For feuding Methodists, a split is imminent
You have to feel for Bishop Ken Carter. The man surely has his hands full these days.
Not only is Carter the bishop of the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church, a post he has held for 10 years, he recently had to temporarily take the leadership of another conference, in western North Carolina. Then there is the little matter of his congregations leaving the United Methodist Church.
According to one claim, as many as 100 churches that currently belong to the Florida Conference – an area that stretches from the Apalachicola River to Key West – may very soon join a nationwide movement and depart the United Methodist Church for a newly formed, more conservative Methodist group. That could mean a loss of 15% to 20% of Carter’s flock at one blow. However devastating to him and his conference, it’s not a surprise.
The split in the United Methodist Church has been decades in the making, the wedge issue being church policies about gays and lesbians. Those policies are set at General Conference meetings that take place every four years, and the arguments over LGBTQ issues have been going on for 46 years and counting. The official position has been that homosexuality is “incompatible” with Christian teaching and practice, and thus gays and lesbians who are out cannot be ordained. Clergy who perform their weddings face sanctions.
Over the past 20 years, those policies have been under increasing pressure from liberals and moderates. Conservatives are in the distinct minority in North America but have strong allies in the United Methodist Church’s international contingent, especially in Africa and South America, so there has been a highly contentious stalemate.
Carter was one of the leaders of an effort to find a solution, but it failed spectacularly. After a chaotic General Conference in 2016 in which delegates rejected a compromise and voted to adopt an even more hardline policy, liberals threatened wholesale defiance. It was clear that a split was inevitable.
Once more into the breach, Carter was part of a commission of bishops, clergy and lay leaders from both sides to work out a way for conservatives to depart peaceably. A plan was proposed that would have been voted on – and presumably approved – at the General Conference in 2020, but COVID postponed that meeting, and it has been postponed twice more since. It’s now scheduled for 2024.
Conservatives aren’t waiting any longer. Last week, they formally inaugurated a new organization, the Global Methodist Church, which describes itself as “orthodox” and “evangelical.” According to a report from Religion News Service, the Rev. Keith Boyette, chief executive of the Global Methodist Church, told those present at the opening ceremony, “Separation is no longer in the future. Separation has occurred.”
Already churches have declared they’re leaving the United Methodist Church for the new body. The Wesley Covenant Association, a conservative group, posted on Facebook that 107 churches in the Florida Conference would be leaving. The conference has roughly 600 congregations.
Carter has disputed the association’s claim, telling Religion News Service that only 1% to 2% of churches in Florida and Western North Carolina have begun the process of disaffiliating from the United Methodist Church, although he acknowledged the number likely will grow. His two conferences hold annual meetings in June, and it is unclear what will transpire.
Carter also reminded the conferences in an open letter that leaving is not so simple. There are complicated issues of church property and clergy pensions at stake, factors that likely have prevented larger, wealthier churches with lots at stake from packing their bags and leaving. But regardless of the numbers, sooner or later there will be painful decisions.
The United Methodist Church is the last and largest of the so-called mainline Protestant denominations to go through a split that supposedly was about the place of gays and lesbians in the church. The Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church and the Presbyterian Church (USA) all have gone through the same contentious process, and in each case, a sizable minority of conservatives have split off, joining existing conservative groups or creating new ones.
Although homosexuality was the fault line, it merely revealed deep differences in worldviews about the Bible, culture and politics. Having covered several United Methodist General Conferences as a reporter, it was clear that despite elaborate efforts to preserve civility, many of the people on both sides of the divide really didn’t like each other and would rather not have been in the same room.
Which only goes to show that partisanship – the drive to associate with those who agree with you – is powerful, and can overwhelm biblical admonitions about reconciliation and longstanding traditions about the error of schism. Even a leader as popular and talented as Carter can’t hold back that tide.
Cary McMullen is a retired journalist and the former religion editor of The Ledger.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: For feuding Methodists, a split is imminent
