The executive committee of the United Methodist Church’s Council of Bishops has now released a public statement urging renegade retired Bishop Mel Talbert to abandon his plans of openly breaking UMC church law this weekend and stressing the importance of obeying our denomination’s Book of Discipline, which all bishops have made a sacred covenant with God and the church to uphold, regardless of their personal views.
We have previously reported on renegade retired Bishop Mel Talbert’s splashily announced plans to become the first United Methodist bishop to conduct a ceremony blessing a homosexual union, in open defiance of the Discipline. We also re-posted the statement of protest from Bishop Debra Wallace-Padgett – the new, younger bishop whose territory will be invaded by Talbert’s covenant-breaking – in which she commendably urged the retired bishop to not follow through on his threat.
Like a neighborhood bully who becomes increasingly emboldened to cross more lines the longer no one dares stand up to him, Talbert has increasingly escalated his undermining of the covenantal fabric that binds “United” Methodists together while his comparatively timid fellow bishops have, for the most part, shown little to no inclination to fulfill their biblical obligation of holding each other publicly accountable.
It was under Talbert’s leadership as bishop of the now fast-shrinking California-Nevada Conference that a number of faithful, biblically grounded pastors felt driven out of United Methodist. In 2000, Talbert praised a committee he nominated for dismissing the complaint filed against the infamous “Sacramento 68” UMC clergy who jointly presided over a publicity-stunt lesbian “wedding” in similar open defiance of church law. Later that year, the UMC Council of Bishops in its collective wisdom decided to reward Talbert by electing him to lead our denomination’s ecumenical efforts. At the 2008 General Conference, he outraged United Methodists of a variety of perspectives by joining an angry protest, unauthorized by delegates, of pro-homosexuality activists, declared that delegates had committed “a sin against God” by upholding biblical teaching against sex outside of man-woman marriage, and, joined by Bishop Bob Hoshibata (now of the Desert-Southwest Conference) and other activists, draped the worship altar in strips of black cloth. Immediately after the 2012 General Conference concluded, and with increasing boldness since then, he has been very publicly urging clergy to bless same-sex unions in open defiance of church law, and repeatedly said that he would do so as well. As our friends at Good News have earlier noted, after dozens of United Methodist pastors urged the Council of Bishops to publicly rebuke and file charges against Talbert for this, our bishop leaders gave only a belated and “apathetic” response, which appears to have only encouraged Talbert further. At a conference less than two months ago, Talbert pushed the envelope even further, offering a collective blessing of multiple same-sex couples who had already had commitment ceremonies, though some argue that this fell just barely on the right side of the letter, but not the spirit, of the law. Still no public response from our bishops to their boundary-testing colleague.
But now Talbert has gone too far for even some liberal bishops.
The most significant parts of the statement from the Council of Bishops executive committee are its reporting that they have already “urged Bishop Melvin Talbert not to perform the same-gender marriage in Birmingham, Alabama,” noting how his scheduled action would directly violate the Discipline, and expressing their commitment as bishops to uphold the Discipline “in special covenant with” each other.
With yawning predictability, the bishops’ statement was almost immediately decried by the attention-demanding gay activist couple of Saturday’s planned publicity stunt, in their own rather solipsistic statement on the website of the Reconciling Ministries Network (RMN). RMN is a well-funded unofficial caucus group which openly opposes core United Methodist doctrine on God’s grace, promotes varieties of extra-marital sex, and whose enthusiasm for Golden-Rule-rejecting covenant breaking indicates that they already do not see themselves as being in any sort of meaningful covenant relationship with less radical members of the United Methodist Church.
The currents officers of the UMC Council of Bishops are President Rosemary Wenner of Germany, President-Designate Warner Brown of California-Nevada, Secretary Robert Hayes of Oklahoma, Executive Secretary Peter Weaver (retired), Ecumenical Officer Mary Ann Swenson (retired), and Past President Larry Goodpaster of Western North Carolina. Bishops Weaver and Hayes are known to be theologically orthodox. Bishop Goodpaster was rumored to have been orthodox at one point, but has recently chosen to act as a pushover with pro-homosexuality activists. Bishops Warner and Swenson have both encouraged an unprincipled “ecumenical end-run” around the UMC’s commitment to biblical sexual boundaries. In speaking about his so-called “biblical [dis]obedience” campaign of disobeying the Discipline at a recent conference of pro-homosexuality activists, Talbert claimed that Bishop Swenson (who also spoke at that conference) had just brought him word that the entire Western Jurisdiction College of Bishops (which includes Brown and Swenson) “stand solidly in support in the call for public biblical obedience,” as can be seen beginning around the 3:30 mark of this video. Perhaps Talbert was exaggerating his level of support among even the uniformly liberal Western Jurisdiction bishops.
Other members of the executive committee are Bruce Ough of the Dakotas/Minnesota area (who serves as chair of the UMC’s powerful Connectional Table), and leadership team chairs Sudarshana Devadhar (New England), Jonathan Holston (South Carolina), Janice Huie (eastern Texas), Deborah Lieder Kiesey (Michigan), Paul Leeland (Alabama-West Florida), Mike Lowry (Central Texas), Mike McKee (North Texas), and David Yemba (Central Congo).
The entirety of the executive committee’s statement, first posted by the United Methodist News Service, is here:
The mission of the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Local churches provide the most significant arena through which disciple-making occurs.” (BOD – ¶ 120). This is the core of our self-understanding as The United Methodist Church. We are called to be part of God’s mission movement in all places of the world where our congregations happen to be located.
As a church that serves in four continents, in numerous languages and multiple cultures, we live with different opinions in many issues including human sexuality. Yet we seek ways to walk together in obedience to God’s call, united in Christ who heals the brokenness of the world and of the church. We are committed to organizing our life by following the Book of Discipline which is discussed and decided every four years at General Conference. As bishops, we are called to serve “in special covenant with all other bishops” (¶ 422.1) in order to offer “the oversight of the spiritual and temporal affairs of the whole church.”(¶ 422.3)
The bishops of the church are bound together in a covenant and all ordained elders are committed to uphold the Book of Discipline. “Conducting ceremonies which celebrate homosexual unions; or performing same-sex wedding ceremonies” are chargeable offenses in the United Methodist Church. (¶2702.1.b) The Executive Committee of the Council of Bishops has urged Bishop Melvin Talbert not to perform the same-gender marriage in Birmingham, Alabama. Furthermore, the Resident Bishop Debra Wallace-Padgett has requested him not to come to the Birmingham Area for this purpose.
We have taken this action with deep respect for Bishop Talbert’s intention to serve as a pastor for United Methodists who experience themselves as excluded because of decisions of the General Conference. We also know that Bishop Wallace-Padgett is the caring shepherd of all people in the congregations in the North Alabama Conference. We are united in believing in the sacred worth of all people.
We will continue to stay in honest and respectful conversation in the Council of Bishops on how to lead the church to live out the call to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. We commit ourselves to live in loving and respectful relationships with one another and with all United Methodists and all people of faith. Through Christ, we are one in the Spirit even though we are not always of one mind. We ask all United Methodists to pray for one another and for the world, trusting that God who reconciled the world will enable us and all Christians to strive for peace and justice for all.
UPDATE: Talbert has responded that he will go ahead and do it anyway, now disregarding the clearly expressed admonition of his own fellow bishops, along with showing that he is not a man of his word.
Comment by Donnie on October 24, 2013 at 10:33 am
I’m really skeptical, sorry, but unless the Council of Bishops follows through during the penalty phase, then this is big talk signifying nothing.
Comment by gary on October 25, 2013 at 5:09 pm
I will be very surprised if there is any disciplinary action against Talbert after he does this. The bishops have never shown any “stick” just the “walk softly”.