The Constitutional Episcopacy of The United Methodist Church

The United Methodist Church has what I would call a constitutional episcopacy. I am not sure what you would call the episcopacy in the Catholic and Anglican traditions - "monarchial" may be too strong a word - but the Methodist episcopacy is different. Different relationship to the clergy and the church. Different source and extent of authority. 

In the Catholic ordination rite, the bishop asks, “Do you promise respect and obedience to me and my successors?” This view of episcopal authority carried over into the Church of England. The 1662 Book of Common Prayer posed this question to the ordinands. 

Will you reverently obey your Ordinary, and other chief Ministers, unto whom is committed the charge and government over you; following with a glad mind and will, their godly admonitions, and submitting your selves to their Godly judgements?

The Episcopal Church in the United States softens that to, “Will you respect and be guided by the pastoral direction and leadership of your bishop?” The Anglican Church in North America, however, retains the question nearly verbatim. 

Will you reverently obey your Bishop, and other chief Ministers, who, according to the Canons of the Church, may have charge and authority over you, following with a glad mind and will their godly admonitions, and submitting yourself to their godly judgments?

As a United Methodist elder, I made no such promise to my bishop.

Episcopal authority in the United Methodist Church is rooted in the Book of Discipline and the actions of the General Conference. This is quite different than the episcopacies based on apostolic succession. Canon 375 of Catholic canon law states:

Bishops, who by divine institution succeed to the place of the Apostles through the Holy Spirit who has been given to them, are constituted pastors in the Church, so that they are teachers of doctrine, priests of sacred worship, and ministers of governance. Through episcopal consecration itself, bishops receive with the function of sanctifying also the functions of teaching and governing; by their nature, however, these can only be exercised in hierarchical communion with the head and members of the college.

United Methodists make no such claims about about the origin of episcopal authority in the UMC. The episcopacy exists in the UMC because the convening General Conference legislated it. 

The bishop’s relationship to the church is also different in United Methodism. Canons 368-369 of Catholic canon law say:

Particular churches, in which and from which the one and only Catholic Church exists, are first of all dioceses. ... A diocese is a portion of the people of God which is entrusted to a bishop for him to shepherd with the cooperation of the presbyterium, so that, adhering to its pastor and gathered by him in the Holy Spirit through the gospel and the Eucharist, it constitutes a particular church in which the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of Christ is truly present and operative.

A catholic diocese is rooted in and flows from the person of the bishop. United Methodist bishops have a different place in the life of an annual conference. 

Unpacking just these canons of Catholic canon law and contrasting them with the United Methodist episcopacy would be a much larger project than I envision in this essay, but I think it is obvious that there are two very different visions of episcopal authority in our two churches.

Like the United States government, there is a division of powers within the structures of the United Methodist Church. General Conference legislates and establishes church law in the Book of Discipline. Bishops oversee the church as they execute the provisions of the Book of Discipline through the church's administrative structures. Bishops' decisions of law are subject to Judicial Council review. The Discipline means what the Judicial Council says it means.

Some time ago, I read an article suggesting that bishops already have plenipotentiary power to rule as they see fit. As the executive branch of the church, the author argued, they were not subject to the control of General Conference, the legislative branch. The author encouraged the bishops to ignore certain provisions in the Book of Discipline because, in his eyes, it was the right thing to do and, he believed, they already had the power to do so. I think the author misunderstood both our form of ecclesiastical organization and the nature of the United States government. Presidents cannot lawfully do whatever they happen to wish. Neither can bishops.

Structures at every level of the church - general, jurisdictional, annual conference, charge conference - all derive their authorities from provisions of the Book of Discipline. The Discipline grants certain authorities to bishops, elders, deacons, licensed pastors, and other lay and clergy members of the church. It grants other authorities to various parts of the church organization.

The Constitution of the United Methodist Church authorizes bishops to preside at annual conferences, make decisions of law at conference sessions over which they preside (with the decisions subject to judicial review), and make appointments. Beyond that, the Constitution says, "they shall have such responsibilities and authorities as the General Conference shall prescribe." Where the Discipline does not grant authority, no authority exists.

At a conference early last decade, I heard several presenters lament the relative powerlessness of bishops in comparison to their peers in other Christian institutions. They laid out several reasons why they thought our bishops ought to have more authority. Our episcopacy, however, is one part of a larger system. You can't change our episcopacy without changing the fundamental structure of the church or the nature of our connection. I don't think you can get there from here.

It is our structure that led to the situation we are in now. The General Conference sets standards for ordination. Annual conference boards of ordained ministry ignore those standards and recommend unqualified candidates for ordination. The clergy session of the annual conference votes them into membership. The Judicial Council has ruled the annual conference has the sole authority under the Book of Discipline to decide on matters of conference relationships.

People wondered why the bishops allowed this to happen. For many years, the bishop did not need to consent to any of it. That was not the bishop's role. The Discipline required the bishop to ordain those approved for conference membership and appoint conference members in good standing. I don’t know that any bishop ever pushed back against the ordination of unqualified candidates, but they could truthfully say that they didn’t have the authority to stop it. That changed in 2019 when the General Conference added paragraph 304.5 to the Book of Discipline, which included this direction.

The bishop presiding in the clergy session shall rule any such unqualified candidate out of order and not eligible to be acted upon.

Since 2019, bishops who permit the election of unqualified candidates are joining their colleagues in deviating from the order and Discipline of the church.

Bishops preside over an annual conference. They don’t rule over it. The bishop's power within the annual conference resides in the power of appointment to churches and staff positions, their direction of the conference staff, their control over sessions of the annual conference, and the power of their personal influence. Do not underestimate their power. Even these authorities can be abused if bishops use them to manipulate the conference and its clergy to their own ends. The threat of a punitive appointment or the hope of a rewarding one is a powerful incentive. Bishops can insure that the people they want are in the positions they want in order to achieve the outcomes they want.

Still, United Methodist bishops do not have the power just to make up requirements as they go along. They cannot deem an act to be a violation of church law if the Discipline does not make that act a violation of church law. An annual conference, by a vote of its members, might establish requirements for its members that go beyond what the Discipline says, but only if the requirement does not violate the Discipline in some way. Bishops cannot do that. 

All of us elders promised to go where our bishops send us. None of us promised to do whatever the bishops say, simply because they say so.