JCD 1392

ee.umc.org/decisions/81141

Disagreeing and Aspiring

North Texas Annual Conference voted its disagreement with the new TP legislation and supported the aspirations of the One Church plan.  

Traditionalists brought a question of law about its legality and the Council affirmed the bishop’s rulings that the resolution had the right to disagree and to aspire to other values.

No briefs were filed.  But the Council’s careful analysis is still worth reading as a “rule of law” document, put in United Methodist legal terms.

JCM 1369

www.umc.org/decisions/79263

Another Request Bites the Dust

A group of pro-LGBTQAI pastors prepared resolutions for the North Texas Annual Conference, and got them in on time to be printed in the pre-conference report.  However, because of the proximity of the special-called General Conference (GC2019), a motion was made to table the resolutions, awaiting the results of GC2019 and it was passed.  This was part of the process to deal with the consent calendar, not a presenting of motions to bring them to the floor for consideration.

After the vote to table, one of the group attempted to remove one of the resolutions which defined “inside the church” as the site for gay marriages or celebrations of gay unions.  The resolution would have allowed the definition to free pastors to conduct those services outside the church buildings, literally on their steps.  The “movant,’ the pastor arguing to pull that resolution off the table, argued it was not directly related to homosexuality so he “requested a ruling of law” about the meaning of “inside the church” in Par. 341.6.  The bishop ruled him out of order.  The movant failed to ask the plenary to overrule the bishop.  The plenary was given a chance to vote on the untabling of that resolution which failed.  After the annual conference ended, as the secretary was leaving, she received the hand-written request for a ruling of law.  The bishop reported it, saying it was out of order because the written request came after the close of conference and the matter had been resolved against the movant parliamentarily.  

Reading the docket item 0219-7 was better than just reading the summary by the Council, good as it was.

The Council was unable to take jurisdiction because the resolutions never “made it to the floor” because the advocating group failed to get the resolutions to be motions by failing to overcome the tabling motion.  That the resolutions had been printed in the pre-conference materials did not give them standing as motions before the conference.

I’ve commented in past postings here that when a pastor raises a “request for a ruling of law,” the bishop should suggest that the pastor meet with the conference chancellor or other competent person to go over the rules and options for raising legal matters for review by the Judicial Council and try to help get that concern into the best form possible and then arrange a time for the request, in proper form, be presented to the conference.  The bishop, according to the minutes, did not interrupt the plenary to allow such a help to be offered.  

Practically speaking, the movant didn’t have a chance anyway because the conference members saw right away it was related to the gay issues of the other two resolutions.  

Interestingly, the final result, though it was an unsuccessful bid to reach a ruling by the Council, got attention all the way to the Council.  Maybe that was all the group wanted, attention to their resolutions and the issue of how tightly Par. 341.6 should be read.  

Update:  Maybe a parliamentarian can say whether or not presentation of resolutions on a consent calendar is a form of motion to the floor.  My Robert’s Rules training never included “consent calendar” actions.

JCD 1245

http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1367&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1201&EN=1259

ACCEPTANCE OF RESTRUCTURING

This is another case where the Council has critiqued and monitored a conference re-organization and finally was satisfied, so it can happen.  North Texas Annual Conference is the beneficiary this time.

Most Annual Conferences re-organize in such a way as to marginalize Commissions on the Status and Role of Women, Religion and Race, and Archives and History in the name of stream-lining, and establish the bishop as the head of the main steering committee directing the actions of all conference agencies, particularly Finance and Administration,

in the name of efficiency.  The result of all these re-organization efforts, and they come up every year, when they are referred to the Council for review, is that they are all thrown out and have to be revised to remove the bishop from direct control and make sure that marginalized groups are not swept away.  The grounds for keeping them is that the Discipline defines the connectionalism of the church as requiring those functions to be clearly defined at all levels.  Most bishops appear to think “connectionalism” only refers to their requirement that pastors do what the bishop says.

There is a reason the three bodies are usually targeted.  They have the job of monitoring the treatment of women, the treatment of ethnics, and the treatment of conference history, all of which offer insights into what is actually happening and may be embarrassments to conference leaders.   

Having final control over conference finances is the dream of every ambitious bishop.  The separation of powers is critical to maintain for that very reason.  Good bishops are persuasive in order to get things done.  Impatient and autocratic bishops are control freaks and need to be curbed.  It is also possible that some bishops are simply copying what they are told by other bishops is the way to re-organize and don’t realize the pitfalls inherent in such plans.  

So far, the Judicial Council has largely done its job of halting bad plans and getting conferences to work toward better structures.

This ruling relates to JCDs 1198 and 1225 where the conference plans were reviewed and found not adequate.  They will have to do the same for several other conferences because each bishop thinks s/he can use the same basic plan and get it past the Council, as if the Council’s previous rulings are meaningless.  With luck, the Council will hold firm and maybe someday, the bishops won’t think of the Council as “lower case.”

JCD 1225

http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1350&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1201&EN=1229

REVIEW OF REORGANIZATION OF THE NORTH TEXAS ANNUAL CONFERENCE

In light of JCD 1198, a member of the North Texas Conference shared the changes the conference believes fulfills the requirements of the Judicial Council regarding reorganization.

The Council appreciated the efforts of the officers from North Texas to meet the goals set in JCD 1198 but pointed out the new plans excluded Race and Religion, Status and Role of Women, and Archives and History. So the matter was remanded back to the conference to include those bodies.

My concern about the power accruing to the bishop stated in JCD 1198 is not mentioned either in the conference’s response or in the Council’s remanding.

JCD 1198

http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1319&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1101&EN=1200

Our era has seen the rise of the bishop as CEO. In that movement, bishops have sought more authority than the Discipline actually provides. I’ve seen the officers of the conference (the administrative ones under the bishop) take over the determination of which mission projects to fund, taking it away from the annual conference (JCD 608). I’ve seen bishops press toward having the power to fire pastors without fair process (JCD 777, 784. et al). I’ve seen the Judicial Council turn back many reorganization plans which supposedly “streamlined” program and administration in various annual conferences, some of which even granted the bishop a vote in matters the Discipline does not allow (JCD 1171).

What usually occurs in these reorganization plans is that the conference cuts ties with the denominational resources outside the conference by slushing together Discipline mandated bodies into more “manageable” and less regulated groups. The result is that control of the actions within the conference is not “hindered” by obligations to entities outside the conference (JCD 1147) or even inside the conference (JCD 1150).

The Council provided guidelines for restructuring back in 1998 (JCD 835). It seems the bishops have not even wanted to let the Judicial Council interfere with their restructuring ideas. Or maybe, no one has instructed new bishops for the past 13 years about lessons to be learned from the Discipline and the Judicial Council.

This Council is amazingly patient with its explanations covering old ground again and again.

The bishops are going to have to realize there are limits to their power, that they are part of a connectional system that only works when all the parts are properly connected, and that connectionalism means more than “Obey the bishop.”

One other note about this decision. It includes the same rationale for a Council member not to have recused himself from voting on a decision that was used in JCDs 1131 and 1132. At least a reason was given for the sake of transparency.