Where will they go?
When conservative United Methodists leave their denomination where will they go?
The latest shockwave in California are not from an earthquake but a Supreme Court decision that essentially permitted Fresno’s St. Luke’s United Methodist church to leave the UM church and take their property with them. The Fresno church’s beef with Methodism was about the denomination’s lax enforcement of The Discipline on ministers who preside over gay unions.
The United Methodists have a “denominational trust clause” like many denominations (including my own The Wesleyan Church). A trust clause means local folk hold the property “in trust” for the denomination and when the chips are down the denomination—not the local people—own the property. That has meant (until now) that any local church that wanted to exit the denomination had to leave wearing a barrel–their property had to stay behind. The denominational trust clause has been a powerful means of coercing local churches to line up or live with denominational policies and political stances or at least put up with them. This new California Supreme Court ruling essentially lets the property stay with the dissidents. It will have massive repercussions throughout Methodism in states with similar laws and in other denominations. While this ruling only applies to California it is a shot across the bow of all denominations with trust clauses. I think it is a seminal ruling. I think eventually courts will use the logic that “These people paid for their church and it doesn’t make sense they have to pay for it again when they leave the denomination.”[1] I bet over the next 20 years we’re going to see a meltdown of the trust clause. Any local church that has bought their property will be able to take it with them.
So now United Methodist conservatives have one more reason to leave their denomination (at least in California)—they can take their property with them. So will they leave? What will it take for other churches to follow St. Luke’s? Are there hundreds of United Methodist churches about to leave the denomination? Are conservative “confessing Methodists” and “Good News” groups ready to exit the denomination and take their property with them? Will they go now this major barrier has been removed? Some conservative United Methodists say there are thousands of churches—perhaps as much as 30% of the denomination that are conservative and ready to leave. I don’t believe it. There may be that many conservatives—but I doubt there are thousands of churches ready to leave. My hunch is most will stay. But I could be wrong. There is a growing “Declaration of Independence” spirit in the land and we could see the dam burst. If so where will the Methodists go with their properties? That’s the question I’m exploring in this column. Here are a few options for you to consider before adding your own thoughts later.
1. Will they become independent local churches? I doubt it. Methodists have such a strong ecclesiology that I can’t imagine they will become independent churches—that would make John Wesley rotate in his grave. Perhaps some might become “Willow churches” but that loosely organized association lacks the doctrinal teeth to protect conservative values. Conservative Methodists do not fear denominational power so much as denominational liberal power. They want stricter enforcement of The Discipline not great laxity. I doubt they’ll become independent local churches. Baptists do that—not Methodists.
2. Will they join an existing denomination? Why not join one of the existing conservative Wesleyan denominations—Nazarenes, Wesleyans, Free Methodists and the like? These denominations are similar to what these Methodists want to be. This seems to be the obvious step isn’t it? I doubt they’ll do this either. When a church has fought to get the rights to their own property they usually don’t want to jump out of the frying pan into a new denomination who insists on the “trust clause” again. All three of these denominations are pretty centralized (probably in the order I listed them) so I doubt the escaping Methodists are going to want to join another centralized church. However there is one possibility I should mention. Some of these denominations have a category called “affiliate church” where the local church retains property rights but relies on the denomination for everything else. Could these fleeing Methodists become affiliates of one of these established denominations? This is a possibility yet most denominational leaders don’t like the affiliate status since it give the leaders no gun to hold to a local church’s head. But if one of these denominations really got serious about providing a “Methodist Haven” they’d use such a category and bring in these fleeing Methodists. Affiliate status essentially allows for a connectional form of government like the Southern Baptists or the Assemblies of God—the local church gets leadership and resources from the denomination but hold their own property and pays their “apportionment” freely and in a voluntary spirit (which is how we all do it anyway—except in some Nazarene districts). I believe the connectional system is the “polity of the future” anyway. The sooner denominations reorganize this the better off we’ll be in my opinion[2]. Since my own denomination (The Wesleyan Church) has this “Affiliate church status” I wish our leaders would aggressively design a Methodist haven and actively search out and recruit churches to join. I think this is the sort of job that only a denominational headquarters can do—it justifies having one and that’s always a nice thing. Why not pour denominational energies into making a safe haven for these Methodists?[3]
3. Will they form a new denomination? They could try to form a new Methodist denomination truer to the heritage. This new conservative connectional Methodist church could become their self-designed haven for conservative Methodists. Such a new denomination would be “the other Methodist church—the conservative one.” They could call themselves the “evangelical Methodists” or the “Wesleyan Methodists” or “The Methodist connection” or something like that. They’d be a conservative Wesleyan denomination committed to saving souls and living the holy life.
Now this third option brings an interesting possibility. If they poured a barrelful of evangelical Methodists into a connectional denomination would the denominations above consider merging with them Instead of the Free Methodist Church and The Wesleyan Church taking about merging they both could join this new denomination! Or perhaps the leaders in these Wesleyan denominations ought to call the meeting to organize this new conservative Methodist church with some of the Methodists? Could we see a fresh connectional evangelistic Methodist church committed to holiness of lifestyle emerge in the next 20 years? If we do I’m interested in joining it!
So what do you think might happen? What should?
Keith Drury March 15, 2005
[1] Of course there are other strategies—one is what business calls the “poison pill strategy.” The local church builds a huge facility and takes on enormous debt so that if a district took over the property they’d never be able to maintain the debt service on the property—this when they want to leave the denomination the district simply is happy for them to take the assets—since there aren’t any real assets—who can sell a church for what they own if they’ve borrowed the maximum? Nobody—so in such negotiations the local church really relieves the denomination of the debt load! It is a clever strategy that is already being practiced by numerous large churches. One large church pastor who is defying the denomination’s stance on alcohol said “what are they going to do—close me down—our district couldn’t pay two month’s payments on my church before they went bankrupt.” The poison pill strategy is a way of maintaining local power without actually leaving a denomination.
[2] The court may be doing us all a favor actually. Given the increasing litigation and huge settlements for sexual abuse against denominations having a “trust clause” merely puts the entire assets of the denomination on the line betting that a minister won’t abuse a minor or practice harassment. It is a poor bet. When each church stands alone it is much more difficult (though still not impossible) to “sue up the ladder” to the district and denomination. This is one of the primary reasons I believe “affiliate relationships” are the wave of future church polity. Denominations who refuse to go to connectional arrangements will eventually have their pants sued off. Right now they’re draining the Roman Catholics—but our turn is coming. (In fact if you actually knew of the amounts of the settlements our smaller denominations are already making you’d faint!)
[3] I Must admit this is not my own idea but was touted for a decade in the 1970’s by David Keith—one of the most forward thinking denominational leaders we’ve ever had (Indeed, he was too forward thinking to get him elected as General Superintendent at that time, an unfortunate mistake and loss to us all).