wfn.org | Who gets elected a United Methodist bishop?

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

May 26, 2000  News media contact: Thomas S.
McAnally·(615)742-5470·Nashville, Tenn.     10-21-30-71B{253}

A UMNS News Feature
By Tom McAnally*

Thirteen names will be added this fall to a list of 519 United Methodist
bishops in the church's Book of Discipline.

The list of the men and women who have occupied the denomination's top
office since 1784 appears in the front of the book, which is revised every
four years by the General Conference. The top legislative body met May 2-12
in Cleveland. U.S. bishops will be elected at five simultaneous
jurisdictional conferences July 12-15.

The current list of bishops begins with Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury,
elected in 1784 when American Methodism was formally organized in Baltimore,
and ends with Ntambo Nkulu Ntanda, an African bishop elected in 1996. The
combined surnames of the first two American bishops are familiar to
modern-day United Methodists through the denomination's nationwide chain of
Cokesbury bookstores. 

John Wesley, a clergyman in the Church of England, is considered the founder
of the Methodist movement, but he never left that denomination and was not
pleased when American Methodists decided to elect bishops. British Methodism
to this day does not have bishops.

United Methodist bishops in the United States are elected for life but are
assigned to geographic areas of service for four-year terms. Normally, they
serve in one area no more than two terms but may continue for a third term
under special circumstances.

The order of names in the Book of Discipline's list of bishops is determined
not only by the day they are elected but the hour. It is possible, with five
simultaneous conferences, that bishops can be elected within minutes of each
other. Officials keep careful records to make sure the first elected is the
first listed.

Early bishops were all white and all male. In 1858, the name of the first
African American appears, that of missionary Bishop Francis Burns, assigned
to Liberia. The first African-American bishops to serve in the United States
didn't make the list until 1920, when Robert E. Jones and Matthew W. Clair
Sr. were elected.

The first female bishop was Marjorie Swank Matthews, elected by the North
Central Jurisdiction in 1980. Since then, 10 more women have been elected,
including a black woman, Leontine T.C.  Kelly. The list of U.S. bishops has
yet to include a Native American, a fact that has not gone unnoticed by
organizations working for diversity among the church's leadership.

Who gets elected bishop?  There's no simple answer to that question. In his
book, Chosen to be Consecrated: The Bishops of the Methodist Church,
1784-1968, the late Bishop Roy Short observed: "The truth of the matter is
that were all the facts known, it would be found that there is a different
story behind almost every episcopal election and that several factors have
entered into each picture."

Bishops of the Methodist Church were elected at general conferences until
the union of three Methodist groups in 1939. The Methodist Church in the
United States then moved the election of bishops to five geographic
jurisdictions and one racial (black) jurisdiction.

In 1968, the Methodist Church joined with the Evangelical United Brethren
Church to form the United Methodist Church. The black Central Jurisdiction
was eliminated as a condition of union, but the practice of electing bishops
in the five geographic jurisdictions was continued.

Of the bishops who will be elected in July, four will be in the South
Central Jurisdiction, three in North Central, three in Southeastern, two in
Western and one in Northeastern.
 
With the shift from national to jurisdictional elections, fewer individuals
who served in churchwide (general) agencies were elected, Short noted in his
book. Of the 44 candidates identified by the end of May for this year's
elections, 19 are pastors, 18 are district superintendents, two are
conference staff members, two are general agency staff members and three are
seminary faculty members.

Craig This, staff member of the research office of the General Council on
Ministries in Dayton, Ohio, has tabulated election results since 1972
showing that the denomination has elected 109 bishops, consisting of 98
males and 11 females. In terms of racial or ethnic diversity, that number
included 19 African Americans, three Asian Americans and two Hispanic
Americans.

Median age of those elected is 54, with the oldest at the time of election
being 68 and the youngest 43. A mandatory retirement age was not in effect
until the 1980 jurisdictional conferences.  

Of the 109 bishops elected since 1972, 58 were pastors, 23 were district
superintendents, seven were conference council on ministries directors and
seven were general agency staff members. In addition, four were seminary
faculty members, four were seminary presidents, four were assistants to
bishops, one was a university president and one was an annual conference
staff member. 

GCOM's This has compiled statistics for each of the jurisdictional elections
in the United States since 1972: 

North Central Jurisdiction
21 elected (17 males, 4 females).
7 pastors, 4 district superintendents, 2 council directors, 3 general agency
staff, 1 seminary faculty member, 1 seminary president, 3 assistants to
bishops.
17 European Americans, 4 African Americans.
Average age: 52.9.
NOTE:  The best ratio in electing females.

Northeastern Jurisdiction
18 elected (16 males, 2 females).
8 pastors, 5 district superintendents, 2 council directors, 1 council staff,
1 general agency staff member, 1 seminary faculty member.
11 European Americans, 6 African Americans, 1 Asian American.
Average age: 51.5.
NOTE: No seminary presidents despite presence of three seminaries within the
bounds of the jurisdiction.

South Central Jurisdiction
26 elected (24 males, 2 females).
16 pastors, 5 district superintendents, 1 council director, 1 general agency
staff member, 2 seminary presidents 1 university president.
22 European Americans, 3 African Americans, 1 Hispanic American.
Average age: 55. 

Southeastern Jurisdiction
33 elected (32 males, 1 female).
23 pastors, 7 district superintendents, 1 council director, 1 seminary
faculty member, 1 seminary president.
29 European Americans, 4 African Americans.
Average age: 56.
NOTE:  First and only woman elected in 1996. No general agency staff
elected.

Western Jurisdiction
11 elected (9 males, 2 females).
4 pastors, 2 district superintendents, 1 council director 2 general agency
staff members, 1 seminary faculty member, 1 assistant to a bishop.
6 European Americans, 2 Asian Americans, 1 Hispanic American, 2 African
Americans.
Average age: 51.
NOTE:  Most diverse racially.

The United Methodist Book of Discipline  (Para.407.2a) states that
jurisdictions "shall give due consideration to the inclusiveness of The
United Methodist Church with respect to sex, race and national origin."  

After doing his research, This agreed with Short. "The statistics,
unfortunately, do not tell the whole story," he concluded. "There is more to
each election than appears on the surface. There is no single answer to who
gets elected bishop."  

# # #

*McAnally is director of United Methodist News Service, the church's
official news agency with offices in Nashville, Washington and New York.

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
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