wfn.org | United Methodists untangling rules related to membership

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

May 24, 2000 News media contact: Linda Green(615)742-5470Nashville, Tenn.
10-71B{251}

By United Methodist News Service

United Methodists will have to wait another four years to resolve conflicts
in rules regarding baptism and church membership

The United Methodist Board of Discipleship proposed legislation to the
recent 2000 General Conference which would have advanced the work of
correcting contradictions in official documents about church membership and
baptism, but the Judicial Council, the church's supreme court, limited what
could be accomplished. The top legislative body of the church met in
Cleveland May 2-12.  

The baptism advisory committee of the board wanted to bring the 2000 Book of
Discipline, the denomination's lawbook, into as much agreement as possible
with "By Water and the Spirit," the church's official interpretive document
about baptism, and the church's official baptism rituals.  However, the
Judicial Council ruled that the General Conference could not amend any
disciplinary paragraphs that had already been declared to be
unconstitutional. 

The General Conference did, however, take a significant step by approving an
amendment to Article IV of the church's constitution as a way to prepare for
future membership legislation.  

According to the Rev. Gayle Felton,  Durham, N.C., a consultant to the board
and author of the final version of "By Water and the Spirit," the amendment
names and defines the two categories of church membership that the official
document calls for and makes clear the relation between baptism and church
membership. 

"Upon baptism, (individuals) are admitted as baptized members, and upon
taking vows declaring the Christian faith, they become professing members in
any local church in the connection," she said.  Felton has assisted the
church in its study of baptism and related issues for at least two decades.

The 1996 General Conference approved "By Water and the Spirit" as a guiding
theology for the denomination and legislation of support was placed in the
1996 Book of Discipline.  In the document, a distinction is made between
"baptized members" which includes baptized infants, and "professing members"
which includes baptized adults who have been confirmed as members and made a
public profession of faith.    The document says that baptism signifies
initiation into church membership regardless of age and the baptism rituals
found in the United Methodist Hymnal say the same thing.

In 1997, the Judicial Council was asked for a declaratory decision on
legislation concerning baptism and membership. The council was asked to rule
if legislation in the Discipline which enacted the theology of "By Water and
the Spirit" contradicted Article IV of the church's constitution by stating
that baptism made a person a member of the church. The article is found in
the section on inclusiveness of the church.

The council ruled that the approved legislation violated the part of the
constitution that says membership is linked to taking vows.  They ruled all
membership legislation in the 1996 Book of Discipline invalid and that the
church must return to provisions in the 1992 Discipline, which makes a
distinction between "preparatory members" and "full members."

The baptism advisory team, under the guidance of the United Methodist Board
of Discipleship, attempted to correct the dilemma of having official
materials on church membership in contradiction by preparing legislation to
bring before the 2000 General Conference.

Before the 10 General Conference legislative committees could begin working
on the more than 2,000 different changes for the current Book of Discipline,
the conference Committee on Correlation and Editorial Revision asked the
Judicial Council for guidance regarding language previously declared
unconstitutional. 

In particular, the committee was concerned about how one of the legislative
committees could handle petitions related to specific passages in the 1996
Book of Discipline. On May 3, the judges ruled that no sections that had
been declared unconstitutional could be amended or revised. 

"The problem for us was that the legislation which we (the United Methodist
Board of Discipleship) were bringing to the General Conference was indeed
based on the 1996 Book of Discipline," Felton said.

Although another Judicial Council decision said that the language of
"professing member" could be used in legislation at the 2000 General
Conference if appropriately defined, "we decided that the best course of
action was to stop all legislative changes in the Discipline regarding
professing membership which had been proposed for 2000," Felton said.  "The
fear was that we might end up again with inconsistencies."   

The baptism task force recommended that all legislative committees stop all
professing member legislation by voting to non-concur. The delegates
approved a motion requesting that all legislation using the term "professing
member" or similar terms be deleted by the Committee on Correlation and
Editorial Revision to ensure that the conference would not act on any piece
of legislation including those items.

During the 2001 annual conference sessions, delegates will be asked to
ratify General Conference action and put the constitutional amendment into
effect. 

Annual conference approval by a two-thirds aggregate vote, will pave the way
for legislation to be brought to the 2004 General Conference that will place
the categories of baptized and professing members in the relevant places in
the Discipline, Felton said.  The approval by that conference would bring
the denomination's baptism ritual, "By Water and the Spirit" and the
Discipline into agreement on matters of membership. The 2004 General
Conference will meet in Pittsburgh. 

Felton said the advantage of bringing the issues of baptism and professing
membership to General Conference at the same time is two-fold:  "It will be
very clear that baptism is initiation into the church and a baptized person
is expected to take vows professing the Christian faith when old enough to
be responsible."

She said, "only professing membership will be counted for church statistics
and only professing members would be able to participate in the governance
of the church."

Until 2004, the membership categories in the 1992 Book of Discipline are
"still the law of the church even though they do not accord with the
church's accepted theology," Felton said.

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United Methodist News Service
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