by Bob Phillips

Recently the Lewis Center, located out of Wesley Theological Seminary, offered the third and final report on disaffiliations in the UMC. The center, under the able leadership of Lovett Weems, offers a myriad of helpful information, insights, and programs relative to leadership and the strengths and struggles of United Methodism. The report is here: The third and final report on church disaffiliations by the Lewis Center for Church Leadership.

This report is helpful and revealing in what it says, what it doesn’t say, and how it says what it says. This is not due to any “vast, left-wing/right-wing conspiracy” on their part, but a reminder that our particular subculture and its unspoken assumptions about reality affect us all.

The report contains much helpful information. I offer samples. We learn in clear language that 25% of US churches, with roughly 24% of US membership, departed. We learned that the two southern jurisdictions represented the major share of those who departed, even as they represented the major share of the pre-disaffiliation church. We learn the UM division involved a significantly larger share of churches (25%) than what occurred in recent Presbyterian and Episcopal splits (10%). Personally, I assumed as the disaffiliation movement gained momentum that the UMC outcome would be 10%, similar to the other denominations. I was off by 150%.

The study rightly notes that one reason some regions (such as the Western Jurisdiction) had a tiny percentage of churches leave was that over time many of the more traditional members already had voted with their conscience and left. It raises the proper question of why at least half of disaffiliating churches have chosen (for now) to go independent, a response few expected.

What the report doesn’t say is revealing, and I grant that such a critique can devolve into cheap shots such as routinely flow from Monday morning quarterbacks conducting an autopsy on a document they didn’t write. I offer these samples. There is no discussion of the Council of Bishops refusing to allow paragraph 2553 to apply to churches outside the US. As a delegate to GC2019 I, like others, assumed it applied to the entire church.

One consequence not mentioned by the report deals with the discussion as to why some conferences had few disaffiliations. Traditional clergy and churches long ago were moved to the margins in leadership presence and church ministry focus in these conferences. One looks in vain to find a DS in the regions with few/no departures who acknowledges publicly personal agreement with current church teaching on the nature of marriage or the importance of remediating or removing clergy who reject the bodily resurrection of Christ. The resulting irony is that regions with few disaffiliations most strongly advocate diversity and inclusion but theologically are the least diverse and inclusive conferences in the US denomination, with “self-avowed, practicing” evangelicals nearing clergy extinction. My observation also assumes that ‘evangelical’ is not code for “real Christian as opposed to all others.”

The report expresses concern over misinformation as one reason for disaffiliation but assumes only one side was guilty of this sin. I have personally heard at least two bishops repeatedly say to churches that there was no reason to disaffiliate by December 2023, because the Discipline is unchanged and GC24 surely will keep the door open for churches to leave if there are changes. What if GC24 slams the door on departure, other than by simply walking away from the building and all assets, as Council of Bishops rumbling suggests? What if GC24 does pass revised approaches to the nature of accountability, marriage, the beginning of life, or other issues? What of the numerous clergy who allowed no discussion of issues surrounding disaffiliation and passed “misinformation” impugning the integrity of whose expressing concern who did disaffiliate? In matters of misinformation, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of straight talk.

The report expresses concern over retired clergy who have sympathy with disaffiliation but have remained in the UMC. They “have kept their clergy credentials within the UMC, causing some to question their intentions.” Weems seems unaware of the unified tactic of bishops toward retired clergy to demand such retirees renounce conference membership and all conference-based retirement benefits if they do anything for or with a disaffiliated church. Serving as a guest preacher in such settings now is a chargeable offence. Weems seems unaware of this, and integrity questions, like misinformation concerns, flows only one way in the report.

How the report says what it says is informative. Much to most of the report is straightforward and refreshingly clear. Questions raised and tagged as needing more research are crisp and relevant. That said, the “Weemsian” loyalty to the system is clearly revealed in discussing the motives why folks the report tags as disproportionately white-male-Southern-local pastor departed. The stated major reasons for departure included (1) hunger for property-getting pricey real estate-aversion to paying apportionments, i.e., greed; (2) pastoral preference and reliance on misinformation (lies), i.e., personality cults lacking integrity; (3)n polity and rejection of denominational ties, i.e., disloyalty to the Methodist brand. One fairly could ask who in their right Christian mind would act based on such flawed and dysfunctional motives.

The major struggle with trust deficits at all levels of church life, clearly highlighted in the 2010 Call to Action denominational study, is not mentioned. The lack of accountability from and by the Council of Bishops in selective obedience to church teaching by two invalid candidates elected wrongly to senior leadership, is not mentioned. Failure to mobilize the US church in the face of 54 years of sustained decline is not mentioned. The theological dysphoria surrounding core gospel teaching is not mentioned. The systemic denial by the institution of the compelling reality of these and other issues is not mentioned. One pastor of a church paying $1,000 in apportionments…daily…did a cost-benefit analysis. The money given supported a denomination whose 2019 General Conference led to a decline in their worship attendance for the first time in 15 years. As an aside, having disaffiliated, the church has recovered that loss and more.

So, use the fine and (generally) fair research in the Weems summary. Consciously name and avoid the spin that breeds denial and evades annoying truth, a warning to all “sides.” A rich future awaits all expressions of Methodism, provided blunt facts birth truth and truth nurtures the wisdom to discern and move toward the center of God’s will for his church.

Bob Phillips

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)

See Bob’s work on Methodist Mitosis in Methodist Review.

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