Eric LeMasters
May 17, 2011
At their Spring 2011 meeting in Georgia, the United Methodist Council of Bishops urged creating a full-time President for themselves who could, among other duties, make routine political pronouncements.
“We’re in a time when things are happening so rapidly that leaders of the church are called upon overnight, almost,” explained retired Bishop William Oden in touting the proposal. “We’re not at that table the way we should be.”
Oden expressed particular disappointment in the lack of United Methodist influence in President Obama’s New Faith Advisory Council, which includes Sojourners’ evangelical left activist Jim Wallis, among others. “A United Methodist is not part of that group,” Oden complained. “And I could guess the problem is we do not have the kind of continuity of leadership to make that happen.”
Creating a new full-time, four-year President of the Council of Presidents requires a church constitutional amendment, supported by two thirds of General Conference and two thirds of voters at local annual conferences. Currently, the Presidency is a part-time, two-year position, and the President also leads a local conference like all other bishops.
In contrast, the bishops also proposed a cost saving measure for the church by integrating the responsibilities of the United Methodist General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns into the Council of Bishops. Baltimore-Washington Bishop John Schol of characterized the merger as a “stark realigning of the United Methodist Church.” According to a UMNS report, the agency’s staff of seven, currently based in New York, will likely keep their positions.
The bishops’ proposal for a full-time, four-year President was more vigorously debated. Besides speaking to the nation, it was argued that a President could focus all energies on strategically directing the UMC toward its goal of growing “vital congregations” and streamlining its agencies. The bishops made a similar proposal for a President in 2004, but the idea fizzled over finances.
Two other positions – a Council Chairperson and a Deputy Ecumenical Officer – were proposed within the same legislation as part of the change in hierarchy.
A full-time President “would facilitate a greater sense of unity and witness for the denomination as a whole,” insisted Bishop Oden, who introduced the recommendation. “The workload has been expanding so much for the president and the ecumenical officer that we really need to be able to be a global presence ecumenically as well as denominationally.”
Oden stressed the urgency of establishing continuity in Council leadership to address the disjointed nature of the denomination and its agencies. “The [Council of Bishops] is the key to redirecting the ‘distance gap’ between the general church, local conference, and local church,” he said, noting that the denomination must “confront its long-standing allergy to authority.” He insisted: “It’s giving the leadership the Call to Action calls for in new ways.” The Call to Action is a plan for energizing local congregations and demanding more accountability focused on church growth.
Bishop Schol supported a full-time President, explaining it would “bring together very important people within the life of our denomination” – heads of seminaries, lay leaders and general secretaries, were his examples – to “create alignment across the denomination.”
While the show of hands indicated a clear majority of bishops present supported the measure, some qualms were raised about the danger such a centralized position might pose for fair international representation.
Bishop Patrick Streiff from Zurich, Switzerland gave voice to the contention of many central conference bishops that a further consolidation of power within the Council presidency would stifle international leadership. Specifically, Streiff critiqued the exclusive nature of the legislation, which effectively stipulates that the appointed bishop must possess a strong working knowledge of church agencies to align them with the denomination’s strategic direction.
“That’s predominately – not exclusively, but predominately – a U.S. issue which needs a lot of knowledge about the U.S. church,” noted Streiff. “I think no central conference bishop could do it.” UM overseas central conferences in Africa have been growing rapidly and have tended to take a more biblically orthodox stance on divisive issues within the church.
Another central conference bishop expressed concern that the change in structure would merely add another layer of bureaucracy to the council, shifting representation to “one person acting on behalf of the whole,” rather than operating as a united, collegial body. The same bishop characterized the proposed change as a movement toward “monarchy inspired leadership.” The proposition’s papal imagery was heavily rebutted by its proponents.
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