Wednesday, April 29, 2009

UM Constitutional Amendments

Maxie Dunam and others are trying very hard to defeat several Constitutional Amendments that will be coming before the Annual Conferences of the United Methodist Church this summer. He makes several arguements against the amendments that are either misleading or inadequate reasons to vote against. Here are his arguements and my responses:

1. The voice of UM's outside the U.S. will be reduced
- Yes, in the same way that the voice of U.S. UM's is reduced in other parts of the world. The Discipline already allows for central conferences to "make such changes and adaptataions of the Book of Discipline as the special conditions and the mission of the church in the area require..." (2008 BOD, paragraph 543.7). The current church structure assumes that the U.S. way of doing things is "normal" and non-U.S. ways of doing things are "special conditions". This is clearly a U.S.-centric approach to the world that is no longer true. My guess is the reason this clause is in the BOD is that we recognized that a U.S. majority at General Conference may make decisions that aren't in the best interest of the non-U.S. minority. If the U.S. is about to become the minority at General Conference (not in 2012, but possibly in 2016) then wouldn't it simply make sense to put the same provision in place for the U.S. churches?

2. Nobody knows what issues will be handled by the new regional confernces and we won't know until 2012.
- This is misleading. Nobody knows precisely, but 1) we have been told by members of the task force what kinds of things they are looking at 2) there is every reason to believe the issues that regional conferences will be able to address are the same as those in paragraph 543.7 and 3) the final decision will be made in 2012 by the same people that Rev. Dunam wants to empower. The combination of the Central Conference delegates and Rev. Dunam and his allies will certainly be a majority in 2012. They will be able to put this in whatever final form they desire.

Additionally, one of the problems of the institution of the UMC is that we are sooooo slow to move forward. If these amendments, approved by General Conference in 2008, fail, then they would have to be approved again in 2012 and approved by Annual Conferences in 2013 before they would take affect in 2014. Why not expedite the process now sine we'll still need a majority at the 2012 General Conference to even actually approve the creation of new regional conferences?

3. Regional Conferences will require more funding and bureaucracy
- Perhaps, but arguably not that much. Because much of what is currently done at General Conference would now be done at the regional conference level, General Conference would be shorter and less expensive. The most likely scenario for a U.S. regional conference would be a meeting immediately prior to General Conference to deal with U.S. issues followed by a shorter General Conference. The total length of time might be slightly longer than the current General Conference, but the overall expense would probably be less. There is no plan that I'm aware of for any structured bureaucracy at the regional conference level.

4. It's moving toward the "Anglican model" with different places adopting different practices
- Actually, we are already following this model somewhat with the provision in the BOD that allows central conference to adapt the BOD as they choose. The theological debates that are rocking the Anglican church are the same ones that are rocking the UMC, but there is nothing in the proposals that would allow regional conferences to make independent decisions on those issues. This is a scare tactic with no basis in reality.

5. We must not make changes "for" the churches of the developing world, but "with" them, which this does not do.
- I agree with the principle of making decisions with UMs from all over the world. This is what General Conference does and will continue to do. But on matters particular to the region of the world that a particular church is in, there should be freedom for differences. This is why we give Annual Conferences freedom to make decisions unless the BOD speaks specifically to it. Local churches have the same freedom. We should extend this freedom at the regional level.

The worldwide nature of the church amendments recognize our church as a global church, gives proper representation and power to all regional bodies across the world, and keeps matters of doctrine at the General Conference level where they belong. If you will be voting at Annual Conference this year I hope you will strongly consider voting in favor of them.

6 comments:

Stephanie said...

These are good thoughts and great points. Thanks for sharing!

Michael said...

This post is both concise and well thought through! Thank you.

John B said...

You left out an important argument for many of us who oppose these admendments. If the UMC is reorganized as proposed, liberal American delegates will be much more likely to be able to push through a change in our denomination's official stance on homosexuality. This will cause a major division between US United Methodists and those in Africa & Asia. This will then result in further divisions as some US UM churches will seek to align themselves with African Conferences. Does this sound at all familiar? If one has been watching what has happened with the Episcopalians it should. Do we really want that for our denominiation?

Pastor Ben said...

You have made some good points in this post. I especially agree with your comments in your first point.

However, overall, I am against the amendments as they are currently written. I believe they are a good starting point, but that they need more revision, and more clarification.

In Eddie Fox's refutation of the amendments, he said something to the effect of: there is an old farm saying to never open the barn door until you know what on the other side. That's my main problem with these amendments - that we don't know what kind of door we are opening. Sure - Bishop Jones and others have assured us that things like the Social Principles and others will remain unchanged, but I don't see that explicitly written in the BOD or in the new amendments.

You address all this in your point #2. However, when I read paragraph 543.7 (as you suggessted), the only absolute things I see in there that cannot be changed by central (or any new regional) conferences - are the Constitution and the General Rules. In my opinion, a case can be made for any regional conference to make a claim to "special conditions" for anything else.

Please forgive me if I cannot trust "assurances" from even well-meaning people. Show me in writing - and I'll believe you. Until then - however - let's hold off on the changes.

David Livingston said...

Stephanie and Michael - thanks for your comments.

John and Ben - I organized the post in response to Rev. Dunam, who couched the issues around homosexuality in what I've labled #2. But I'd be happy to be more specific in why I believe there is no substance to it. Wha's most important is to remember that the concern is that a U.S. regional conference will have a "liberal" majority that will undo what a "conservative majority" General Conference has and/or will do. The problem with this premise is that ultimately the "conservative" General Conference has complete control over what decisions the regional conferences will make. Paragraph 16, which is in the Constitution and requires a 2/3 vote at General Conference to change, gives General Conference the right to "To define and fix the powers and duties of annual conferences, provisional annual conferences, missionary conferences and missions, and of central conferences, district conferences, charge conferences and congregational meetings." (if passed the revised paragraph would include regional conferences). The U.S. can be stopped from legitimizing homosexuality in any one of the following ways: 1)General Conference (GC) specifies in 2012 that regional conferences can't alter the stance on homosexuality, 2)After the U.S. tries to make such a change an appeal is made to Judicial Council (which would certainly rule against), or 3)After the U.S. tries to make such a change the next GC simply reverses it. John, you basically made the point when you said the U.S. would try to change the official position of the denomination. They can't do that - only General Conference speaks for the whole church and that will not change. As far as opening the barn door, the proponents of change have "lost" virtually every vote since 1972. I think we all know what's on the other side. What's interesting to me is that as someone with friends on both sides of the theological divide I have not heard anyone say "I'm excited about this change because now we can get the pro-homosexuality petitions passed." The only people I have heard raise these issues are those against the amendments. I think there is an irrational fear that colors every petition or change through the lens of "what does this mean for homosexuality." Let me know if you still see it differently.

Luke said...

David,

Nice post. I think you're spot on in your comment response about the homosexuality issue coloring people's perceptions.

Another thing that is worth noting is that the reason that this is being done in two stages is that we couldn't get people to agree on a single stage with the Connectional Process Team legislation in 1996 (or so I hear...I was in second grade). People said that passing constitutional amendments and enabling legislation at the same time was too rapid a change. Now folks are saying that they don't know precisely what is going to happen if these pass. You're sort of damned if you do and damned if you don't. Some folks really don't like change.

The reality is that the clear guidelines governing the study committees work practically guarantee a certain result. Even though they could go outside of those guidelines, I don't think they will. I don't think a more radical proposal a la Bruce Robbins has a prayer of passing. Folks are not willing to split up the US into separate regional conferences, nor are they willing to diminish the power of the General Conference to any significant degree. The study committee knows this, saw the readiness of 2008 GC to fence in their work, and what we will end up with should the amendments pass is something very much like the CPT legislation from 15 years ago and almost exactly like the study committee mandate described.