UMC Conservatives Dismayed By Liberal Dominance Of Church Structures
by Jim Brown and Jenni Parker
May 5, 2004
(AgapePress) - Controversies abound at the 2004 meeting of the United Methodist Church General Conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, ongoing through May 7. There some conservatives are expressing disappointment over the outcome of Judicial Council elections, while Orthodox women in the denomination are rankling over being overlooked by the UMC's liberal Women's Division.
The day after a major snafu involving flawed voting machines, the General Conference elected four new members to the Judicial Council. Officials declared Monday's initial elections null and void because 74 invalid votes were recorded. The Tuesday do-over resulted in the election of four new council members, two lay -- John Gray and Beth Capen -- and two clergy -- Susan Henry Crowe and Dennis Blackwell -- as well as six reserve laity and six reserve clergy members to the church's high court.
Blackwell, an African American pastor from Greater New Jersey, was the only primary nominee endorsed by evangelical groups, although several reserve clergy and laity that were elected had been endorsed by Methodist renewal groups. Dr. Maxie Dunnam, a Kentucky delegate and President of Asbury Theological Seminary, calls the election results "very disappointing" for conservatives.
"The judicial council is the most important body in the life of the church," Dunnam says, "and we need that body not to be a body that is ideological as it relates to these issues that are tearing our church apart. It needs to be a body that will look seriously at and be fair in interpreting what the church has said and how the church has defined herself."
The seminary president feels the elections will likely fuel the UMC's leftward drift. "I think the judicial council can shape the church-- and will shape it if they do not act with integrity in interpreting the law of the church. So yes, a group of people could take the church in the wrong direction," Dunnam says.
Meanwhile, a representative of a conservative United Methodist women's group believes the denomination's liberal Women's Division has long ignored the voice of theologically orthodox women in the church.
The Renew Network for Women has submitted several petitions to the general conference requesting the formation of supplemental women's ministries. Renew president Faye Short says the theological and political perspectives of the Women's Division do not represent a large percentage of the denomination's women.
"We're finding that [that Orthodox perspective] is really being blocked here, of course, through the legislative process with what we believe to be some manipulation," Short says, "and at this point the answer has been 'No, we will not approve supplemental women's ministries, but you can just take what ministries are allowed in the Discipline and move ahead with what you want to do."
The conservative spokesperson says many United Methodists are unaware that the Women's Division gives numerous grants to radical pro-abortion and pro-homosexual groups. She feels the division needs to be more accountable to the UMC's Book of Discipline and that it must be subject to more financial oversight. "Of course their claim is that they are accountable under those things," Short says, "but we have found that not always to be the case."
According to the president of the Renew Network for Women, those women that are part of her group as well as UMC women beyond it are not interested in being marginalized, but are very interested in being able to have recognition for ministries that are broad-based.
Short says the Women's Division and United Methodist Women run almost as "a parallel structure" to the denomination. Therefore, she says her group has been encouraging them to be more integrated into the mission and ministry of the total life of the church.
