Mainstream UMC, UM Insight Misrepresent the Truth, Once Again

Recently, the liberal Mainstream UMC caucus group sent a fundraising email with blatant misrepresentations of the truth, which was quickly re-posted by the liberal UM Insight website.  Part 1 of our response sets the record on what really happened with the establishment and implementation of United Methodist Discipline Paragraph 2553, the main avenue through which congregations have been allowed to disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church. Part 2 details how Mainstream UMC misrepresent the options actually facing United Methodists in 2024.

In this challenging season of transition within the United Methodist Church, we would all do well to heed that old adage, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.” On a related note, I recently received a fundraising email from the liberal caucus group, “Mainstream UMC,” entitled “4 Reasons to End Disaffiliations.” This group’s executive director, United Methodist minister and recent U.S. Senate candidate Mark Holland, apparently emailed this message, twice, to many General Conference delegates. This email, except for its pitch for donations, was quickly posted on the progressive-leaning UM Insight website run by Cynthia Astle.

There is much to discuss about what new direction the United Methodist Church may take at next year’s General Conference, how kindly or vindictively the dominant faction should treat those with less power who cannot in good conscience continue with that new direction, and how much grace or greed the UMC should show a watching world.

You may have your own opinions about these matters, about various caucuses, or even about me personally.

Before getting into such discussions, however, delegates should at least understand that Mainstream UMC and UM Insight have (once again) blatantly, demonstrably misrepresented some key facts.

These distortions go far beyond differences of opinion.

There are three major matters of historical misrepresentation:

1. Mainstream UMC and UM Insight prominently claim that Discipline Paragraph 2553, through which congregations have disaffiliated in this season of separation, “is the paragraph that traditionalists wrote and adopted at General Conference 2019,” “was their so-called ‘gracious exit,’” and that “The current and former members of Good News and the WCA are the authors of … the ‘gracious exit.’”

2. Relatedly, others have grossly exaggerated the significance of the minority report.

3. Mainstream UMC and UM Insight broadly claim that, “There has been enough time” for congregations to disaffiliate, speak of this period of disaffiliation having lasted “almost 5 years,” and insultingly speak of some congregations who have not yet disaffiliated, even if it makes sense for them, of having “been asleep at the wheel.”

Let’s take these in order:

1. Mainstream UMC and UM Insight prominently claim that Discipline Paragraph 2553, through which congregations have disaffiliated in this season of separation, “is the paragraph that traditionalists wrote and adopted at General Conference 2019,” “was their so-called ‘gracious exit,’” and that “The current and former members of Good News and the WCA are the authors of … the ‘gracious exit.’”

This completely misrepresents the facts.

Before 2019, the basic idea of “gracious exits” was supported by a range of self-described progressives, centrists, and traditionalists (here are some examples).

As for the above quotes from the Rev. Mark Holland, even one of Mainstream UMC’s own former Advisory Board members has issued a public rebuttal, worth reading in full, saying “Now I think Mark [Holland] has really gone a bridge too far–way too far,” and explaining:

“The author of that paragraph was not anybody associated with either Good News or the Wesleyan Covenant Association, but it was Leah Taylor, the long time Lay Leader of the South Central Jurisdiction of the UMC and a respected attorney in the State of Texas. Mind you, the legislation did receive a few tweaks authored by Traditional leaders of the Church, but none of those changes altered the essence of the petition Leah submitted.”

This former board member, Lonnie Brooks, is no traditionalist. He still publicly supports Mainstream UMC’s goal of removing the UMC’s denomination-wide prohibition of gay weddings and non-celibate gay clergy. He went out of his way to legally defend his Western Jurisdiction’s election of Dr. Karen Oliveto as bishop, despite her being an openly partnered lesbian. More recently, he submitted to the next General Conference a petition to remove the constitutional provision preventing amendment of the UMC’s Doctrinal Standards (in Discipline ¶104), for the explicit purpose of, in his words, making the Methodist Articles of Religion “relegated to historical status” rather than remaining “formal doctrinal statements of the church” (see page 53/637).

Yet this is not a matter of Brooks agreeing with traditionalists on any stance, but rather of recognizing the objective facts.

Both Mainstream UMC and UM Insight have previously spread this myth, such as Astle characterizing Paragraph 2553 (established by the Taylor Disaffiliation Petition) as “an amendment to the so-called ‘traditional plan,’” another editorial by Astle characterizing “the payments being requested” of disaffiliating congregations” as merely “the very ‘exit dues’ that traditionalists themselves set up,” and another Mainstream UMC email from Mark Holland, republished on UM Insight, claiming, “Paragraph 2553 was written and adopted by ‘traditionalists.’”

I am notifying both Holland and Astle of these inaccuracies. When both Mainstream UMC and UM Insight choose to leave posted such blatant misrepresentations of the truth, without any proportionate retraction, correction, or taking responsibility, neither Mainstream UMC nor UM Insight can expect responsible United Methodists to trust what they say as honest or accurate.

You may keep reading and following the hyperlinks for details on what actually happened with the adoption of Paragraph 2553—or you can skip down to the next rebuttal.

There were three different petitions submitted to the 2019 General Conference to allow congregations to disaffiliate. Two were submitted by theological traditionalists (see here and here), but a slim margin of non-traditionalist delegates proved enough to elevate the “Taylor Disaffiliation Petition” over these traditionalist-authored alternatives, under that conference’s special process in which delegates initially voted on which petitions to prioritize (see page 6/350). Among other differences, the Taylor Disaffiliation Petition required significantly higher exit fees than in either of the traditionalist-submitted alternatives. This petition’s title came from its non-traditionalist author, Leah Taylor, who as a member of the Way Forward Commission publicly supported the “One Church Plan” to loosen the Discipline’s restrictive language related to homosexuality (see page 19). Among those who spoke in favor of her petition was Mike Slaughter, a prominent supporter of liberalizing church standards related to homosexuality (see page 17/441).

The conference did adopt a minority report, presented by Pastor Beth Ann Cook, a theological traditionalist, which made a total of five tweaks to the Taylor Disaffiliation Petition, some of which were rather minor. The fifth change merely copied an amendment introduced by a West Virginia delegate who does not identify as traditionalist, which was previously adopted by the committee of the whole (see pages 17-19 / 441-443). By my count, out of the more than 1,000 words in the original Taylor Disaffiliation Petition, only about one quarter were ultimately deleted or replaced before the petition’s final adoption.

Again, as Mainstream UMC’s former Western Jurisdiction board member noted, “none of those changes altered the essence of the petition.”

2. Relatedly, others have grossly exaggerated the significance of the minority report. 

For example, another Mainstream UMC Board member, the Rev. David Livingston of Holland’s Great Plains Conference, claimed (in a blog post rebutted here), that traditionalist delegates “had every opportunity to make [the disaffiliation petition] say precisely what [they] wanted it to say,” that traditionalists “could have radically changed the now 2553.”

This is also false.

Anyone who understands how contested legislation gets handled at conferences knows that the more controversial changes you pack into any single minority report or any other proposal, the more additional chunks of delegates will find some reason to oppose the whole package. The Cook-presented minority report was approved by the narrowest of margins—a mere two votes out of over 800 cast! If the minority report had gone even slightly further, to include even one modest additional change that would have alienated just two delegates, then the minority report would have been rejected. That’s just basic math.

To put things a bit differently, 599 delegates voted for the aforementioned West Virginians’ amendment as a stand-alone change to Paragraph 2553. But then when this amendment was bundled with other tweaks in the minority report, support plummeted to only 402 delegates. These are not the political margins in which too radical changes from Taylor’s original plan would have been realistic.

Furthermore, I have directly confirmed with at least one traditionalist delegate that after the minority report was approved, he was in the queue trying to offer another amendment to the Taylor Disaffiliation Petition, but he was not recognized before time ran out.

We will never know for sure how much further 2019 delegates may have perfected Paragraph 2553 if they had had sufficient time and space to do their best work. Remember, it was adopted at the end of the final day of the 2019 General Conference, after limited legislative time had been eaten up by what the UM News Service called “hours of delaying tactics by opponents” of the Traditional Plan.

At the end of the day, the Taylor Disaffiliation petition was ultimately adopted with a very strong majority of its original, liberal-authored language intact.

3.         Mainstream UMC and UM Insight broadly claim that, “There has been enough time” for congregations to disaffiliate, speak of this period of disaffiliation having lasted “almost 5 years,” and insultingly speak of some congregations who have not yet disaffiliated, even if it makes sense for them, of having “been asleep at the wheel.”

This is highly misleading, at best.

First of all, in many places, United Methodist congregations have actually never really had any chance, let alone “enough time,” to disaffiliate under ¶2553.

Remember, the UMC is a global church. In January, Council of Bishops President Thomas Bickerton of New York issued a declaration that “the Provisions of Paragraph 2553 of the 2016 United Methodist Book of Discipline are not applicable to or operational within the Central Conferences of our United Methodist Church” (emphasis original).

While Bickerton’s ruling was very questionable for several reasons, its practical impact was seen in how, to my knowledge, not one congregation outside of the United States has been able to disaffiliate under ¶2553.

Thus, the American Mark Holland’s expressed desire to forcibly block any proposal to allow an extension of Paragraph 2553 that would explicitly apply to all United Methodists, not just Americans, is effectively a stance of declaring that much less privileged, less wealthy, less powerful, and overwhelmingly non-white United Methodists outside of America must never, ever have the same right that Americans have had to disaffiliate.

Furthermore, for a significant minority of Americans, annual conference officials have imposed additional costs on top of ¶2553’s already-major requirements, to make disaffiliation impossible for many. Cynthia Astle’s rhetoric suggesting “traditionalists themselves” are somehow responsible for these additional impositions is as bizarre as it is inaccurate. For example, in one progressive-dominated conference, with all of the additional exit fees demanded, one congregation reported that disaffiliation would cost them “$60,000 per member – an amount they could neither raise nor borrow” (emphasis added).

How many United Methodist congregations of any stripe could afford to pay $60,000 per member?

Even two strong advocates for LGBTQ full inclusion, Professor Rebekah Miles and the aforementioned David Livingston, issued an op-ed last year, in which among other things, they protested how imposing additional requirements to ¶2553’s terms, out of desire “to maximize financial resources and hold as much of the church together as possible,” ultimately “delay departures and increase hostility.”

These full-inclusion advocates called for conferences to “uniformly adopt the minimum standards in 2553,” a call that unfortunately went unheeded in many places.

Note that it was overwhelmingly non-traditionalist annual conference officials imposing these additional costs and barriers to Paragraph 2553 (while many other non-traditionalist officials elsewhere did not take such actions to hold people hostage).

Relatedly, in 2021 and 2022, we saw growing divide of progressive leaders becoming increasingly vocal in insisting on using Paragraph 2553 as the main or even only pathway for separation, against traditionalist-promoted alternatives. For example, in 2021, the North Central Jurisdiction overwhelmingly adopted a resolution that at one point, in the context of a time when the Protocol of Reconciliation and Grace through Separation” was being widely discussed, declared instead that “annual conferences should use existing disciplinary and conference provisions to accommodate local congregations and clergy seeking disaffiliation” (i.e., Paragraph 2553). In early 2022, the UMC Council of Bishops, which is numerically dominated by individuals who do not identify as theological traditionalists, “affirmed by an overwhelming majority that paragraph 2553 in the Book of Discipline would be the primary paragraph used for disaffiliation and separation,” at a time when many traditionalists were promoting the alternative of Paragraph 2548.2 (which the Judicial Council later effectively invalidated, at the request of the Council of Bishops).

When non-traditionalists have imposed sometimes impossibly high extra payments while blocking other disaffiliation pathways, it is hardly accurate to portray “traditionalists themselves” as solely responsible for such barriers to disaffiliation. 

Secondly, even for many in other U.S. conferences, the extent of disaffiliation opportunities has been much more limited than the rhetoric of Mainstream UMC and UM Insight suggests.

As you may recall, for much of the post-2019 period, the disruptive impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic—with the sicknesses, shutdowns, financial blows, and draining controversies—posed unprecedented challenges for so many of our pastors and congregations. It seems rather graceless to fault congregations for not focusing more on disaffiliation while overwhelmed by such a global crisis!

And remember, in 2019, almost everyone was waiting to see what the next year’s (2020) General Conference would do, rather than rush to disaffiliate immediately.

2020 began with the announcement of the aforementioned “Protocol of Reconciliation and Grace through Separation,” then supported by Mainstream UMC and others, which would have provided for separation much more comprehensively and with much less difficult terms than Paragraph 2553.

Then the General Conference was postponed only until 2021, so that congregations naturally expected that they should just wait one more year.

Then in early 2021, General Conference was postponed until 2022, so that congregations trusted that they could wait one additional year.

Then in early 2022 came the controversial decision to delay General Conference until 2024. After this, Mainstream UMC and other self-described centrist and progressive leaders publicly renounced their previous support of the Protocol.

It was only in August 2022 that the Judicial Council issued its controversial decision barring proposals in some annual conferences to use Discipline Paragraph 2548.2 as an alternative path for congregations to leave the UMC and transfer into the Global Methodist Church.

By then, it was far too late for many congregations to disaffiliate under Paragraph 2553 before their annual conference’s spring 2023 session.

Furthermore, as late as August 2022, multiple annual conferences had still not established a clear policy for how congregations could disaffiliate under ¶2553 (see here and here)! So many congregations only had one realistic opportunity, this year, to disaffiliate.

Even since then, bishops and other officials in a range of conferences have strongly encouraged disaffiliation-minded congregations to wait and see what the next General Conference does. If the next General Conference does not establish a new disaffiliation policy, such congregations would be effectively punished for…trusting their bishops!

Again, it is worth remembering that ¶2553 places four major barriers in front of anyone seeking disaffiliation:

• Come to the often deeply painful, heart-breaking conclusion that it is time to leave your denomination and congregation. This merits listing separately, given how difficult this can be after a lifetime of service and sacrifice to the UMC.
• Hold a vote and reach a super-majority agreement within your congregation, in which a minority as small as 34 percent could block disaffiliation.
• Pay exit fees of the current year’s apportionments (which, to be fair, you are supposed to pay anyway), “an additional 12 months of apportionments,” often huge unfunded-pension-liability payments, and “All costs for transfer of title or other legal work.”
• Wait for their annual conference to meet and ratify their disaffiliation. This last requirement was not part of the petition actually adopted, but was added later by the Judicial Council, in a decision some have questioned.

In the aftermath of the last General Conference, self-described progressive and centrist leaders overwhelmingly declared that these four requirements asked far too much of them.

Now that the shoe is on the other foot, is a little bit of empathy from those who have become factionally dominant in the UMC really too much to ask for in a Christian church?

Until well into 2022, many congregations reasonably expected that the second and third requirements could be dramatically reduced if they waited for the adoption of the Protocol and/or a ¶2548.2-based separation policy.

In any case, it hardly seems fair for denominational leaders to “punch down” and mock, demonize, or punish congregations for trusting their bishops, being overwhelmed during a global pandemic, not limiting their membership to millionaires, or failing to be located within the United States.

See Part 2: Mainstream UMC Misrepresents United Methodist 2024 Options