November 14, 2023
By. Rev. Dr. Scott N. Field
Last week Heather Hahn, Assistant News Editor of UM News, reported on the opening address given by Bishop Thomas Bickerton, President of the Council of United Methodist Bishops, at their meeting in North Carolina. An address by a bishop to an audience of other bishops might understandably get lost in the digital debris contending for attention on our mobile devices. But this address by the President of the Council of Bishops provides some insight into the thinking of UMC leaders. I have linked the UM News article below as well as access to the full text of Bishop Bickerton’s address, but Heather Hahn’s summary headline captured the general takeaway pretty well.
“Bishops urged to turn page on painful chapter”
Perhaps you are a little surprised that I agree with Bishop Bickerton’s sentiment. After all, the Wesleyan Covenant Association has been variously cast as the antagonist or the protagonist in the disaffiliation drama of the UMC. Nonetheless, I think Bishop Bickerton is right: it is time to turn the page.
Here are my three observations on what he had to say, including a suggestion that might open the way for all of us to make the UM General Conference in April-May a genuine page-turning event.
The bishops are wounded; so is everybody else.
Taking Bishop Bickerton’s address at face value, the Council of Bishops needed a “comfort zone” when they met last week. He leaned heavily on Henri Nouwen’s classic writing on Christian leadership, The Wounded Healer: The bishops, he said, are the wounded ones.
In a very real sense, it appears that at this point in our journey, we (the bishops) easily can be described as a part of the company of the “wounded ones.” … 2023 has been a year that has pressed our leadership within the church with circumstances, feelings, emotions, and deep seeded (sic) opinions that have not been taught in seminary classes or continuing education events. We have been confronted with people who have felt that we haven’t led well, who have felt betrayed, and who no longer feel safe or at home in a place that baptized, confirmed, and convicted them.
…
And, as a result, there are those of us in this room who are absolutely exhausted. Others of us in this room are deeply hurt by the words and actions of others. We, like many of our pastors, have said goodbye to people who we once called colleagues and friends. We are scarred and worn and, if we are honest, have days when we have wondered how much longer we could continue on the path we are following.
I can understand the feelings Bishop Bickerton expresses. In fact, this seems to be part of the disaffiliation journey overall. The bishops may feel wounded, but so does everyone else.
Imagine this: what if the coming session of the General Conference (April-May, 2024) began with an open microphone available to anyone who wanted to express their feelings about the disaffiliation process? Imagine if those Methodists whose congregations have disaffiliated already were invited to speak up, too. I imagine the line waiting to speak would be so long and the emotional weight so great that we wouldn’t drain the reservoir of anger, grief, disappointment, disillusionment, and disorientation even if we dedicated the entire eleven days of the conference to lancing the anguish. And that wouldn’t even account for the many Methodists who have simply left…maybe left for another church, maybe left to plant another church, or maybe left church behind altogether. The bishops may have needed to gather in a “comfort zone”, but let’s all recognize that nobody has come through the disaffiliation process unscathed.
The bishops might be healers for some; but for many the bishops are simply not to be trusted.
Anyone who has been seriously ill or who tries to rush post-surgery rehabilitation too far and too fast knows the temptation to “leap to health.” Nouwen’s work leads Christian leaders to focus on their “woundedness” in order to be able to lead others to healing. Bishop Bickerton apparently believes the United Methodist Church can somehow “leap to health” by promoting a positive narrative and supporting legislative proposals. He urged his episcopal colleagues to create and promote a narrative of hope, to strategize together about the future, and to silence any talk of disagreement, division, disaffiliation, and separation within the United Methodist Church.
Rather than rushing to support a new legislative package at the upcoming General Conference, I think the Council of Bishops may need a reality check. The bishops may feel wounded, but all of those expressions of anger and disgust directed at them, while personally painful, are also a feedback loop from the churches and people whom they are assigned to care for and lead. It may not be an intentionally invited feedback loop. It might come at them hot and angry; but it is feedback, nonetheless.
When 25% of the UM congregations in the US disaffiliate and the General Council on Finance and Administration recommends a 40% cut in general church budgets, it should be startlingly clear that business as usual is a thing of the past for the UMC.
Championing another re-organizing plan will be wholly inadequate. The re-formatted “regionalization plan”, despite being promoted as an effort at “contextualization” and a “decolonizing initiative”, is clearly a new version of the tired, racist gambit of “separate but equal” segregation through which, in this iteration, Africa and the Philippines, will be isolated from the US and the US will be insulated from the leadership of African and Filipino Methodists. This is as transparent as cheesecloth.
Besides, do we remember the last time United Methodists looked to the bishops to lead the denomination? Remember their proposal for the Commission on a Way Forward? How about their heavily promoted One Church Plan? And the 2019 Special Session of the General Conference that was supposed to resolve the long-simmering UMC conflict? How has that all turned out? Two words come to mind immediately: Dumpster Fire.
This “painful chapter” in the United Methodist Church is, in many ways, driven by votes of No Confidence in the denomination’s organizational leadership. Instead, the members and leaders of thousands of local congregations, after prayerful consideration, have taken their missional future into their own hands. Bishops should take note: one of the primary principles of adaptive leadership is listening to and heeding the voices of those who are not at the leadership table. Pay attention to the message from the folks who have been leaving, not just the institutionalists whose compensation depends on convincing people to #StayUMC.
A Simple Conditional Clause Will Allow Us All to Turn the Page
My father was a surgeon. A surgeon, as most of us know, is not the first doctor you consult about a particular condition or disease. Other means, therapies, and interventions are attempted first. Surgery is often considered a last resort. My dad, recognizing the often-radical nature of his work, told me that surgery is intentional wounding in order to allow for healing.
I think of this season of disaffiliation in that way. After decades of other attempts to deal with the internal conflict over theology, marriage, LGBTQIA+ concerns, and qualifications for ordination, United Methodists recognized that separation would be needed for conflict to be overcome. Separation would allow for both the United Methodist Church and what is now the Global Methodist Church to press forward unhindered with their theological commitments, missional priorities, and ways of making disciples of Jesus Christ. This separation process devolved into paragraph 2553 of the United Methodist Book of Discipline. The option of separation, however, has been reserved exclusively to congregations in the USA. We cannot “turn the page” as long as this discriminatory policy is allowed to remain. Continuing the forced detention of Methodists in Africa and the Philippines will inevitably extend debilitating denominational conflict in the United Methodist Church without resolution well into the future.
The General Conference, perhaps despite the bishops, can resolve this situation when they meet to vote in April-May. Providing an exit path for congregations in Central Conferences to depart will allow for the United Methodist Church in the US, Africa, and the Philippines to move forward with congregations that are committed to the UMC rather than constrained to remain within it. Instead of chronic conflict, the delegates to General Conference can allow for departure of all those congregations which, after prayerful discernment, choose to separate.
Surgery requires intentional wounding in pursuit of healing. The same goes for the future of Methodism. Adding a simple conditional clause to the UM News headline provides the direction that leads to a promising future:
By allowing Central Conferences a pathway of clear, transparent, and feasible disaffiliation, the United Methodist General Conference can turn the page on this painful chapter.
General Conference delegates, whether the conflict continues or is resolved by continuing a pathway to disaffiliation will be determined by your vote.
Here are links to the UM News article and to the text of Bishop Bickerton’s address:
UM News Service Article On Bishop Bickerton Address Nov 7 2023