All published articles in this series may be found here.
Key points
- Disaffiliation, a process for local congregations to be authorized to leave The United Methodist Church while retaining their property, had been authorized under certain circumstances by the 2019 special called General Conference.
- The 2024 General Conference deleted the paragraph (2553) authorizing disaffiliation.
- Several annual conferences had created other paths to accomplish nearly the same result by using a different paragraph of the Discipline (2549). Another 200 United Methodist congregations exited the denomination under terms of such annual conference policies in 2024.
- The Judicial Council, in Decision 1512, has declared all such policies "null, void, and of no effect."
The 2019 special called General Conference approved, by a narrow margin, the addition of a temporary paragraph to the 2016 Book of Discipline that offered a pathway for churches to disaffiliate from The United Methodist Church.
Paragraph 2553 granted a limited right for local congregations to gain release from The United Methodist Church’s centuries-old trust clause, which states that church property is held in trust for the benefit of the entire denomination.
This paragraph allowed U.S. congregations to exit with property for “reasons of conscience” regarding changes made to legislation relating to homosexuality by the 2019 General Conference. It also set minimum monetary conditions that must be met and called for each conference’s board of trustees to decide the specific terms that must be met for congregations making such requests. The paragraph expired Dec. 31, 2023.
The Judicial Council, ruling upon whether Paragraph 2553 was constitutional, determined that it was — provided that the final authority for determining whether a congregation could disaffiliate was its annual conference, not the local church itself.
The result was a variety of different sets of terms for disaffiliation in effect across the United States. Some conferences added additional costs or other requirements. Some allowed congregations to request disaffiliation even if their reasons did not involve disagreeing with the changes made at the 2019 General Conference. Some required discernment periods before a request for a special called church conference could be made. And some specified the content of the materials and the nature of the presenters that could or could not be involved in that process.
The Judicial Council was frequently asked to weigh in on whether such variations from the minimum standards set by the Discipline were allowable. The church court consistently ruled that the language of Paragraph 2553 gave full discretion to the conference board of trustees to set terms as they saw fit, provided the minimum standards set by the Discipline were met.
While the adoption of Paragraph 2553 was one of the final actions of the 2019 General Conference, its very first action was to approve a proposal from the Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters that no subsequent actions of that General Conference could go into effect in the central conferences until one year after the close of the regular 2020 session of the General Conference. With the 2020 session of the legislative assembly postponed until 2024, Paragraph 2553 expired before it could ever apply outside the United States.
Across all of the different ways Paragraph 2553 was implemented, the result of the adoption of that paragraph was the disaffiliation of more than 7,600 United Methodist congregations in the United States — about 26% of its congregations and about 24% of its members.
2024 General Conference action
The 2024 General Conference was asked to consider nearly 30 proposals seeking to extend or amend the provisions of Paragraph 2553, all with the effect of permitting some form of disaffiliation to continue.
The overwhelming consensus of the subcommittee that first processed this legislation was to reject all of it in a bundle in favor of a briefer petition, #21087, which read “Delete ¶2553 from the Book of Discipline.” The vote of the entire conferences legislative committee 62-12, two votes shy of appearing on a consent calendar. The final vote in plenary was 519-203.
With Paragraph 2553 already expired, disaffiliation, as such, will not be continued in The United Methodist Church through the coming quadrennium (2025-2028).
After disaffiliation, what paths remain to exit with property?
While disaffiliation is over, “separation,” “disassociation” or “departure” on terms quite similar to Paragraph 2553 would continue in some annual conferences.
These conferences or their trustees repurposed the policies their trustees had developed for implementing Paragraph 2553. Each applied those policies or policies similar to them to guide how its trustees would manage transfer and closure under Paragraph 2549. Ask The UMC is aware of at least seven annual conferences that had announced such plans to take effect upon the expiration of Paragraph 2553: South Georgia, Alabama-West Florida, Rio Texas, Illinois Great Rivers, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Holston. One other conference, Kentucky, approved a plan to do so at its annual conference in 2024.
However, two of these annual conferences — Kentucky and Alabama-West Florida — also brought questions to the Judicial Council about whether or how Paragraph 2549 may be used in this way given the action of the General Conference to remove disaffiliation entirely from the Discipline. The Judicial Council took up their questions as part of its fall 2024 docket when it met October 23-25, 2024.
Judicial Council Decisions Fall 2024
As previously noted, the 2024 session of the Kentucky Conference adopted a policy authorizing the departure of congregations while retaining their property and assets similar to policies previously adopted by other annual conferences. The session also approved a motion to ask the Judicial Council "whether their conference can utilize ¶2549 or some other provision of the Discipline as a pathway to the exit of local churches from The United Methodist Church."
In Memorandum 1511, the Judicial Council noted that it did not have jurisdiction to answer the question the way it was asked. The authority given it under Paragraph 2610 of the Discipline does not include authority to provide general guidance on how given paragraphs may be used or how to use them to accomplish particular purposes. The Council pointed instead to its ruling on the request from the Alabama-West Florida Conference.
The 2024 session of the Alabama-West Florida conference approved a motion to ask the Judicial Council for "a Declaratory Decision regarding the meaning, application, and effect of ¶2549 of the Discipline as it relates to a policy, process, or method for United Methodist churches to exit or separate from the denomination."
In Decision 1512, The Judicial Council determined that Paragraph 2549 was not designed to facilitate the departure of local churches from the denomination and cannot be used for such purposes. In their summary, they write,"Except for the General Conference, no body or entity in the Church has the power to reinstate or replicate ¶2553 or adopt legislation, policies, guidelines, rules, or regulations authorizing the departure of local churches. Any such action, plan, or attempt to do so intrudes upon the exclusive prerogative of the General Conference and is unconstitutional, null, and void."
Since the 2024 General Conference did not reinstate nor replicate, but rather deleted Paragraph 2553, there is no provision in the Discipline authorizing disaffiliation or exit of any United Methodist congregation from the denomination.
Central to the Council's conclusion that Paragaph 2549 cannot be used for such purposes is its finding that this paragraph provides for the transfer of property and assets to the conference board of trustees and the members of a closed church to other United Methodist congregations in the area. As they wrote in their analysis of the case, "The proposed use of ¶2549 contradicts the clear intent of ¶2549 by taking members and properties from the United Methodist Church and continuing religious activities as a new entity no longer a part of the United Methodist denomination."
Every annual conference that had adopted an extended exit policy had depended upon using Paragraph 2549 to implement it. This Judicial Council decision means that Alabama-West Florida's policy and all such policies of any annual conference have been voided with immediate effect.
This decision does not, however, undo the actions already taken by the 2024 sessions of annual conferences, where 200 additional congregations were authorized to exit The United Methodist Church with their property under the conference policies in effect at that time.
Disaffiliation and its near equivalents by other names (separation, disassociation, departure, gracious exit) are thus well and truly ended in The United Methodist Church.
What of congregations who still want to leave?
The Tennessee-Western Kentucky Conference had not created an extended exit plan for its congregations. Nevertheless, it responded to Decision 1512 with an update on its website which states, "As an Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, our Conference is bound by church law. Accordingly, we are unable to offer a path to separation from the United Methodist Church for local churches. Of course, as has always been the case, individuals are free to pursue the faith expression of their choosing."
In other words, individual church members are always free to decide whether they wish to remain part of their current United Methodist congregation or leave to join a non-United Methodist congregation. What they cannot do is take the congregation, its property, or its assets with them if they leave.
The congregation itself remains part of The United Methodist Church, just as it would have have prior to the adoption of Paragraph 2553 in 2019. If the effect of individual members departing means the United Methodist congregation is no longer sustainable, United Methodist leaders, not those leaving, will determine appropriate next steps.
Burton Edwards is director of Ask The UMC, the information service of United Methodist Communications.
