I believe in the authority of Scripture, so I believe these words from Jesus are true. I do not wish ill on those who leave the UMC. I do believe it is important for them to be truthful. And I continue to be amazed at the ways some national and global traditionalist leadership twist the truth about the UMC. The latest is this article by John Lomperis. There's so much here that I'm just going to number them as I work through the article. As always, I encourage you to read the article so you know the context and feel free to let me know if I make any factual mistakes.
First, a couple of clear opinion pieces that I need to share. The title - Lawsuit Time: Florida UMC Fight Goes to Court! strikes me as a feeling of excitement, not sorrow. I think we should all be in sackcloth right now. Second, Lomperis' readers need to always be aware of how he demonizes those he disagrees with. For example, Bishop Carter is "aggressively liberal" - whatever that means - and later is simply "Mr. Carter." His protagonists, meanwhile, are the "underdogs" even though traditionalists at the General Conference level have gloated for years about winning every vote, etc.
Now the factual misrepresentations. Get a snack. This will take a while.
1. "The Protocol preamble makes clear that the [UMC] will liberalize." The preamble does imagine a church (which I hope comes to pass) where discriminatory language against LGBT+ people is removed. In that limited way Lomperis is correct. That is NOT a doctrinal change, despite Lomperis citing his own argument to the contrary. Importantly, the Protocol's preamble also says, "We envision the Post-Separation United Methodist Church will strive to be a place where traditional United Methodists can continue to serve." If one wants to pretend that the progressive-traditionalist theological spectrum is entirely based on approval-disapproval of LGBT+ people then Lomperis may be right. That is not world we actually live in, as I can personally attest to with both my own theology and many laypeople that I have served over 20+ years as a pastor.
2. "For United Methodists who do not want their denomination to keep bishops who openly deny the UMC’s own core doctrine about Jesus Christ, and who want a clear majority of their denomination’s American constituency to not believe that “Jesus committed sins like other people...” I assume this is referring to Bishop Sprague, and Bishop Oliveto. The quote refers to a sermon by Oliveto that is taken out of context and the reference to Sprague is, as best as I can determine, the only instance in the history of our denomination of a bishop denying the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Taken very literally, Lomperis is correct. It is a clear misrepresentation of what 99% of UM bishops have taught.
3. "The Florida UMC congregations in this lawsuit...are seeking to simply continue serving God and their community..." No, literally nothing is preventing them from doing that. They are seeking to take millions of dollars of property and avoid payments that they, through their General Conference delegates, agreed to.
4. "Now Carter and his appointees have done so much to “cause pain” that over 100 Florida congregations in this lawsuit have found it necessary to separate from the UMC, so that they can remain faithful to the historic doctrinal and moral standards..." First, no bishop can make a church leave. They are making that choice - as they have the right to do. Second, despite so much misinformation, there is absolutely nothing in proposed changes to the Book of Discipline that would prevent a traditional church or pastor from being both traditional and United Methodist. Nobody will force a pastor to perform a same-sex marriage; nobody will force the people in the pews from recognizing a same-sex marriage.
5. "[Those who leave] should be people like Carter who do not believe in the UMC’s historic, official historic standards." This is another common misrepresentation that I'll be posting on soon. Lomperis, and the GMC generally, is cherry-picking "historic standards" I have repeatedly offered to share blatant evidence of traditionalist churches who openly violate our doctrinal standards on baptism. Nobody, including Lomperis, has taken me up on it. Note that our statements on baptism actually are doctrinal.
6. Using "Paragraph 2553 is not nearly as “fair” or “gracious” as Carter suggests." As you have likely heard me say before, paragraph 2553 was brought to the floor of General Conference by a traditionalist leader who literally said, "This is the way I would want to be treated if I were the one leaving." Lomperis then identifies two ways in which 2553 are unfair.
7. "A traditionalist congregation can become permanently taken over for liberalism, and blocked from remaining connected with more orthodox Methodists, by a mere 34-percent minority." It's fair to argue about the best threshold needed for a church to leave. But Lomperis is still objectively wrong. Hypothetically, if a congregation voted to leave with only a 65% majority and thus failed to get to the required 2/3 under paragraph 2553 in no way would that be a "permanent" decision. If that were the case, he should also be outraged that under his preferred 50%+1 rules, a 49% liberal minority could be "permanently" blocked from being United Methodist. These are important decisions, but they aren't permanent decisions.
8. "Secondly, ¶2553, in the name of supposedly covering unfunded pension liabilities for retired clergy and their spouses, requires massive, immediate exit fees." First, note again Lomperis' extreme bias. I know of nobody who doubts there is indeed an unfunded pension liability. It is not "supposed," it is real. But Lomperis is factually incorrect in two regards here. First, as of 2019, there is no process in the Book of Discipline for a church to leave without paying for their portion of the unfunded liability. A separate petition from Wespath applies regardless of the method of disaffiliation. Second, Lomperis again cites his own work to demonstrate the excessive cost. In this case it's a 2020 article. In 2020 he may have had a point, but every conference treasurer I know has told me the costs have gone down considerably due to general economic conditions. I checked with our conference treasurer on the cost for the church I serve. According to his numbers, our cost would be less than 1/4 of the cost in 2020. It would be less than 5% of the commitments we received for a capital campaign we conducted during the pandemic.
9. "This Florida UMC lawsuit only comes after several years of his boxing traditionalists into a corner." Lomperis gives several reasons for this, dating back to March 2019. First, he cites the case of Rev. Andy Oliver. A complaint was filed against Oliver in 2019, before the abeyance language in the Protocol had come about, and says nothing was done. Lomperis has been personally involved in complaints, as have I, and I'm sure he knows that even fast-tracked complaints can take months if the accused uses all the tools available to them. The case I was involved with was under a very traditionalist bishop and it still took over a year before the accused agreed to a "just resolution." Because the abeyance is against charges that have already been brought, it would have applied to Oliver's case well before there had been resolution. Lomperis talks extensively about Rev. Jay Therrell's treatment in Florida, which I'm not informed enough to speak to, and then moves to the debacle of the Florida Annual Conference's decision to not ordain their full slate of candidates. First, note that approval of ordination requires a 75% vote. Rephrasing Lomperis' earlier point on churches separating from the denomination, does it seem right that a group of only; 26% could prevent someone from being ordained? Second, the abeyance should have applied in this case. Instead, a group of clergy, most of whom plan on leaving the denomination, chose to cause pain.
10. " the Florida UMC congregations in this lawsuit “tried to settle this matter with the Florida Annual Conference..." This statement comes from an article in the Lehigh Acres Gazette that makes no attempt to share the Conference's point of view and reads like an editorial. I can't say whether this is a factual error; I can say that the Florida Annual Conference tells a very different story.
11. The Florida Conference is demanding, "...an arbitrary, onerous, and often prohibitive sum of money determined in the sole discretion” of annual conference officials." It is not arbitrary - it is based on the decision of GC2019 and the unfunded liability portion is uniformly applied across literally every church in the denomination that chooses to leave for any reason. It is not onerous or prohibitive - the pension amount is 1/4 of what it was two years ago. And it was not made at the "sole discretion" of the conference. Florida is among the large majority of conferences that are requiring the absolute minimum requirements found in paragraph 2553.
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