A United Methodist Insight Editorial
To maintain our civilizations, we humans set up guardians of our governance. While this principle aims to uphold the rule of law, sometimes the principle itself leads to injustice. Such is the case for United Methodists with our “high court,” the Judicial Council.
2016 Book of Discipline
The 2016 Book of Discipline contains the theology, policies and procedures of The United Methodist Church. Photo by Mike DuBose, UMNS
According to the Book of Discipline, our collection of church doctrine and policies, the Judicial Council is to function much like the U. S. Supreme Court. As with the three-part governance of the United States of America, the church’s “high court” decides the constitutionality of policies enacted by General Conference, our “congress,” and of the executive actions of bishops.
The Oct. 25-27 session of the denomination’s “high court” returned a series of rulings around human sexuality that are disappointing many church people with different perspectives, judging from the reactions received by United Methodist Insight. Two rulings rejected using the Judicial Council to open new disciplinary processes in sexuality-related complaints against clergy, while another upheld the denomination’s current ministerial standards that ban consideration of a clergy candidate unless recommended by a board of ordained ministry.
These rulings were not unexpected from a Judicial Council composed of people endorsed by the denomination’s most conservative elements, a slate expected to “hold the line” against changing the UMC’s anti-LGBTQ stances. What troubles us about two of the most recent rulings, however, is the Judicial Council’s assertion that it has “no jurisdiction” to decide questions from two annual conferences regarding the constitutionality of the UMC’s “incompatible” language. We think the Judicial Council shirked its greater duty to the denomination in these two matters by a strict constructionist interpretation of its responsibilities.
Paragraph 2609 of the Book of Discipline outlines the Judicial Council’s powers. It’s clear from the context that deciding the constitutionality of United Methodist law is the high court’s utmost responsibility. The rub comes in the process: the Discipline provides that constitutionality can only be decided horizontally, not vertically. This means that the Council takes up constitutional issues only if the request comes from a vote of one-fifth of General Conference delegates or from a majority vote of the Council of Bishops.
In other words, those most affected by constitutional decisions, namely annual conferences, jurisdictional conferences, and Central Conferences that carry out church policies, have no recourse to question whether a United Methodist law conflicts with the denomination’s constitution. This restriction is like saying that the U. S. Supreme Court has no authority to decided constitutionality questions brought before it by American states.
If the 2016 General Conference proved anything, it proved that United Methodist governance has been co-opted by political forces whose only interest is in maintaining their power to prevent the church at all levels from accepting people of minority sexual orientations. The ideals of the United Methodist constitution – particularly Article 4’s provision that all are welcome in the church – are being trampled with no way to redress the grievance.
This sense of disenfranchisement – the growing perception that the constitution is being circumvented without recourse – fans the flames of schism. Combined with the Council of Bishops’ information blackout on the deliberations of the Commission on A Way Forward, the Judicial Council drives the wedge of schism deeper into the United Methodist fracture.
The ultimate question for fair and just human governance is: Who watches over the powers that be? Sadly, in the United Methodist context we can do no more than watch, because the vaunted “covenant” that our leaders keep imploring us to preserve shuts out our basic unit – the annual conference – from the process that determines our governance.
Since the specially called 2019 General Conference is to address the issue of the denomination’s “unity,” it would behoove delegates to begin drafting legislation now to enhance the Judicial Council’s scope of responsibility. This idea may seem premature, given that the Commission on A Way Forward hasn’t presented a report, but since we have no information on those deliberations, our General Conference delegates can craft other proposals. What’s more important, congregations and individuals in each annual conference likewise can begin suggesting their own solutions to their conference delegates for more equal governance in our church. Although this approach may seem rebellious, it has become clear that it is our only political recourse according to how The United Methodist Church is governed.
We suggest that clarifying the Judicial Council's authority to decide constitutional questions posed from our basic organizational unit, the annual conference, would be an excellent place to start.