Rebuilding and Defending United Methodism Today – Part 8 of 9: The Latest with Melvin Talbert

The following is an excerpt from the text for a speech delivered by UMAction Director John Lomperis on Thursday, November 21 at historic Boehm’s Chapel.  The gathering near Lancaster, Pennsylvania was hosted by the Eastern Pennsylvania Evangelical Connection. That evening included lively discussion with the audience. For the convenience of online readers, the speech is divided into nine sections here.

Part 8: The Latest with Melvin Talbert

Retired Bishop Melvin Talbert has long acted like a sort of neighborhood bully who everyone is afraid to stand up to and so who keeps getting emboldened to cross more and more lines.  It was under his watch that the “Sacramento 68” were let off scot-free for jointly blessing a same-sex union service in 1999.  He was known for heavy-handed, bullying treatment of evangelical United Methodists in the California-Nevada Conference while he led that region into rapid decline.

He faced no consequences for draping the 2008 General Conference altar in black and rather self-righteously denouncing the delegates for their “sin” of affirming biblical sexual teaching.  He faced no consequences after the last General Conference for publicly encouraging our clergy to violate the Discipline.  And so he became more and more emboldened to do it more, and very publicly.  Still no consequences.  He said he would bless a same-sex union himself.  Still no consequences.  At a rally, he pushed the envelope further by pronouncing his blessing on the unions of same-sex couples who had already had commitment ceremonies.  Still no consequences.

Then he finally went too far when he worked with a self-described gay activist and his partner to come into Alabama to do a publicity stunt same-sex union service in North Alabama.

I spent all of last week with the Council of Bishops.  It seems that Mr. Talbert and the radicals rallying behind him miscalculated rather badly.

Other bishops were offended enough at his shattering our connectional covenant.  It has seemed to me from the outside that our Southeastern bishops are largely orthodox, but have had a sort of unwritten truce with their more radical colleagues elsewhere of, “I won’t come into your area and mess with how you do ministry if you don’t do that to me.”  Talbert shattered this reason for their timidity.  There would have been probably less blowback among the Council of Bishops if he had instead done the service somewhere in the Western Jurisdiction with the tacit approval of the bishop there.

But in the geographic heart of the Southeastern Jurisdiction, the North Alabama Bishop, an orthodox woman just elected last year, clearly asked him to not come into her area to do this.  The bishops have had a culture of collegiality in which they don’t go into another bishop’s territory to do anything without first at least seeking pro forma approval from the active bishop in that area.  The publicity there would undermine United Methodist ministry in North Alabama.  Yet this older, long-retired male bishop showed a profound level of disrespect for the new, active female bishop just starting out, disregarding her request.

Then the Council of Bishops executive Committee, which includes many liberals, issued a statement calling on Talbert not to do it.  But Talbert disregarded them, too, going ahead and doing the service on October 26.

I understand that Bishop Wallace-Padgett had a lot of sympathy among even rather liberal bishops for Talbert’s over-the-top rude, aggressive undermining of her ministry.

And the executive committee had its own credibility on the line with Talbert disregarding their own admonishment to him.

It was a tense week.  They had all kinds of closed-session meetings to discuss this.  Amy DeLong was there with a friend and all sorts of protest signs.  I was hearing speculation that there would just be some weak statement from the Council about how they were committed to the Discipline, but would not do anything about it.  There were rumors that there would either be a statement against Talbert’s actions or charges filed, but not both, and that if charges were filed it would only be on the count of undermining the ministry of another United Methodist pastor, but not for doing the union itself.

So I was pleasantly surprised by the statement that came out.

That statement (1) notes the deep divisions within our denomination as well as the Council itself, (2) declares that “[w]hen there are violations of the Book of Discipline, a response is required,” (3) calls for a task force for further discussion about such issues, (4) acknowledges bishops’ authority for holding one another accountable (within some limits), (5) reaffirms the executive committee statement calling on Talbert to not do the ceremony, and (6) calls on Council of Bishops President Rosemary Wenner of Germany and Debra Wallace-Padgett of North Alabama to formally file charges against retired Bishop Mel Talbert on the two counts of “conducting a ceremony to celebrate the marriage of a same gender couple” and “undermining the ministry of a colleague.

Such high-profile, public insistence by the Council on accountability for one of its own is unprecedented in modern UMC history.

I know some of us as well as some bishops would have liked for it to have been more strongly worded.  But given the limits of who is on the Council and what the Council of Bishops has actually has the authority to do, it was a pretty good response.  While the word “rebuke” was not used, it was understood by bishops passing it as a clear rebuke of Talbert.

It is my understanding that it was not a unanimously approved statement, since two Western Jurisdiction bishops issued bland public dissent [UPDATE: two other bishops from outside of the Western Jurisdiction also issued public dissents], but was supported by an overwhelming majority vote of active bishops.

The way our system works, such formal complaints are to be processed through the regional College of Bishops for the jurisdiction of which Mr. Talbert is a member: the Western Jurisdiction.  The current president of the Western Jurisdiction College of Bishops is Bishop Elaine Stanovsky of the Mountain Sky Episcopal Area.  Our governing communal covenant, the Book of Discipline (¶2704.1), is very clear that “[u]pon receipt of the complaint” against a bishop, the jurisdictional “president of the College of Bishops shall forthwith” [emphasis added] send the complaint on to an ordained elder (minister) within the jurisdiction appointed to be the “counsel for the Church,” which is essentially a prosecuting attorney, and from there the complaint gets processed through a committee on investigation.

Part 1: The Need to Rebuild Our Church Cultures

Part 2 : Biblical Groundedness

Part 3: Oriented for Conversion

Part 4: Covenant Accountability, Counting the Cost of Church Membership

Part 5: Covenant Accountability: The Obligations of UMC Membership

Part 6: Why United Methodist Liberals are Now Focusing on “Biblical Disobedience”

Part 7: The “Biblical [Dis]obedience” Siege vs. the Basis for Unity in the UMC

Part 8: The Latest with Melvin Talbert

Part 9: Where Do We Go From Here?