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A statement on sexuality approved by the Baltimore-Washington Conference and a Western North Carolina Conference plan allowing flexibility in the payment of apportionments will go before the United Methodist Judicial Council this week. The two cases are among 21 items the denomination’s highest court will consider when it meets for its fall session starting Wednesday.

The sexuality case stems from a resolution passed by the 2009 session of the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference that mirrors a resolution rejected last year by the United Methodist General Conference. The Baltimore-Washington resolution also uses language from ¶161G of the 2004 United Methodist Book of Discipline, language that was superseded by action of the last year’s General Conference.

Delegates to 2008 General Conference rejected proposed language suggesting that the church has no clear teaching on homosexual relations. Further, the delegates strengthened language on sexual activity outside the bond of marriage, noting that ”sexual relations are affirmed only within the covenant of monogamous, heterosexual marriage” (now in ¶161F of the United Methodist Book of Discipline, 2008). The UM General Conference, which meets once every four years, is only body empowered to speak for the entire denomination.

The Baltimore-Washington resolution, similar in language to the legislation rejected by 2008 General Conference, noted that the “we have been and remain divided regarding homosexual expressions of human sexuality.” The Rev. Charles Harrell, pastor of Trinity UMC in Prince Frederick, Md., asked Bishop John Schol to determine whether the resolution “establishes a new and different standard on sexuality from the Discipline.”

Bishop Schol, who was elected to the episcopacy in 2004 and has served the Baltimore-Washington Conference since then, ruled (PDF) that the resolution neither “contradicts the Discipline [n]or establishes a new and different standard on sexuality from the Discipline.”

Under United Methodist legal procedure, a bishop’s “decision of law” is automatically appealed to the Judicial Council.

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The apportionments case involves a 2004 vote by the Western North Carolina Conference to institute “Choice Empowerment,” a plan that allowed local churches to have greater leeway in responding to conference and general church funding requests.

Bishop Larry M. Goodpaster

A 2006 “Stewardship of Managing Report” (PDF) presented to the Western North Carolina Conference noted that Choice Empowerment had “begun to assist local congregations in prioritizing their giving. While giving for apportionments remains flat, much more money has been given through Advance Specials and local missions given directly by local congregations…. [M]ore congregations are providing more total money for missions than ever before.”

Still, questions lingered about the “validity” of the Choice Empowerment program, leading to a request from the conference’s Council on Finance and Administration for a bishop’s ruling on the matter.

Bishop Larry Goodpaster, who assumed leadership of the Western North Carolina Conference in September 2008, ruled that the five-year-old “choice” plan violates the Book of Discipline.

“For an annual conference to adopt a policy that gives permission to local churches to choose not to pay, or to choose to shift payments from one item to another, is a violation of the letter and spirit of our church law,” Bishop Goodpaster wrote. He noted that ¶247.14 states that “[p]ayment in full of these apportionments by local churches is the first benevolent responsibility of the church.”

As with the case mentioned above, a bishop’s “decision of law” is automatically appealed to the Judicial Council.

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Below is a roundup of other items on the Judicial Council’s current docket, as summarized by the United Methodist News Service.

An item from the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference raises the issue of whether retired pastors should [be allowed to] serve in local church positions usually allocated to lay people. A retired pastor who had been chairperson of a local church finance committee since 2002 was told in the fall of 2008 that his occupying that position violated the Discipline….

The UM Judicial Council — April 2009

When the Eastern Pennsylvania Annual Conference met in 2009, the members adopted a resolution requesting that the Judicial Council make a declaratory decision on the matter because there are retired clergy serving as chairpersons of local church finance committees across the connection….

In another sexuality matter, the council will review a Detroit Conference decision concerning the Reconciling Ministries Network, an unofficial organization promoting the full participation of people of all sexual orientations in The United Methodist Church.

During the conference session, an individual asked a question about local churches identifying themselves as reconciling congregations. Bishop Jonathan Keaton ruled that he was not going to address the question because the matter did not deal with conference business….

Other docket items include a question about the legality of the Northwest Texas Conference’s vote on constitutional amendments; a ruling regarding adjustments in the number of delegates to the denomination’s General Conference and a decision about pension rates for retired clergy in the California-Nevada Conference.

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The nine-member Judicial Council will meet Wednesday through Saturday in Durham, North Carolina. Current members and alternates are listed in this post.

Members of the Council are elected by the United Methodist General Conference.

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All 21 docket items for the fall 2009 session are listed below.