JCD 1413

ee.umc.org/decisions/81536

 

Did They or Didn’t They?

 

During a special called meeting of the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference to discuss Discipline changes of the 2019 General Conference, a report was made which included a set of ten recommendations for giving direction to the conference regarding LGBTQIA+ matters.  The recommendations were mostly pastoral, showing care and respect, especially toward teenagers.  Someone asked the bishop if the conference was trying to tell the local churches what to do.  He said in essence, “Not really.”

 

And the Council accepted his decision that the recommendations were moot and hypothetical.  In other words, the vote to accept the ten recommendations was without meaning or effect in church law.

 

Based on comments in concur/dissent section of JCD 1413, that the matter was parliamentary rather than “legal” may have stemmed from the bishop’s decision that the recommendations, while voted on, were not then finally settled because the full report was not ever voted upon.  

 

This is a quirk in annual conference processes where elements of an agency’s or committee’s report to the conference may be voted on but unless the whole report is voted upon, the matter actually fails to become binding for the annual conference.  

 

So the bishop’s response was that the conference had not actually told anyone what to do even though the content of the report was extensively discussed and parts voted upon.  The real effect was that the recommendations were given the support of the respective votes.  Anyone at the session would come away with the impression that the conference e was supporting the LGBTQIA+ community, especially the kids.

 

But technically, the Council went along with the bishop that nothing binding happened.

 

Did they or didn’t they?  Not really, I guess.  But existentially, they did.  And without the word “aspirational” being used.

 

JCD 1414

ee.umc.org/decisions/81537

 

A PR Effort?

 

A second question of law was raised at the Greater New Jersey special called annual conference session.  In summary, the questioner wanted to know if the report could be acted on without a full vote on it.  The bishop gave the same answer that he gave for JCD 1413.  Nothing really happened because the report as a whole did not receive a vote.  

 

In a dissenting opinion, the argument was made that for that reason, the Council was premature in accepting jurisdiction.  The report was interim and would probably become final at the normal session of the conference a few months later.

JCD 1415

ee.umc.org/decisions/81538

 

May the Annual Conference Vote to Affirm a Statement by the Bishop or Board of Ordained Ministry Made During the course of the Conference?

 

Several more questions of law were placed before the bishop of the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference related to the authority of the annual conference to affirm or dissent from things that were said by the bishop and a conference board.

 

The bishop ruled the conference had no such authority.  Because that was at issue rather than what the bishop and board allegedly said, the Council could only deal with that question and affirmed the bishop’s response.

 

Again, a dissenting opinion brings additional light to the ruling.  Pointed out in the dissent is that the annual conference has again and again offered its opinion on matters brought before its plenary.  

Dozens of Council rulings have affirmed the right of the conference as a democratic institution to affirm or dissent.  Aspirational resolutions illustrate that right and have been affirmed by the Council many times.

JCD 1416

 ee.umc.org/decisions/81539

Having It Both ways

 

The Greater New Jersey bishop was peppered with questions of law over the special-called conference session and its report of a committee recommending steps that should be taken to follow up on the 2019 General Conference.

 

Someone asked the bishop if one of the recommendations was contrary to the Discipline, the one saying the Cabinet should recognize the congregational covenants in making appointments.  The covenants were, in practice, exclusively supportive of LGBTQIA+ issues and personnel so the bishop had to acknowledge that it was indeed contrary to the Discipline.  He so ruled and the Council supported him.

 

As pointed out in the commentaries on most of the other decisions coming out of this one annual conference, the apparent purpose of the report to the special session of the conference for Greater New Jersey had been to show full support for the homosexual and transgender community while avoiding anything said from becoming church law.

 

The impact of the report and of the voting on the ten recommendations was clear even if the bishop could then say, “Nothing happened.”  

 

The most vulnerable of the recommendations was number 7 because it gave a specific direction to the Cabinet that could have restricted the Cabinet’s discretion in making appointments.

 

I see it as aspirational since Cabinets are supposed to be fully aware of the temperament of the congregations and take that into account anyway in their deliberations.  But the bishop chose the same cloak, no vote on the report as a whole but if it had been voted upon, then number 7 was contrary to the Discipline.

 

That he could write that as his response to the question of law really was no skin off his nose.  The mindset of the Cabinet under his jurisdiction could leave number 7 as an unstated motivation.  I think the arcane technicalities of church law have been used to provide cover so that the conference leaders could do what their consciences said to do, given the negative context toward the LGBTQIA+ community laid down by General Conference, especially the latest iteration coming from the 2019 meeting.

 

JCD 1417

ee.umc.org/decisions/81544

 

Three more questions

 

The bishop of the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference receieved many written questions of law, as seen in this cluster of five Council decisions.  The fifth one here covers much the same ground in its summary of the main arguments raised against the conference committee’s report and its ten recommendations.

 

As I read the three concerns listed in this decision, one asks if the annual conference can delegate the modifying of church law as set by General Conference, another asks if the annual conference may offer resource people to work on congregational covenants, and finally, one asks if recommendation number 7 is legal.

 

The Council backed the bishop’s replies that, one, the recommendation and report did not delegate any authority to change anything set down by General Conference; two, the annual conference provides resources to help congregation with a lot of things already; and, three, the Council didn’t even bother to note the bishop ruled number 7 null and void, saying that without the vote on the whole report, nothing really happened.

 

Thus, the guerilla warfare against the prejudicial church laws against the LGBTQIA+ community won this skirmish.  

 

Given how often a bishop has to bring the whole report before the plenary after perfecting and voting on any issues noted in the report, it is impossible for me to presume that it was accidental that there was no vote on the whole report.  Just that one parliamentary maneuver provided legal cover for everything that happened that day.  But it could have been accidental!  The Church is a very human institution.

JCD 1371

www.umc.org/decisions/79265

Episcopal Activism Gone Awry

Most of us are aware that racism in the United States has led to a new kind of “white flight.”  In the 1960s, it was to the suburbs.  But now it is to private schools paid for by public tax dollars but with no real accountability to the public.  When a bishop proud of his reputation on such matters decided to do something about it, he got eleven conference agencies to vote to take action and then channeled their energy through the Greater New Jersey Conference Board of Trustees to enter a law suit to do something about it.

The Judicial Council caught him cutting one major corner, not letting the annual conference vote to support the action, a Disciplinary requirement, before the Trustees (the appropriate legal entity) could enter such a legal action.  He wanted it done on the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education case, four days before annual conference.  He got the conference’s approval after the suit was entered but the Council did not let him get away with it.

The Council is not being inadvertently racist here.  The majority on the Council are people of color.

They are sending a message.  There is the rule of law in our denomination.  Just because someone had a good motivation about a real problem does not release them from their commitment to uphold the Discipline.  

Whether the bishop was on an ego trip or was simply careless about church law, he chose to add the symbolism, the anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling, rather than call an emergency meeting of the annual conference.  By the way, just a few months before, he did call an emergency meeting of the annual conference for another purpose, according to my sources.

Embarrassing, no doubt about it.  The suit had to be withdrawn, which is sad.

JCD 1372

www.umc.org/decisions/79266

A Question of Terminology

The Greater New Jersey layman bringing the question about directing that local church conferences should be held simultaneously in a central meeting place got lost in a new bad practice, using the phrase “request a ruling of law.”  No one brought to the attention of the layman who he wanted to answer that question.  If he wanted the bishop to answer it, he should have followed the route for using a question of law Par. 2609.6).  The bishop would then get to rule (as he could do in this case).  And his ruling had the weight of law until the Council acted on it.  In this case, the Council reversed his decision, not because it was wrong, but because it was inappropriate for him to have answered a question that had been incorrectly raised for adjudication by the Council.

The Council would have had to rule as it did because questions of law have to be about something specific being acted upon by the conference.  No such motion was before or had been passed by the plenary related to the question.  The lay person would have been wise to make a motion challenging the abuse of the Discipline on this point and then, if need be, bring the question of law.

Had the lay person requested a declaratory decision (Par. 2610) which the conference could have discussed (which would have been better for the request), voted upon, and thus referred to the Council, there could well have been a ruling to counter the way decisions about church conferences were being made.

JCD 1349

www.umc.org/decisions/74477

Forcing Pastors to Go Part-time

The Greater New Jersey Annual Conference, like many conferences around the country, is facing the problem of diminishing numbers of churches that can afford full-time pastors.  These smaller churches are also diminishing in capacity to afford paying full apportionments, though that is not identified in the bishop’s response to the “request for a decision of law.”  Other words are used to speak of lack of financial strength in the churches.

To help resolve this problem, the bishop and his cabinet have come up with a plan that really only identifies which pastors are not getting their churches to pay full apportionments and threatening them with being put in part-time appointments as punishment.

The reason my opinion is this stark is that the plan’s legality became cemented in church law in New Jersey until the Council ruled on it.

Here’s how it works:  When a question of law is asked of the bishop at an annual conference session, his/her decision becomes law for that conference.  The only thing that can modify or reverse that legalization would be if the Council overturns or modifies the bishop’s decision.

So the bishop asks the dean of his cabinet to raise a question of law to which the answer supports the cabinet’s (bishop’s) plan and then she/he has full legal power to plow ahead with the cabinet’s plan.

I have not seen this kind of manipulation before in Judicial Council decisions..  Maybe other bishops have just been a lot more subtle about it.  Church law geeks have known about the possibility since the 1980s.

The Discipline provides that a bishop may initiate a part-time appointment for “missional purposes.  What the New Jersey plan does is allow the bishop to change the definition of “missional” to include failure to raise money.  

Let me say that the problem this bishop’s plan seeks to resolve is real.  The demographics of the United Methodist Church in the United States are pretty grim.  Many conferences have more pastors than churches.  Many churches have elderly members dying off without younger folks joining.  Many new ethnic populations are moving into formerly all-white neighborhoods around the churches and few pastors are bi-lingual and capable of working with the new populations around them.  –That’s truly “missional” as a concern.

An old saying in the South is that you get more flies with honey than with swatting.  This bishop’s plan is a not so subtle form of swatting.  

The Council has brought an end, at least on paper, to this nonsense.  They saw that the plan was not up for a vote and that the questioner made no reference to any specific case representing a problem with the plan or a way for the plan to resolve it.  So they took no jurisdiction.  Just to be sure no one missed it, they added that “the bishop’s decision of law is reversed.”  So the bishop can no longer say he has legal authority bolstered by the Judicial Council’s support.  They have not given it so the bishop better be very careful about his use of the cabinet’s policy.  By using the policy in an actual case, he faces getting a referral to the Judicial Council for a real case.  The Council just might rule against the policy.  They did not like his decision this time.

JCD 1328

http://www.umc.org/decisions/69704

Nomination of Conference Agencies’ Officers

Why were questions of law asked over something as drab, dull, and arcane as the work of the conference nominating committee?  Similar questions were raised when the bishop was in Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference.  See JCDs 1066 and 1073.  He even referenced them in his response.  Isn’t that a little weird?

The questions I wish were answered are, “Does the bishop sit on the nominating committee?”  Or “does the bishop select the nominating committee chairperson?”  Or “how much influence does the bishop have over the nominating committee?”

I’m with the concurring opinion on this one.  Only maybe I can be a little more blunt.  I, who am notorious for seeing power grabs by bishops, see the real possibility that the bishop is using “eliminating discrimination” as a Trojan horse to allow him to influence the selection of key officers by means of nomination.  After all, if a bishop’s opinion is known, influence of command is a very powerful tool.

Say you are a member of the Conference Council on Finance and Administration and you know the bishop would love to see Joe Bloe as chairperson.  You’d know about that because the conference nominating committee came in with its recommendation of officers, one for each position.  And the bishop would know how you voted because most votes are “show of hands.”  And say you really hoped your next appointment was a better one than where you are now.  You might be willing to vote for Joe Bloe, even if he wasn’t as sharp as Jane Doe.

What you may sense is that the bishop has subtly taken control of the financial agencies of the conference like the Foundation and now would have a degree of control of CCFA.  But you are not a political animal and don’t care about such things.

Don’t many committees save energy when meeting, letting others make decisions so they don’t have to expend the effort?  Don’t most people think of committee work as a kind of boring joke?

Even so, there are people on committees that understand just how much power their decisions have.  And they learned that the bishop is not supposed to have control over legislative matters, which he or she can gain just by having the power of nomination.

In a healthy conference, everyone would be assured when they were told that nominations are just suggestions.  In one where people were nervous about the bishop, they would not be reassured and would seek outside review.  Is this what is really happening in this case?

What is a Council to do?

Given the world wide nature of the denomination, the Council plays it straight.  (The bishop got his way.)

Back in the old days, when the Methodist Church encompassed seven jurisdictions, six in the United States and essentially one for the rest of the world, Council decisions could be made because its members knew the bishops and their conferences and could slant their decisions, finding creative ways of putting up barriers around the bishops whom they didn’t trust.

It may not be all that hard to do in our global Church.  Have you noticed that certain bishops are tested before the Council and most aren’t?  Maybe the number of rogue bishops isn’t all that large.  And maybe the Council could use some research help to spot them.

JCD 1261

http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1383&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1201&EN=1269

IS “A FUTURE WITH HOPE, INC.” A UNITED METHODIST AGENCY?

If you feel like you’ve seen the largest part of the text of this decision before, it is because everything down to the analysis is verbatim from JCD 1259.  It was copied to give this decision its full background and identification of the question being ruled upon.

This docket item comes back to the Council from the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference from the fall session where the Council said it needed to see the incorporation papers in order to see if the emergency agency set up to help meet the challenges of Hurricane Sandy in 2012 is an agency of the conference and therefore a conference liability.

The Council got the papers and ruled that while related to the conference by virtue of its officers and the funding being from the conference, the corporation was not otherwise organically related.  Legally, the funds and officers could be from anywhere according to the by-laws.  While the goals of the corporation and the conference are the same, the corporation arose to meet emergency needs of the conference.  It was time-saving to set up the administrative “costs of office space, accounting, and support services to be underwritten” by the conference.  While that makes the corporation seem like it “looks, walks, and quacks like a duck,” in fact the two bodies are legally separate.  There was no vote by the conference to be a guarantor of the corporation, which is the bishop’s key argument.  The Council upheld the bishop’s ruling.  The corporation does not fit the Book of Discipline’s definition of an “agency.”  While the corporation could seek funding from the conference beyond the administrative aid already promised, one fourth of funds raised would remain in the local church, and the conference could vote down such a request.

The Council warns that the relationship is so close that the boundaries between the corporation and the conference will have to be carefully monitored on both sides so that liability is not intermingled.  This is especially true because of the emergency nature of the establishment of the corporation.

See the concluding thughts below for further remarks.

JCD 1256

http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1377&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1201&EN=1259

EMERGENCY ACTIONS

The Greater New Jersey Annual Conference made an aggressive response to the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy.  To do it required many decisions be made between annual conference sessions to line up strategy, funding, and staff to meet the emergencies caused by the storm.  Building on a conference committee already in place and collaborating with the Conference Council on Finance and Administration, the new program was implemented.  News reports in church media indicate the plan’s impact has been positive and significant if inadequate compared to what could be done by an open and effective governmental program.

When the procedures followed to set up the plan and the plan itself were dealt with, most of its action had to be passed after the fact.  The Annual Conference plenary supported the whole thing.

Questions were brought related to possible violations of the Discipline about the handling of finances, staffing, and shifting or responsibilities between Annual Conferences.  The bishop realized after conference that the submitted questions were not just discussion concerns but requests for rulings.  Because there had been no motion from the floor (see JCD 1244) to send them on the Council, he held back dealing with them until he realized that no matter what, a response from him was required, after which he complied.  His late response generated an amicus brief and he was allowed to respond to that as well prior to the Fall session of the Council.

In his response, he concurred that there were violations of the Discipline regarding the interim reallocation of funds but he found no violation in the other interim shifts.  The Council concurred.  I’m sure that the emergency nature of Hurricane Sandy influenced nearly everyone in the conference and on the Council to support the steps actually taken (no sanctions were provided by the Council for the reallocation of funds).

A dissenting opinion was not as flexible, even though the dissenter’s home conference has experienced hurricanes as well, including a superstorm this week.  However, his point is that the conference may have set in place far more flexibility than the Discipline allows with respect to future functioning of the new policies set up under emergency situations.  The dissenter’s warning will need to be heeded by watchdogs in the conference.  If someone gets an undue advantage, they will take it.

JCD 1257

http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1378&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1201&EN=1259

EXECUTIVE ACTION WITHOUT LEGISLATIVE APPROVAL

The concerns raised at the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference were divided into four separate decisions, of which this is the second.

The second concern is that without Annual Conference prior approval, executive actions which set up agencies under the aegis of the United Methodist Church could turn into a free field for the executive branch (bishop’s office) to direct finances, staff, and authority, leaving the Annual Conference in the position of being a rubber stamp.  In fact, because the agency set up to meet the emergency of last year’s superstorm, A Future with Hope corporation, is already an independent legal incorporated entity, the fact that it was formed under illegal circumstances would have no effect.

Again, no sanctions are suggested, just as no direction is offered to give a path to legal actions in emergency situations.  Maybe it is presumed that an emergency session of the conference could be called and plans for agency development, financing, and staffing could be presented for review, possible adjustments, and approval.

My contention is that bishops are moving toward more and more control and away from control being within the annual conference where it has resided for the history of the Methodist movement.  The Judicial Council is drawing a line in the sand as a reminder that there is such a thing as separation of powers and bishops must not forget it.

Watchdogs beware.  Bishops somehow do not remember Judicial Council Decisions that they would not like if they even read them in the first place.

JCD 1258

http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1379&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1201&EN=1259

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

This third concern about the interim actions taken in Greater New Jersey Annual Conference relates to the conflict of interest of having the chairperson of the Conference Council on Finance and Administration also head up the A Future of Hope corporation.

Based on Paragraph 612.2.b of the 2012 Discipline, the Council is “ag’in’” it and requires that the individual decide which position he prefers because he cannot have both.  There is no statement about the Council retaining jurisdiction to be sure this decision is followed.  But I expect it will.  

It is just these kinds of issues that needed to be raised prior to permission being granted by the conference.  “It seemed like a good idea at the time” is not an excuse for lack of proper review of plans before their execution.

Minor point: The actions were taken partly in 2012 while the 2008 Discipline was in effect.  However, that Discipline says the same thing as the new Discipline does about not holding office in two places with a conflict of interest.

JCD 1259

http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1380&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1201&EN=1259

CONFERENCE LIABILITY

Here is the fourth decision related to the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference concerns about the response to Hurricane Sandy undertaken in the past year.  At issue is financial liability that may remain despite the separation of A Future with Hope corporation.  

Rather than make a ruling based on the information sent by the conference, the Council asked to see all the documents related to the corporation before deciding the matter.  So the Council will review the documents it receives and see if it can determine the culpability of the conference.