Annual Conferences rebuke General Conference

I talked to my pastor after the Michigan Annual Conference held at the beginning of June. I also heard from a couple friends who attended. The pastor and the friends said what the Annual Conference did could be described as a progressive sweep, a repudiation to the disastrous anti-LGBTQ General Conference in February. Three weeks have passed since the conference ended, so I’m relying on the report from the United Methodist News Service.

The actions in response to GC:

* Approved an aspirational statement “to live into an expression of Methodism that includes LGBTQIA people in full life and membership of the UMC.”

* Took a straw poll of conference members to guide Michigan leadership: 69% favor policies to allow but do not require clergy to officiate at same-gender weddings and allow ordination regardless of sexual orientation. This is 69% who disagree with the current Book of Discipline and with the actions taken at GC.

* Of those commissioned for church leadership were two openly LGBTQ persons, one of them in a same-gender marriage.

* Delegates elected to go to next year’s General Conference were all progressives. The group is also much younger than previous delegations. The delegates for next year’s Jurisdictional Conference are likewise all progressives.

For my non-Methodist readers, an annual conference is a small region, a state or part of a state, though in the West it might be two states. It’s called an annual conference because there is a big meeting every year of all the clergy and delegates from all the congregations. A Jurisdictional Conference covers a multi-state area. There are five of them in the US. They hold meetings every four years, just a few months after General Conference. And GC is the primary rule making body and has delegates from around the world.

Not all annual conferences have happened yet. For those that have I’m not interested in wading through dozens of reports on UMNS to pull out the GC related nuggets – especially if someone else is doing it. That someone is Rev. Jeremy Smith, who writes the blog Hacking Christianity.

Smith lists numbers from David Livingston of Kansas about the South Central Jurisdiction (Nebraska to Texas, New Mexico to Arkansas): 69% of the delegates being sent to GC 2020 from SCJ oppose the Traditional Plan passed in GC2019. 28% of those delegates support the Traditional Plan. This is important news from the American South.

Those on the Wesleyan Covenant Association (conservative) delegate slates in annual conferences across the country barely topped 30% of the vote. Many of the WCA leadership lost their bids to be delegates. It seems to be a rout.

On the progressive side there was an intention to make sure the delegates were younger and include more people of color and more who are LGBTQ. This will be the most diverse US delegation. The entire delegation from Oregon-Idaho, clergy and laity, is queer. The entire New England clergy delegation is queer. There are even some queer delegates from the Old South. For the first time since 1988 progressives will lead all five US jurisdictions.

Does a youthful delegation mean “inexperienced,” as some have claimed, and unable to meet the needs of GC or should we rejoice that “a whole bunch of young, diverse UMs just said they cared enough about the future of the denomination to be elected to General Conference?”

In violation of the Book of Discipline (GC2019 didn’t change the rules, only made punishment more severe) five other conferences also ordained LGBTQ clergy – including one in the South!. All of this is a strong rebuke of what GC2019 did.

Smith crunches some numbers and says that with the more progressive delegates from the SCJ and elsewhere GC2020 comes very close to being able to overturn the Traditional Plan. But it may not be enough. Conservatives need only 100 out of 482 American votes to combine with delegates from other conservative countries to prevail – by probably less than 2%.

So, now what? Do we try to overturn the Traditional Plan? Or is it better to use this enhanced progressive presence to negotiate a more equitable separation rather than expulsion? Is it worth keeping the existing UMC – along with its many structural problems – around? Or do we concentrate on something new?

I mentioned the Michigan Conference also elected a progressive slate to next year’s Jurisdictional Conference. So did most other jurisdictions. While it doesn’t matter to what happens at GC2020 it does matter to the future of the denomination. Jurisdictions elect bishops and there will likely be at least a dozen new progressive bishops. Various denomination boards and agencies will receive an influx of progressive members, people who are suspicious of the straight white power structure.