by Bob Phillips
As I write a great deal of passion and pain has erupted on the web regarding the seizure of all assets of Mt. Bethel UMC in Marietta, Georgia by their bishop. There is much “he said–she said.” This is more than a kerfuffle. This unfolding event is sending shards of emotional glass flying across the national church. Secular media loves it; Jesus, not so much.
In Wicked Problem theory, this conflict reflects several simultaneous collisions. There is the collision of trust, as the bishop in her statements has no trust in nor respect for the current disobedient leadership of that church. Clearly Mt. Bethel leadership shares the trust deficit toward the bishop and cabinet. The bishop is power-hungry and seeks to disable any healthy church or pastor who affirms a future vision of alignment with the Global Methodist Church.
Are we having fun yet? If not, other factors of the wicked problem intervene to further muss the hair of the spectators. Mis-communication is endemic and consistent, remembering that “communication is the creation of meaning in the receiver.” It is not enough for a speaker to say, “I know what I said.” The key to the message is when the listener says, “I know what I heard.” Dysfunctional structures and organizational dynamics are at play. Was there or was there not consultation prior to the announced move of the Mt. Bethel pastor to an unformed new assignment? If not, why not? If yes, was it understood as such?
Must a bishop always consult? The collision of cultural and core values squirms behind every major pronouncement. What is the meaning of ‘obedience’ for a pastor or a church in such a situation? Happy labor awaits attorneys at $300 per hour, paid by the tithes and offerings of conference laity, to establish winners and losers. Wicked problem theory is clear that if the outcome is framed in terms of “winner’ and ‘loser,’ unless one is talking about the defeat of Hitler, the real outcome will be ‘lose-lose.’
Consider the very recent situation at Glide Memorial United Methodist Church for an alternative approach. Two disclaimers are in order. First, there always are some factoids unknown to outside observers. That is no reason to dismiss it without further thought, unless one prefers to snuggle with unchallenged confirmation bias, whether from the left or the right. The second disclaimer is that reading what all sides have produced on facts and meaning matters greatly, but I personally have no ‘boots on the ground.’ I have been at Mt. Bethel for a conference and have acquaintance friendships with some worshippers. I have been to Glide and have acquaintance friendships with some worshippers and a former pastor.
Rather than recount all that has happened at Mt. Bethel, which is throbbing on numerous websites for instant review, consider the November 2020 resolution of a notably similar situation between the Cal-Nevada Conference led by Bishop Minerva Carcano, and the former conference flagship church, Glide Memorial UMC, located in the tenderloin district of San Francisco.
The Glide situation was a slow-motion train wreck. In the early 1940’s Glide was a strong evangelical church of the conference, pastored by JC McPheeters until he left to become President of…wait for it…Asbury Theological Seminary. A combination of cultural changes, theological shifts and sincere but ineffective leadership left the church in a superb location with holiness matron Lizzie Glide’s hefty endowment and an attendance of 35. Enter young African American pastor Cecil Williams, appointed in 1963, brash and saucy and ready to push massive change. By the way, this section draws heavily from Beyond the Possible, Cecil’s recounting of his ministry, co-authored with wife Janice Mirikatani and published in 2013.
When Cecil officially retired in 2000, his name had become a legend in the Bay area. Celebrities flocked to be seen at Glide for their Sunday celebrations, especially politicians and Hollywood types. The church was and remains well-known for its massive social service programs of feeding, housing, addiction/recovery, gay rights, medical services, shelter and educational programs. Warren Buffet auctions off an annual lunch, with winning bids in the millions of dollars, all flowing to the secular, non-profit Glide Foundation that funds all religious ministries on site (1-2% of the budget) and the rest for social services.
As various news reports make clear, Cecil did not leave the church when he retired. His official status on the Glide Foundation and continuing relationship with the church made him the undisputed final authority for all things Glide. Subsequent pastors, include Karen Oliveto, accepted the arrangement, even though the consolidation of power led to the elimination of a Church Council, SPRC, Trustees, Finance, Charge Conference and virtually all other sources of accountability or institutional identity as a United Methodist Church.
When Oliveto left in 2016, having been elected to the office of bishop, few outside Glide were aware of how tenuous the UM connection was and how powerful the secular non-profit agency was in church matters. Few knew of the drop in reported worship attendance at what once was the largest church in the jurisdiction, from 3600 the year before Oliveto arrived to 970 the year after she departed. After a brief interim, Rev Jay Williams arrived from Boston. A queer, cisgender African American Harvard PhD and former assistant VP at Merrill Lynch, he lasted one year, tactfully stepping down after Easter on the graciously vague grounds that he “was not permitted” to be the senior pastor of Glide. The ageing Cecil, his wife Janice and the secular non-profit foundation in fact held all meaningful authority. The former Merrill Lynch VP who was refused full access to the church budget or spending decisions or any other major decisions found this approach incompatible with Christian teaching on the role and authority of a pastor.
Bishop Carcano identified a new senior pastor but the Foundation rejected him (for reasons never publicly stated). When the bishop realized that none of the infrastructure for a functioning UM church existed at Glide and that a group of people, many of whom were not members and some of whom were not professing Christians, had vetoed her choice of pastor for a church in her conference, she reacted by withdrawing other appointed clergy and instigating a legal process to officially reclaim Glide as a United Methodist Church.
The legal kabuki dance lasted over a year and reached public resolution in November 2020. Glide church kept the property and the tens of millions in total assets (the Foundation has never published a full public disclosure of resources). The conference was permitted to start another church that also could be named Glide and was given roughly 5.5M in settlement, which could buy a single-family house on nearby Hyde Street.
Bishop Carcano could have exercised the ‘nuclear’ option and demanded that all resources be turned over to the Conference as part of the trust clause. It is clear that her respect for the social services provided by Glide led her away from throwing a legal grenade into the middle of Glide’s activity, deep division notwithstanding. It appears that all players were agreed not to take steps that could dramatically disrupt or confuse the work of Glide while other issues were addressed in legal settings. Yes, Glide no longer is technically a United Methodist church and likely departed with at least 50M in total assets (again, the Foundation refuses to open its books), but the bishop discerned such a fight was not worth the larger damage to the existing work, nor to the reputation of the conference and the denomination in secular press.
One can hope the North Georgia bishop can learn from that example. Mt. Bethel accepted the new senior pastor (by all accounts a fine evangelical pastor), reluctantly and with limits, whereas Glide, through a non-Christian foundation with no disciplinary relevance, summarily rejected Carcano’s appointee. Glide pastoral leadership had shifted all major church assets to a secular foundation; Mt. Bethel leadership did not. Glide had long since eliminated Holy Communion and explicit Christian baptisms from worship services, concerned for the exclusionary effect of such rituals on non-Christians present; Mt. Bethel has kept a theologically consistent Christian witness in worship and sacraments.
Bishop Carcano initially and properly resorted to legal assistance but decided that risking an outcome that burns the village in order to save it was unwise. The loss of a congregation with 17% of the total membership of the conference was not a pleasant thought, but the sustained and deepening alienation of Glide would have been a blow at future United Methodist witness in the Bay area. This also meant that Bishop Carcano needed to get past Cecil’s public accusation that the bishop simply wanted Glide to become traditional and conservative, two qualities not obviously part of Carcano’s theological and political progressive track record.
Much of this novel remains to be written. One can hope Christian cool heads will prevail that ease the public spectacle created in the Atlanta area, and nationally, by the conflict. One can hope all key players will commit to be as passionate about preserving the fine ministries of Mt. Bethel as Cal-Nevada and Glide leadership were in their hard decision to sheath verbal swords and reach a constructive settlement. One can hope no village is burned to “save” it. I choose to hope.
Bob Phillips
Chair WCA, Illinois Great Rivers Conference
Degrees from University of Illinois, Asbury and Princeton Seminaries, University of St. Andrews
Graduate of Senior Executive Seminar on Morality, Ethics and Public Policy, Brookings Institution
Captain, Chaplain Corps, US Navy (ret)
People Need Jesus 
I wondered how long it would be before someone connected the two. Thanks for doing so.
As a longtime UMC member, I have heard mention of the trust clause on a somewhat regular basis over the years, but it always was qualified by the statement that it is never used, unless the congregation itself dies. And this made total sense–why would a church denomination hierarchy attempt to take away any property that the congregation itself had paid for unless there was no congregation left to enjoy it? Why would any church hierarchy want to destroy that trust? In the situation with Glide Memorial, the hierarchy seems to have valued a level of continuing understanding, even when the membership left the UMC. Up to this point in Georgia, that does not seem to be of interest at all by the North Georgia Conference officials.
I hope this is “lesson learned” for UMC congregations far and wide. If a congregation is not in sync with its bishop–now or in the future–no matter how healthy or vibrant, they had better tow the bishop’s doctrinal line, regardless how much the doctrine strays from the faith.
It took only two paragraphs to mention the GMC. As I commented to Chris Ritter, congregations have more choices than UMC vs. GMC, despite all the promotion the WCA is giving the GMC.
Paul, what are the other likely options under the Protocol? Is there another group gathering 100+ churches to form a new denomination?
What’s to keep a local congregation from jumping through the necessary hoops to affiliate with an existing denomination that follows the Wesleyan tradition? Example: a local PCUSA pastor and his entire congregation raised the funds to buy their property and buildings, and then joined another existing Presbyterian denomination. Or how about simply disaffiliating and going non-denom, if they feel they can do it?
A church can disaffiliate (as now), but not under the Protocol. The separation plan only releases congregations to a denomination forming under the Protocol legislation. So far the GMC is the only candidate.
Thank you for the clarification, Rev. Ritter. I’m just glad Dad — who preached through two mergers as a civilian pastor and a Chaplain in WWII combat — has gone on to Glory and won’t experience the certain separation. He was ordained in the MEC and served an MEC church (one of many) here in Florida before the 1939 merger. Then came the merger with the EUB and the MPC. It will be interesting to see how many, if any, congregations choose a way forward other than the binary choice being presented now.
Week to week, all eyes are on Mt. Bethel UMC; it’s now the nexus of United Methodist drama. All the forces of institutional power (and all the media watchers) are being drawn to this battleground to play their auspicious, historical roles in the final revelation of what happens to Mt. Bethel, WCA, and the Protocol. I don’t think we chose this moment. Someone appointed us to this hour.
J.C. McPheeters was a pastor of Glide for 18 years from 1930-1948 and president of Asbury Theological Seminary from 1942-1962. For the first 6 years of his presidency, he commuted from his pastorate in California to the Seminary in Kentucky.