Ivory Coast representation tops Judicial Council docket
 Aug. 4, 2006
A UMNS Report
By Neill Caldwell*
The United Methodist Church’s top court will examine the impact of
the new Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) Annual (regional) Conference upon
the denomination’s representation system during its fall session.
The Judicial Council has 20 items on the docket of cases to be heard during its Oct. 25-28 meeting in Cincinnati.
The Cote d’Ivoire Annual Conference was accepted into full membership of
the United Methodist Church at the 2004 General Conference, the
denomination’s top legislative body, in Pittsburgh. The legislation
approving that addition included a provision that Cote d’Ivoire have
just two voting members at the next General Conference, which will be
held in 2008 in Fort Worth, Texas.
The Commission on the General Conference is asking the Judicial Council
whether or not that runs contrary to the church’s Constitution and
Paragraph 502 of the 2004 Book of Discipline, which sets out a formula
for representation according to the number of clergy and lay members of
an annual conference.
If the disciplinary determination is used, the Cote d’Ivoire Annual
Conference – with more than a million members – would be entitled to as
many as 70 delegates, making it the largest delegation at General
Conference. And if the General Conference sticks to its ceiling of 1,000
delegates, that would mean the size of other delegations would have to
be reduced.
More than half of the 20 docket items are bishops’ decisions of law,
which must automatically be reviewed by United Methodism’s “supreme
court,” according to the Book of Discipline.
Two of the cases being heard this fall are directly related to the
council’s Decision 1032, which was handed down in fall 2005 and upheld
on appeal last April. In Decision 1032, the court ruled that the
pastor-in-charge of a local church has the power to determine who may be
taken into membership of that congregation. The ruling stemmed from a
case in South Hill, Va., where the pastor refused to admit an openly
homosexual man into church membership.
Kansas Area Bishop Scott J. Jones was asked to rule on the legality of a
non-discrimination petition passed by the Kansas East Annual
Conference, which prohibits the denial of membership solely based on a
person being a self-avowed, practicing homosexual.
In the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference, Bishop John R. Schol was
asked to rule whether or not a resolution adopted by the conference to
“prohibit discrimination in receiving members into United Methodist
congregations” was contrary to the Book of Discipline. The resolution
reads in part that the conference “believes that Judicial Council
Decision 1032 is inconsistent with Christian teachings, and contrary to
The United Methodist Church Constitution.”
Other issues raised by bishop’s decisions of law range from whether
local pastors are eligible to vote on clergy delegates to General and
Jurisdictional Conferences, to whether a bishop can “insist” that a
full-time pastor live in a parsonage.
In addition, the Judicial Council will examine:
- the General Council on Finance and Administration’s recommendation
of a merger of the National United Methodist Native American Center and
the Native American Comprehensive Plan during the 2005-08 quadrennium;
- a review of the sexual misconduct policy of the Minnesota Annual Conference;
- a request from the Minnesota Annual Conference related to a person’s ability to review their own supervisory record;
- a request from Minnesota Annual Conference on the meaning of the
term “Urban Center” in Paragraph 2548.7 of the 2004 Book of Discipline;
- a request from the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference on “Just Resolution in Judicial Proceedings.”
Briefs for any of the items on the docket must be filed with the Rev. Keith Boyette, Judicial Council secretary by Aug. 28.
*Caldwell is editor of the Virginia Advocate, the newspaper of the Virginia Annual Conference.
News media contact: Tim Tanton, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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