Key points:
- The United Methodist Church’s top court declared “null and void” the Mississippi Conference’s process to let churches leave with property.
- The decision, released before the start of the Mississippi Annual Conference, is the most recent to emphasize that closures cannot be used as alternative paths for church disaffiliations.
- The denomination’s temporary disaffiliation policy expired on Dec. 31, 2023, and last year’s General Conference deleted it entirely.
The United Methodist Church’s top court has struck down the Mississippi Conference’s process to allow churches to leave the denomination with property.
In Decision 1518, the Judicial Council reiterates its conclusion in two earlier rulings that church closures cannot be used as a back door for church exits now that the denomination’s temporary disaffiliation policy no longer exists.
The process adopted by the Mississippi Conference’s board of trustees, the church court said, violates the denomination’s church-closure provision — Paragraph 2549 in the Book of Discipline.
“In addition, the ‘Mississippi Process’ was enacted without disciplinary authority,” the decision said. “Therefore, it is null and void and has no force or effect.”
The Judicial Council held a special online session June 2 to consider questions from the Southeastern Jurisdiction’s bishops submitted too late to be part of the church court’s spring docket.
The church court publicly released the decision the next day — ahead of when the Mississippi Annual Conference meets June 4-7. The conference’s agenda includes voting on a dozen church closures.
At issue in this case is the process that the Mississippi Conference’s trustees first adopted on October 20, 2022, and extended in 2024 and 2025.
Under that process, the trustees entered into agreements with churches that allowed them to withdraw under terms similar to the Discipline’s disaffiliation policy, Paragraph 2553, after it expired.
The 2019 special General Conference instituted Paragraph 2553 to allow congregations to depart the denomination with their property “for reasons of conscience” related to homosexuality, if they met certain procedural and financial requirements. As approved, the policy was set to expire on Dec. 31, 2023.
By a vote of 516 to 203, delegates at last year’s General Conference took the additional step of eliminating the disaffiliation policy from the Discipline entirely. That same General Conference — delayed four years by the COVID pandemic — also removed longtime denomination-wide bans on same-sex weddings and “self-avowed practicing” gay clergy.
While Paragraph 2553 was in force, about a quarter of U.S. churches used the policy to leave The United Methodist Church, including 386 in Mississippi. The Judicial Council also issued multiple rulings related to the provision during those years.
However, after the pandemic led to the postponement of the regularly scheduled 2020 General Conference beyond the policy’s expiration, the Mississippi Conference trustees turned to another provision to extend it.
Paragraph 2549, a church-closure provision, mainly covers how to work with the members and property of congregations that are no longer sustainable. Under the Mississippi Process, the conference allows the trustees to enter into a contract with a thriving church “to sell the same property back to a new church formed by the members of your church.”
The Judicial Council ruled that the Mississippi Process violated both Paragraph 2549’s overall intent and its rules governing the transfer of property.
“Annual conferences, trustees, and local churches cannot rewrite any part of the Discipline to force the terms of ¶2553 into ¶2549 or any other paragraph of the Discipline,” the church court said.
“Annual conferences cannot modify the terms of the Discipline to suit their desires or what they wished, or thought would have happened if the General Conference had adopted certain language,” the decision continued. “Furthermore, they cannot interpret a paragraph of the Discipline to extend the provisions of another paragraph that has expired.”
Paragraph 2553 offered a temporary release from the denomination’s trust clause, which has been part of the Discipline of The United Methodist Church and its predecessors since 1797.
The trust clause, in the Discipline’s Paragraph 2501, states: “All properties of United Methodist local churches and other United Methodist agencies and institutions are held, in trust, for the benefit of the entire denomination.”
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The paragraph goes on to describe the trust requirement as “a fundamental expression of United Methodism.”
With Paragraph 2553 no longer in effect, the Judicial Council has consistently ruled that the trust clause is in full force.
In Decision 1512, released on Oct. 29 last year, the church court held “that a local church may not disaffiliate without General Conference action.”
In Decision 1517, released April 29, the Judicial Council ruled again that Paragraph 2549 “cannot be construed or used as legislation permitting the ‘gracious exit’ of local churches because it applies to church closure and the sale of property, not disaffiliation.”
But even after the release of Decision 1512, the Mississippi Conference voted for the closure of 12 churches under the Mississippi Process.
“It is difficult to understand how giving church property to individuals who have chosen to leave The United Methodist Church serves the best interest of the denomination’s mission,” Decision 1518 said.
The Rev. Luan-Vu “Lui” Tran issued a dissent arguing that the Judicial Council did not have jurisdiction to take up this case. Unless the Southeastern Jurisdiction’s College of Bishops “is directly and specifically affected by the impugned actions, the request is outside the scope of the jurisdictional grant” of the Discipline, Tran wrote. While the Southeastern Jurisdiction’s bishops raised a valid concern, he said, the proper body to request the Judicial Council’s review would be the full Council of Bishops.
However, the Judicial Council majority argued that the church court does have the authority to take the case because the bishops’ request relates to the work of the Southeastern Jurisdiction.
“If we were to decline jurisdiction, two constituent parts of the same jurisdiction would be permitted to apply the closure procedures of ¶ 2549.3a differently and in a manner contrary to previous decisions of the Council applicable to all annual conferences and all jurisdictions and central conferences,” Decision 1518 said. “Such a result cannot be condoned.”
The decision also includes an appendix that includes the full text of the now-deleted Paragraph 2553.
The Rev. Øyvind Helliesen was absent and did not participate in the decision. The Rev. Tim Bruster, first clergy alternate, participated.
Hahn is assistant news editor for UM News. Contact her at (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umnews.org. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free UM News Digest.
