JCD 1201

http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1322&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1201&EN=1204

Picky over whether or not the Judicial Council has jurisdiction, I was as surprised as the concurring opinion writer was that the Council took jurisdiction over a bishop’s forwarding a resolution about trial court penalties as if it were a question of law. But the Council did so they could tell the Church that only the trial court can set a penalty in a guilty verdict.

I hate to think that because a bishop said something, the Council took that as sufficient to take jurisdiction. The Council, in any case, is a human institution, subject to the same vagaries as the rest of us.

In our annual conference (Wisconsin), we have rules and we have policies. They are codified and published in the conference journal every year. The policies can change year to year with a simple majority vote and are not regulatory. The rules are as binding as regulatory just as is the Discipline, provided there is no conflict between them. They are subject to vote only after 24 hours for review.

Even policies may not contradict the Discipline which, in the instant case, the policy did as the Council points out.

Now that the matter is cleared up, despite the questionable basis for accepting jurisdiction, conferences cannot set penalties in cases where pastors conduct same sax marriages or union services. If nothing else, the Council has advertised what one conference wants to do. It will be interesting to see if a pattern develops where there occur trials of pastors on the violation noted. Will it influence trials in Northwest Texas Conference?