Showing posts with label JCD 1032. Show all posts
Showing posts with label JCD 1032. Show all posts
Monday, July 14, 2014
Ignoring the Discipline Doesn’t Doom Us - III
In my previous posting on this topic, I gave two reasons why the United Methodist Church will not split. One, the threat of splitting succeeded in getting legislation through General Conference so why split? Two, the litigation over properties and heading up half a Church make splitting an irrational goal.
I have two more reasons there will not be a split. One. while certain conservative factions have used the emotional blackmail to cover their agenda of taking over the whole denomination, another caucus was carrying on power grabs which went unnoticed because everyone was focused on the homosexuality issues and the potential split. Two, I do not think my friends who disagree with me (there are some on both sides who do not!) will finally break fellowship.
With regard to the first, let me put in a little more history. The coalition between the conservatives and the Council of Bishops began to break down when some bishops who had Gay children began to advocate for a return to not having those new laws which they saw as genuinely hurtful to their children and counter to the pastoral ministry to which they had been ordained.
As the older liberals retired or passed away, their younger successors jumped into the fray on the side of homosexuals. They knew homosexual classmates at college and seminary. Just like every other minority in America grew with the expanding population following WW II, so did the gay community. In 1988, the dynamics changed. Without the bishops and old line liberals to support them, the conservatives discovered a new partner. An African delegate spoke very strongly in support of the new laws. That should not have been a surprise. Our denomination's missionaries up till WW II had tended to be much more evangelical than the main body of the church in the US. Efforts began to form a coalition between non-European delegates to General Conference with the conservatives pushing to sustain the anti-homosexual laws.
While the liberals and conservatives, each with new support, became more and more confrontational, the noise and heat generated not only covered those who wanted to take control of the denomination as happened in the Southern Baptist Church and others, it covered up the accruing of powers by the Council of Bishops.
Beginning in 1980, Bishops put in legislation that put them in charge of almost every aspect of handling complaints, including initiating them against pastors: essentially letting Bishops carry on the judicial functions of the annual conference. Bishops essentially ended serious discussion of conference budgets by having the Judicial Council rule that a “line item” was a category and no longer a specific budgetary item for consideration by the plenary (JCD 663). Bishops took responsibility for heading up every general board and agency and having five or more other bishops on the governing bodies of each agency. Bishops tried to take over who may become members of the local church but this time were thwarted by a conservative Judicial Council (JCD 1032), a decision which the vast majority of the denomination condemned. Bishops persist in developing reorganization plans in which they are voting officers of the key annual conference council and again, the Judicial Council has thwarted them, only to have another conference plan get referred to them (there are too many decisions to cite). The bishops wanted to establish a full time bishop as the executive secretary of the Council of Bishops, which while voted down in 2012, is practically being done by a retired bishop. The agenda of the 2012 General Conference was dominated by A Call to Action and Plan UMC and its variations to the point where only a little legislation was actually accomplished. And it seems to me that the Council of Bishops is slowly building an alternative program body which, while utilizing some boards and agencies, is going to be under their own control.
I do not see the Council of Bishops allowing a split, not while they are busy building their own “Kingdom of God.” Even if my perception is wrong on this, bishops know the costs of litigation and will fight tooth and nail to avoid it happening. They will not allow schism.
Finally, as I wrote to my young friend in my original letter to him, “There are those who want you and me to fight and be alienated . . . and inadvertently support their ambition to rule the UMC! I know your heart. I think your know mine. We may have different views on homosexuality at the moment and we may differ on how certain passages of the Discipline are so important that we should split the denomination over them.
“Who knows what success the power seekers will have? That is not going to change my relationship with you. If the schismatics win, we may have less contact but only if we let it. If the unifiers win, I don't see you leaving. You'd stay to try to figure what happened and learn from it and maybe ‘live to fight another day.’
“My friend, thank you for asking. I have learned a lot in my 79 years, I have watched a lot of history, denominational and otherwise, as well as have learned a lot of history during college and seminary and since. I enjoyed laying out some of my learnings and views on what has happened. I think they are true and that I can support every one of them with information that you would not be able to ignore, though agreeing could be very hard. That's okay. I have not got your whole summary of your experience and belief. I may change some or more of my views once I've heard back from you. That's what true faith is about, discovering the truth in Scripture, experience, tradition, and reason so we deal with reality and not with the fantasies of ideology.”
Saturday, May 14, 2011
JCM 1187
http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1308&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1100&EN=1189
California-Pacific Conference took its shot at getting JCD 1032 reconsidered and received a patient response spelling out that the Council does not have to choose to reconsider something after multiple requests that it do so. The issue is the same. The General Conference has to resolve it.
Writers in church law will find the rephrasing of the old arguments quite well done so that it doesn’t come across as “boiler plate.”
California-Pacific Conference took its shot at getting JCD 1032 reconsidered and received a patient response spelling out that the Council does not have to choose to reconsider something after multiple requests that it do so. The issue is the same. The General Conference has to resolve it.
Writers in church law will find the rephrasing of the old arguments quite well done so that it doesn’t come across as “boiler plate.”
JCM 1158
http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1278&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1100&EN=1189
Arkansas and Northern Illinois Conferences sought to get the Council to reconsider on its own Decision 1032, the five year old ruling that has caused so much controversy, namely the right of a pastor to have the discretion about whether or not a person is ready for church membership. And you thought it was about a pastor who turned away a gay constituent from joining the church.
As I understand the facts of that old case, the pastor did not refuse the gay man. In fact, they were on very friendly terms. The man chose not to join a denomination that was so strongly against sexual activity between same sex couples.
The issue was that the bishop wanted that discretion over membership and did not want the pastor to have it.
In all my years of ministry, I always thought I had discretion about an applicant’s readiness for membership and even exercised it once with a confirmand. I never expected to have to do it and, with that one exception, I didn’t.
I could go into a long dissertation about how that weakness of discipline has so mixed our denomination that we are becoming more Southern Baptist than Methodist. But not for this review.
So I agreed with JCD 1032 on the basis of the facts and the traditional role of pastors indicated in Paragarphs 214 and 225.
I disagree with the anti-homosexual portions of the Discipline, strongly! But because I view JCD 1032 differently than the bishops and the church media, no one is paying attention to my opinions.
In this memorandum, the Council says the requests do not rise to the standard of a manifest injustice or clear error of law, and were not brought by a party to the original case. They took no jurisdiction.
The really good stuff, other than ignoring what I think the real issue was in the original decision, is in the three concurring opinions. They add humor, history, and mostly good legal thinking and are well worth reading.
Arkansas and Northern Illinois Conferences sought to get the Council to reconsider on its own Decision 1032, the five year old ruling that has caused so much controversy, namely the right of a pastor to have the discretion about whether or not a person is ready for church membership. And you thought it was about a pastor who turned away a gay constituent from joining the church.
As I understand the facts of that old case, the pastor did not refuse the gay man. In fact, they were on very friendly terms. The man chose not to join a denomination that was so strongly against sexual activity between same sex couples.
The issue was that the bishop wanted that discretion over membership and did not want the pastor to have it.
In all my years of ministry, I always thought I had discretion about an applicant’s readiness for membership and even exercised it once with a confirmand. I never expected to have to do it and, with that one exception, I didn’t.
I could go into a long dissertation about how that weakness of discipline has so mixed our denomination that we are becoming more Southern Baptist than Methodist. But not for this review.
So I agreed with JCD 1032 on the basis of the facts and the traditional role of pastors indicated in Paragarphs 214 and 225.
I disagree with the anti-homosexual portions of the Discipline, strongly! But because I view JCD 1032 differently than the bishops and the church media, no one is paying attention to my opinions.
In this memorandum, the Council says the requests do not rise to the standard of a manifest injustice or clear error of law, and were not brought by a party to the original case. They took no jurisdiction.
The really good stuff, other than ignoring what I think the real issue was in the original decision, is in the three concurring opinions. They add humor, history, and mostly good legal thinking and are well worth reading.
JCM 1160
http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1280&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1100&EN=1189
Northern Illinois persisted in seeking clarification re: JCD 1032. They also asked if revising Paragraph 225 by replacing the discretionary “may” with the absolute “shall” superseded JCD 1032.
The Council pulled out the “boiler plate” (legal slang for stuff that becomes standard language in similar cases) they used in JCM 1158. They took no jurisdiction.
Beth Capen added her two cents worth in an extra mixed opinion. Her material is not a straight repeat. While starting as she did in JCM 1158, she explores the Disciplines since 1939. The trend is to show less discretion available to the pastor as the passages are modified through 2008.
The Disciplines I read in my early years were much the same as the 1939 Discipline written when the northern and southern churches merged. It says, “When the Pastor is satisfied as to the genuineness of their faith, their acceptance of the baptismal and membership vows, and their knowledge of and willingness to keep the rules and regulations of The Methodist Church, he shall present the candidates to the congregation….”
I was in seminary when the Discipline said, “When they shall have given proof of genuineness of their faith…,” presumably to the pastor responsible for their membership training, the pastor could then present them for membership.
In the north, the church followed the Lutheran/Catholic milieu and had confirmation classes. In the south the milieu was Baptist, membership training was Sunday School, and people, and children as young as 5 or 6, could present themselves for baptism and membership at any public service (worship, revival, Bible class, or prayer group) and could join on the spot at the discretion of the pastor which he rarely used unless an ethnic person was involved.
That oversimplifies how people became members but both show that the pastor was presumed to have some discretion. Practice led most pastors to never use their discretion in order to expand the membership of their churches. And the Disciplines tended to follow that while retaining the word “may.”
This memorandum, like that in JCM 1158, lays at the feet of the General Conference the responsibility to clarify what we should be doing.
Unlike what I’ve seen from Council rulings and members’ opinions, I believe JCD 1032 was not an activist decision “making law.” It was very conservative in the sense that it described where the Discipline really was, no matter what the bishop wanted. That was pretty gutsy, but not surprising given the Council’s membership at the time.
What worries me is that with the requiring of pastors to take in anyone who presents him/herself for membership, I can see a small ultra-conservative church joining one of our congregations, taking it over because the pastor could not stop them under the 2008 Discipline. More realistically, I can see Southern Baptists dissatisfied with their pastor, joining one of our churches and asserting their polity once they became officers of the local church and sending off people into the ministry in our denomination who practiced a congregational polity once they joined an annual conference.
Northern Illinois persisted in seeking clarification re: JCD 1032. They also asked if revising Paragraph 225 by replacing the discretionary “may” with the absolute “shall” superseded JCD 1032.
The Council pulled out the “boiler plate” (legal slang for stuff that becomes standard language in similar cases) they used in JCM 1158. They took no jurisdiction.
Beth Capen added her two cents worth in an extra mixed opinion. Her material is not a straight repeat. While starting as she did in JCM 1158, she explores the Disciplines since 1939. The trend is to show less discretion available to the pastor as the passages are modified through 2008.
The Disciplines I read in my early years were much the same as the 1939 Discipline written when the northern and southern churches merged. It says, “When the Pastor is satisfied as to the genuineness of their faith, their acceptance of the baptismal and membership vows, and their knowledge of and willingness to keep the rules and regulations of The Methodist Church, he shall present the candidates to the congregation….”
I was in seminary when the Discipline said, “When they shall have given proof of genuineness of their faith…,” presumably to the pastor responsible for their membership training, the pastor could then present them for membership.
In the north, the church followed the Lutheran/Catholic milieu and had confirmation classes. In the south the milieu was Baptist, membership training was Sunday School, and people, and children as young as 5 or 6, could present themselves for baptism and membership at any public service (worship, revival, Bible class, or prayer group) and could join on the spot at the discretion of the pastor which he rarely used unless an ethnic person was involved.
That oversimplifies how people became members but both show that the pastor was presumed to have some discretion. Practice led most pastors to never use their discretion in order to expand the membership of their churches. And the Disciplines tended to follow that while retaining the word “may.”
This memorandum, like that in JCM 1158, lays at the feet of the General Conference the responsibility to clarify what we should be doing.
Unlike what I’ve seen from Council rulings and members’ opinions, I believe JCD 1032 was not an activist decision “making law.” It was very conservative in the sense that it described where the Discipline really was, no matter what the bishop wanted. That was pretty gutsy, but not surprising given the Council’s membership at the time.
What worries me is that with the requiring of pastors to take in anyone who presents him/herself for membership, I can see a small ultra-conservative church joining one of our congregations, taking it over because the pastor could not stop them under the 2008 Discipline. More realistically, I can see Southern Baptists dissatisfied with their pastor, joining one of our churches and asserting their polity once they became officers of the local church and sending off people into the ministry in our denomination who practiced a congregational polity once they joined an annual conference.
JCD 1164
JCD 1164
http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1284&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1100&EN=1189
All earlier attempts by annual conference to define the word “status” in Paragraph 4 have been in reference to persons seeking or holding ministerial standing in our denomination. Northern Illinois Conference was trying to apply it to church membership. By opening the definition of “status” to include sexual orientation and transgender identity for their annual conference, the hope was to provide a precedent other conferences could follow.
The Council pointed out that they have persistently said that the definition of “status” as they do in this decision was the task of the General Conference.
The analysis is a helpful study of the judicial efforts of our denomination to consider this issue. I find such good research by Council members helps clarify where we are in this issue, making the Council’s work more helpful, and therefore more interesting.
http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1284&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1100&EN=1189
All earlier attempts by annual conference to define the word “status” in Paragraph 4 have been in reference to persons seeking or holding ministerial standing in our denomination. Northern Illinois Conference was trying to apply it to church membership. By opening the definition of “status” to include sexual orientation and transgender identity for their annual conference, the hope was to provide a precedent other conferences could follow.
The Council pointed out that they have persistently said that the definition of “status” as they do in this decision was the task of the General Conference.
The analysis is a helpful study of the judicial efforts of our denomination to consider this issue. I find such good research by Council members helps clarify where we are in this issue, making the Council’s work more helpful, and therefore more interesting.
JCM 1165
http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1285&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1100&EN=1189
Minnesota Conference jumped into the fray over JCD 1032 by asking if that decision was consistent with the “civil rights” paragraph in the Book of Discipline, Paragraph 4.
The Council responded exactly as they did in JCMs 1158 and 1160 verbatim, (they have no jurisdiction) even to the opinions added at the end . . . with one little twist. Beth Capen called on church leaders not to misinterpret JCD 1032 as saying homosexuals may not join the church.
Minnesota Conference jumped into the fray over JCD 1032 by asking if that decision was consistent with the “civil rights” paragraph in the Book of Discipline, Paragraph 4.
The Council responded exactly as they did in JCMs 1158 and 1160 verbatim, (they have no jurisdiction) even to the opinions added at the end . . . with one little twist. Beth Capen called on church leaders not to misinterpret JCD 1032 as saying homosexuals may not join the church.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
JCD 1178
http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1298&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1100&EN=1189
Northern Illinois used creativity to try to get around JCD 1032 by directing its BOM to train pastors that they could only use “no more than a profession of faith and vows of the Baptismal Covenant to be required of new church members in this Annual Conference.” They made the legal decision that some things in the Discipline superseded JCD 1032 and then asked the Council if they were correct.
The Council did not take kindly to the conference’s pre-empting the responsibilities of the Council and they did not take kindly to the conference asking them to rule the correctness of their actions.
The concurring opinion was not a straight repeat of previous such opinions. But the point was the same: This is a problem for General Conference.
Northern Illinois used creativity to try to get around JCD 1032 by directing its BOM to train pastors that they could only use “no more than a profession of faith and vows of the Baptismal Covenant to be required of new church members in this Annual Conference.” They made the legal decision that some things in the Discipline superseded JCD 1032 and then asked the Council if they were correct.
The Council did not take kindly to the conference’s pre-empting the responsibilities of the Council and they did not take kindly to the conference asking them to rule the correctness of their actions.
The concurring opinion was not a straight repeat of previous such opinions. But the point was the same: This is a problem for General Conference.
JCD 1179
http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1299&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1100&EN=1189
This request for a declaratory decision from Northern Illinois dealt with a minor shift from what they asked for in JCD 1178. In that decision., the matter related to transfers of membership. This request relates to those seeking membership by confession of faith.
This time the Council put in its ruling the different routes to membership that the General Conference left when it only modified Paragraph 225 and not Paragraph 214. While sending the two separate requests might have covered that difference, the Council overturned the Conference resolution for the same reasons it did in JCD 1178.
Again, the concurring opinions add a little more background in church law that are of value.
This request for a declaratory decision from Northern Illinois dealt with a minor shift from what they asked for in JCD 1178. In that decision., the matter related to transfers of membership. This request relates to those seeking membership by confession of faith.
This time the Council put in its ruling the different routes to membership that the General Conference left when it only modified Paragraph 225 and not Paragraph 214. While sending the two separate requests might have covered that difference, the Council overturned the Conference resolution for the same reasons it did in JCD 1178.
Again, the concurring opinions add a little more background in church law that are of value.
Summary remarks for JCDs 1152-1181
The Council faced thirty-one docket items. Around half were memoranda, rulings that mainly included lack of jurisdiction, deferrals, and requests for reconsideration. But only a small handful showed no rationale. This Council has helped clarify church law, precedent, and their grounds for such rulings. By doing so, they perform an invaluable service to anyone trying to approach them with issues needing adjudication.
The other half also provided extensive analysis and careful interpretations which showed their thinking about how they reached their decisions.
The Council’s judicious use of concurring and dissenting opinions continues to be very informative and valuable for legal and historical reasons. This body of work, built on research, provides immense help to those who seek legal information to deal with complicated issues, from property insurance to forming provisional annual conferences.
The next step in the development of a mature canon of church law is the collation of the hard work showing up in the decisions of this Council. Indexes available from Associates in Advocacy and whatever is used by the Judicial Council already provide outlines for such a canon.
The Council is reaching its stride for the Church and deserves much credit for its effective service.
A large docket raised many issues. I identify six important ones.
1. JCD 1032 got a lot of attention with requests for reconsideration, with about a fourth of the items on the docket. The Council properly called upon the General Conference to resolve the issue but they, like the rest of the denomination, tend to see the problem as one of unwisely restricting pastoral authority and not of episcopal over-reach as I do (see my rationale under the comment on JCM 1160). Northern Illinois provided five docket items in their effort to overturn JCD 1032 and the Council began using “boiler plate” passages to simply say, “Work through General Conference, not us!”
2. I was deeply disappointed in the continuing pattern of the Council relying on their 1997 JCD 799 and failing to face up to violations of church law in personnel cases whenever an advocate used questions of law to appeal. Previous Council sessions have chosen to take jurisdiction in JCDs 1031 and 1135. If the Council accepted my arguments under JCM 1166 as well as what I’ve written in this blog about JCD 799 on January 11, 2011, and chosen to look into the things done by local church and conference leaders to the pastors seeking justice through the Council, in most of those cases, they would find as they did in JCD 1156, “Lack of diligence, integrity, care, or compassion in dealing with a case almost always results in irreparable harm to both the individual and the church. That has usually happened by the time a case of this nature gets to the Judicial Council.”
3. I was equally elated to see the Council’s JCD 1156 where a request for a declaratory decision was honored, and not summarily dismissed under JCD 1048. This Council can do exceptional analysis on many things as this set of decisions from November of 2010 shows. That excellence was applied to the personnel case brought in this docket item. The Council has just seen the tip of the iceberg of dirty tricks and machinations certain bishops and certain conferences have done to pastors.
4. I am glad for the flexibility that provides for Council action ad interim. But the trend so far, though small, is worrisome. Two decisions were handled outside the Council’s normal sessions at the request of two different sets of bishops. Is that showing some kind of privilege allowed to bishops?
(Ed. Note: I wish the Council had a way to handle personnel matters ad interim in order to sort out questions about abuse of fair process while it was happening rather than long after it happened. I think an annual conference judiciary team or maybe one on a jurisdictional level could handle such claims, especially in the administrative track.)
5. The number of Central Conference requests was unusually high. That appeals came from Africa and Eastern Europe is a sign of their growth. The Philippines has used the Council for a very long time.
(Ed. note: The Council’s four responses over the past year to one case may be giving them a better view of what is happening there. One clue is that for JCD 1152, the College of Bishops reported that the DSs went along with the change of site for an annual conference. In their report to the Council for JCM 1162, they admitted that the interim bishop appointed his own DSs to make that decision when the true DSs chose not to respond to the interim bishop. No matter which DSs were properly appointed, the College of Bishops was caught in a lie to the Council. I pray the Council will watch that situation carefully.)
6. Not having the actual questions of law nor other facts in front of me, I can only guess that JCM 1156, like JCM 1130, were seen by the Council as their best way to handle what may have been antagonistic questions meant to embarrass the respondents in those cases. My experience has been quite the opposite, that questions of law have been raised to help a respondent out of a bad situation. I can believe, as the concurring opinion in JCM 1130 states, that confidentiality was an important factor in the Council's decision. The problem remains though how to maintain it but not let a bishop off the hook for unfair decisions he or she made in a case.
7. Finally, I apologize to those seeking wisdom on financial and property matters for my not knowing enough to be sure my observations provide you with help on the decisions of interest to you. Your observations would be valuable. The material in this blog can be easily changed when the facts warrant it.
The other half also provided extensive analysis and careful interpretations which showed their thinking about how they reached their decisions.
The Council’s judicious use of concurring and dissenting opinions continues to be very informative and valuable for legal and historical reasons. This body of work, built on research, provides immense help to those who seek legal information to deal with complicated issues, from property insurance to forming provisional annual conferences.
The next step in the development of a mature canon of church law is the collation of the hard work showing up in the decisions of this Council. Indexes available from Associates in Advocacy and whatever is used by the Judicial Council already provide outlines for such a canon.
The Council is reaching its stride for the Church and deserves much credit for its effective service.
A large docket raised many issues. I identify six important ones.
1. JCD 1032 got a lot of attention with requests for reconsideration, with about a fourth of the items on the docket. The Council properly called upon the General Conference to resolve the issue but they, like the rest of the denomination, tend to see the problem as one of unwisely restricting pastoral authority and not of episcopal over-reach as I do (see my rationale under the comment on JCM 1160). Northern Illinois provided five docket items in their effort to overturn JCD 1032 and the Council began using “boiler plate” passages to simply say, “Work through General Conference, not us!”
2. I was deeply disappointed in the continuing pattern of the Council relying on their 1997 JCD 799 and failing to face up to violations of church law in personnel cases whenever an advocate used questions of law to appeal. Previous Council sessions have chosen to take jurisdiction in JCDs 1031 and 1135. If the Council accepted my arguments under JCM 1166 as well as what I’ve written in this blog about JCD 799 on January 11, 2011, and chosen to look into the things done by local church and conference leaders to the pastors seeking justice through the Council, in most of those cases, they would find as they did in JCD 1156, “Lack of diligence, integrity, care, or compassion in dealing with a case almost always results in irreparable harm to both the individual and the church. That has usually happened by the time a case of this nature gets to the Judicial Council.”
3. I was equally elated to see the Council’s JCD 1156 where a request for a declaratory decision was honored, and not summarily dismissed under JCD 1048. This Council can do exceptional analysis on many things as this set of decisions from November of 2010 shows. That excellence was applied to the personnel case brought in this docket item. The Council has just seen the tip of the iceberg of dirty tricks and machinations certain bishops and certain conferences have done to pastors.
4. I am glad for the flexibility that provides for Council action ad interim. But the trend so far, though small, is worrisome. Two decisions were handled outside the Council’s normal sessions at the request of two different sets of bishops. Is that showing some kind of privilege allowed to bishops?
(Ed. Note: I wish the Council had a way to handle personnel matters ad interim in order to sort out questions about abuse of fair process while it was happening rather than long after it happened. I think an annual conference judiciary team or maybe one on a jurisdictional level could handle such claims, especially in the administrative track.)
5. The number of Central Conference requests was unusually high. That appeals came from Africa and Eastern Europe is a sign of their growth. The Philippines has used the Council for a very long time.
(Ed. note: The Council’s four responses over the past year to one case may be giving them a better view of what is happening there. One clue is that for JCD 1152, the College of Bishops reported that the DSs went along with the change of site for an annual conference. In their report to the Council for JCM 1162, they admitted that the interim bishop appointed his own DSs to make that decision when the true DSs chose not to respond to the interim bishop. No matter which DSs were properly appointed, the College of Bishops was caught in a lie to the Council. I pray the Council will watch that situation carefully.)
6. Not having the actual questions of law nor other facts in front of me, I can only guess that JCM 1156, like JCM 1130, were seen by the Council as their best way to handle what may have been antagonistic questions meant to embarrass the respondents in those cases. My experience has been quite the opposite, that questions of law have been raised to help a respondent out of a bad situation. I can believe, as the concurring opinion in JCM 1130 states, that confidentiality was an important factor in the Council's decision. The problem remains though how to maintain it but not let a bishop off the hook for unfair decisions he or she made in a case.
7. Finally, I apologize to those seeking wisdom on financial and property matters for my not knowing enough to be sure my observations provide you with help on the decisions of interest to you. Your observations would be valuable. The material in this blog can be easily changed when the facts warrant it.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Re: JCM 1118
http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1235&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1100&EN=1118
Once again, the Council chose to not just stop with saying it had no jurisdiction. They laid out their rationale for refusing to rule on the questions. That was wise because the issue is a hot button one in our denomination,
A layman in Alaska asked if Paragraph 4 in our constitution superceded PP 214 and 225. Actually he wondered if P 4 had any effect on the other two. The ruling would have been the same.
The layman was trying to resolve the problem some believe was established in JCD 1032, that the pastor has the right of discretion over the readiness of a person wanting to join the church.
While that pastoral authority has been an unwritten presumption in the denomination, including the period when African-American people attempted to join all-European American churches during the Civil Rights conflict in the United States, this tradition was challenged in 2005 when a pastor persuaded a gay man that he was not ready to join a denomination with strong anti-homosexual laws in the Discipline. The bishop insisted that the pastor have to take the gay man into the church and the pastor refused, leading to the challenge handled in JCD 1032.
The Council carefully tried to sort through the three questions asked by the layman and why they could not take jurisdiction.
First, the Council showed how the membership process between a pastor and an eligible candidate for church membership is the work of the annual conference. But then the Council went further to indicate that the three questions did not pertain to some action taken by the annual conference in its session.
Belton Joyner, in his dissenting opinion points out that P 2610.2(j) has a plural in the word “conferences,” implying to him that the interpretation of the current and past Councils which restricts their jurisdiction to the agenda of the specific annual conference may need to be reviewed.
Once again, the Council chose to not just stop with saying it had no jurisdiction. They laid out their rationale for refusing to rule on the questions. That was wise because the issue is a hot button one in our denomination,
A layman in Alaska asked if Paragraph 4 in our constitution superceded PP 214 and 225. Actually he wondered if P 4 had any effect on the other two. The ruling would have been the same.
The layman was trying to resolve the problem some believe was established in JCD 1032, that the pastor has the right of discretion over the readiness of a person wanting to join the church.
While that pastoral authority has been an unwritten presumption in the denomination, including the period when African-American people attempted to join all-European American churches during the Civil Rights conflict in the United States, this tradition was challenged in 2005 when a pastor persuaded a gay man that he was not ready to join a denomination with strong anti-homosexual laws in the Discipline. The bishop insisted that the pastor have to take the gay man into the church and the pastor refused, leading to the challenge handled in JCD 1032.
The Council carefully tried to sort through the three questions asked by the layman and why they could not take jurisdiction.
First, the Council showed how the membership process between a pastor and an eligible candidate for church membership is the work of the annual conference. But then the Council went further to indicate that the three questions did not pertain to some action taken by the annual conference in its session.
Belton Joyner, in his dissenting opinion points out that P 2610.2(j) has a plural in the word “conferences,” implying to him that the interpretation of the current and past Councils which restricts their jurisdiction to the agenda of the specific annual conference may need to be reviewed.
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