Bishops, Anglican and Methodist

Thoughts inspired by the GMC's consideration of two models of episcopacy

I have a certain passing interest in the ongoing development of the newly hatched Global Methodist Church (GMC), mostly because I served my first thirteen years of ministry in the now apostate United Methodist Church (UMC). I was part of the small wave of clergy and laity who exited the UMC in the early 2000’s, as much out of frustration with what we saw as stagnation in the ranks of “renewal” ministries as with the liberal faction’s continued, and largely unaccountable, defiance of the denomination’s doctrinal standards. A good number of us found refuge in the burgeoning Anglican realignment which, at the time, was a polyglot of missionary church planting endeavors under the auspices of bishops from the Global South, particularly Africa, Asia, and South America. Eventually, these disparate missions joined forces with several orthodox dioceses fleeing from apostasy in The Episcopal Church (TEC) to form the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), which has been my provincial home since our diocese joined in 2017.

What immediately caught my attention when I first waded into the waters of Anglicanism was the fact that the movement for reform and realignment had strong episcopal backing, not only from the Global South bishops, but also from U.S. bishops in orthodox dioceses. This was a stark contrast to Methodist renewal efforts at the time. On occasion, an African bishop might speak out against the denomination’s leftward slide but the U.S. members of the Council of Bishops could always be counted on to walk in lockstep whenever a doctrinal or theological controversy arose. For most of my years of service in the UMC, I was under a bishop whom I considered a good and godly man whose personal theology was pretty much aligned with mine. Like all of the reasonably conservative bishops at the time, however, he was never one to rock the boat. The outspokenness of the orthodox bishops of the Anglican Communion, and the way they relentlessly hammered TEC for its rank heresy and apostasy, was quite the refreshing change from what I had experienced in the UMC.

Twenty years removed from my exit from the UMC, it is at least gratifying to know that, at long last, two U.S. bishops have the courage to step out of that lost denomination and be a part of the founding of the new GMC. Had only one bishop been so courageous two decades ago, so many things could have turned out very differently. Now, the nascent denomination is considering how to adapt the episcopacy to its new structure. Two models have been brought forward for consideration at the upcoming General Conference, one by the Transitional Leadership Committee (TLC) and another by the provisional Florida Annual Conference.* Noted Global Methodist video blogger Jeffrey Rickman provides an analysis of the two plans and an interview with one of the authors of the “Florida Plan.” He has also written about some serious concerns he has with the episcopal election process.

Methodism began as a renewal movement within the Church of England. John Wesley himself remained an Anglican priest in good standing until his dying day. As the Methodist revival spread from England across the Atlantic to America, however, the movement developed its own ecclesiology, quite distinct from that of its Mother Church. The first Methodist “bishop,” Thomas Coke, was “ordained” by Wesley, even though Wesley was not himself a bishop. Hence, he preferred Coke use the title, “general superintendent” and go to America to ordain Francis Asbury to the same office. The independence-minded Methodists in America, however, insisted on the title of “bishop,” much to Wesley’s dismay.

From the start, the Methodist episcopacy departed significantly from its Anglican roots, eventually evolving into a top-down connectional structure that made the lockstep nature of the present-day Council of Bishops all but inevitable. Meanwhile, the Church of England’s post-colonial American counterpart, the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America (PECUSA, now the less cumbersome TEC), developed as a looser confederation of dioceses that remained, theoretically, autonomous under local bishops but also eventually evolved into a top-down bureaucratic structure under a denomination-wide presiding bishop, roughly the equivalent of an archbishop but having no local diocesan jurisdiction.

If I could offer a word of caution to the founders of the GMC (many of whom are old friends from my days in the UMC), the TLC plan is seriously flawed in that it redefines the office of bishop as exclusively “spiritual” with no jurisdiction over, or accountability to, an annual conference (roughly the Methodist equivalent of a diocese). This would be an historical anomaly. Even the pope has local jurisdiction as Bishop of Rome. General overseers detached from local responsibility and accountability inevitably devolve into faceless bureaucrats, rarely seen and feared when they are. In the ACNA, we still remember the horrendous damage done to the Body of Christ by the unhinged behavior of former TEC Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.

The Florida Plan, which maintains the traditional function of a bishop as both spiritual and temporal overseer and allows for each annual conference to select its bishop from an “episcopal pool,” is more promising but, from my now thoroughly convinced Anglican perspective, still a bit lacking. Having served on the search committee that presented the candidates for our diocese’s last episcopal election, I see immense advantages in a more localized process. Neither plan now under consideration by the GMC suggests any understanding of the annual conference being an autonomous body. “Connectionalism” was a rule in the old UMC that was always spoken of in a positive light. I came to detest it, however, because it was really just a byword for a top-down managerial structure that demanded conformity in every nook and cranny of the organization (and “organization” is not a complimentary term to attach to a church). As the GMC explores new or, better yet, old but rediscovered ways of doing church, it would do well to extricate itself from this last vestige of UMC bureaucracy. Perhaps an in-depth study of the biblical, theological, and historical foundations of the episcopal office is in order. If nothing else, that would offer an opportunity to build closer relations with sister denominations, like the ACNA, whose origins were, likewise, forged in the fires of tested faith and uncompromising faithfulness.

*My familiarity with the terminology being used by the GMC may be a little shaky, so if I am misidentifying some ecclesiastical terms, I would welcome appropriate correction.