged legal action. And it proposes amended versions of two Wespath petitions that will help ensure that pension and benefit programs for all church employees are protected during and after the separation.

Amy Valdez Barker: It also brings together the two pieces of legislation that seem to have the greatest amount of attention in the connection at this time.  Prior to the pandemic, these two pieces of legislation were being discussed as a choice: Which comes first?  The intention was to not make supporters have to choose, but rather see the importance of ensuring that the essence of these legislations came together for the body to deal with as one larger piece rather than multiple smaller pieces.

How long did it take the writing team to synthesize the various approaches to come up with the omnibus proposal?

Brooks: Because we were standing on the shoulders of capable and dedicated people who had done lots of the work before us, we were able to get the basic structure of our documents in shape within a couple of weeks of starting the work. Then we went through a refinement process of a month or so in hopes of perfecting it and formatting it for submission to the Petitions Secretary of the General Conference as well as for broader distribution, review, and comment.

Valdez Barker: This was done before the previous deadline of when we were anticipating General Conference 2021 to be [held].  This deadline prevented us from being able to reach out to all the original authors of these legislations to work with us to refine the AOP. 

Have you consulted with any church experts about whether the proposals for regionalization can be implemented without constitutional amendments? If so, what was their feedback?

Brooks: This question might be the most difficult one of all to answer, primarily because of the difficulty one has in knowing what constitutes being an expert in UMC law. Several people with long experience in dealing with church law have had the opportunity to review and comment on constitutionality, including conference chancellors and parliamentarians. One person has expressed reservations about whether or not the remaining portions of the Christmas Covenant are constitutional, but others have had no such reservations. The recognized authorities on church law, the members of the Judicial Council, are prohibited from offering opinions on such questions except within the bounds of judicial processes, and only the Council of Bishops and the General Conference have authority to ask for a ruling on the constitutionality of proposed legislation. It is important to remember that the Judicial Council has before it a request from the Council of Bishops on whether or not the Protocol is constitutional.

Your introduction says you consulted with various groups about the omnibus. For example, did you consult with the Wesleyan Covenant Association about its formation of the Global Methodist Church?

Brooks: We did consult with representatives of both the Wesleyan Covenant Association and Good News, but as the broader Traditionalist coalition has made it clear for some time it intends to organize and prepare for separation of a Traditionalist version of Wesleyan faith and practice, we did not discuss the formation of the GMC. We focused that conversation on the need for the separation of the Church as envisioned in the Protocol to allow all persons in the Church to live out their vision of the way forward in mission and ministry.

Valdez Barker: Again, the timing of the deadline prohibited us from doing the fuller consultation with all the original writers of the main legislative pieces.  But, since they were already in the hands of the General Conference through the legislative process, we saw our process as refining what belongs to the General Conference.  Now, if supported by more groups, we want to continue to be in conversation with different groups to perfect what could be put before the full body, if they are willing.  We have already begun multiple conversations testing receptivity over these past few weeks.

Have you gotten feedback from annual conference delegations to determine whether delegates will vote for the omnibus proposal?

Brooks: This is the phase of our task in which we are most actively engaged at this time. The feedback we’ve received so far has been positive, but there have been no other annual conference delegation endorsements to date.

Is there a possibility that the proposal can be considered at the special called General Conference on May 8?

Brooks: Our AOP writing team is in a period of discernment about whether or not we will submit the AOP for consideration at the Special Session. The Judicial Council has clearly ruled that submission of such petitions is in order as long as the petition is in harmony with the call, where it is up to the General Conference itself to determine whether or not any particular petition is in harmony. Moreover, as the law of the church provides (Paragraph 14 of the Book of Discipline) the General Conference may include in its deliberations at a special session any petition that is not in harmony upon the affirming vote of two-thirds of the delegates present and voting on the question.

What do you think is the most important thing for United Methodists to understand about the Alaska Omnibus Proposal?

Brooks: This is the only proposal we know about that offers to avoid the contentious and likely disruptive debate over which of the two most popular proposals for moving forward ought to be first on the agenda, since it includes both the Protocol and the essence of the Christmas Covenant in the same petition subject to a single vote together.

What haven’t we covered in these questions that is key to understanding the proposal?

Brooks: Even though it’s impossible for a small group of ten people to be representative of the great diversity that is The United Methodist Church, we were as inclusive as we could be given the limited amount of time within which we had to work and given the limitations that are inherent in being mostly resident in one corner of the United States. We hope that the conversation about the AOP that is now afoot in the broader Church will bring additional voices on board as we look forward to the perfection of the proposal.

Valdez Barker: At the end of the day, this proposal was a faithful attempt at focusing the church on the mission. We have seen and experienced the painful divisions in 2019 and many years prior to that. There are many who are suffering and in need of God’s redemptive grace through our beautiful Wesleyan theology. The greatest gift that has been a part of the Methodist movement is the gift of diversity under the gift of God’s grace. It is time for us to focus on that and we believe offering this proposal allows the diversity of people within this branch of the Methodist movement to move on, focusing in on the people God has called us to serve. Some have been called to serve a more traditional understanding and others in a more expansive understanding of the polity, theology, and practice of the church. We believe God intends to use it ALL for God’s glory in the world. It is time for us to focus on blessing one another to move forward, responding faithfully to God’s call. So be it.

Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor of United Methodist Insight, which she founded in 2011.