DISAFFILIATED — The sign for the Wintersville Methodist Church, formerly the Wintersville United Methodist Church, no longer bears the signature cross and flames of the United Methodist Church after the church disaffiliated from the denomination last year. -- Christopher Dacanay

(Editor’s Note: This is the first installment in a two-part story on how congregational disaffiliations affected the United Methodist Church in the denomination’s former Ohio Valley District.)

One of the largest mainline Protestant denominations in the U.S., the United Methodist Church, has received a major blow with about 7,600 church congregations disaffiliating from the denomination since 2019.

The UMC’s former Ohio Valley District — a region which included Jefferson, Harrison, Carroll and Belmont counties — reported that 51 congregations have disaffiliated out of the district’s roughly 80 congregations since 2022, with 49 making that decision in the past year. Now part of the larger South Forest District, the OVD region became part of a statewide restructuring on Jan. 1 that reduced the UMC’s East Ohio Conference from 10 districts to four.

Disaffiliated congregations either remained independent or joined a separate denomination, one possibility being the traditionally minded Global Methodist Church, formed in 2022.

Among new members of the GMC is the Rev. Chet Harris, who stated that the disaffiliations have “changed the map of the United Methodist Church in Eastern Ohio.”

Encountering problems

The “presenting issue” leading to the disaffiliations was human sexuality, said Harris, a retired, 43-year UMC pastor who spent his last 28 years at Dueber UMC in Canton. The issue stems from disagreements over whether the Bible is divinely inspired and what authority its teachings hold.

Recently, the UMC has allowed for a range of interpretations on certain aspects of Scripture, Harris said, meaning the denomination has taken a “softer and more lenient approach than (traditionalists) are comfortable with.”

For example, he said, certain UMC leaders have questioned Biblical narratives like the bodily resurrection of Jesus, which traditionalists believe ought to be interpreted literally — sexuality being another subject allegedly defined in Scripture.

The UMC’s “strong ideological shift” away from the traditionalist view of divinely inspired Scripture has allowed for the picking and choosing of beliefs, including in matters of human sexuality, said the Rev. Tom Scott of the disaffiliated Richmond Methodist Church.

The UMC denomination maintains that the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching, pursuant to its Book of Discipline, which contains the denomination’s laws and doctrines. Further, it forbids the ordination of practicing homosexuals as clergy and the conducting of same-sex wedding ceremonies, though homosexual individuals can be members of and attend a UMC church.

Some pastors believe the disaffiliations are because of bishops within the UMC who refuse to enforce the denomination’s discipline regarding homosexuality, citing bishops who condone homosexuality or who are themselves openly homosexual. Scott claimed this apathy among leadership encouraged individuals to leave the denomination, adding, “Can you financially support a denomination that, frankly, is doing things your church does not agree with and goes against the rules they themselves have put in place?”

***Stay or go***

Disaffiliation first became an option in 2019 during a special session of the UMC’s General Conference — the meeting of the denomination’s highest legislative body, made up of elected delegates from its 75 international conferences and 54 U.S. annual conferences, within which are individual subdivisions like the Ohio Valley District. Multiple plans were put forward regarding the sexuality issue, out of which a traditionalist plan to preserve the status quo narrowly passed.

Thus, the UMC adopted a provision, known as Paragraph 2553, through which modernist churches could disaffiliate. The next year’s General Conference was supposed to present an amicable method of separation, creating two denominations, but was tabled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

By 2021, Scott said, a compromise on the sexuality issue became less likely due to increasing acceptance, spurring traditionalist churches to make use of the disaffiliation provision, which closed last Dec. 31.

The provision laid out a basic exit strategy for congregations, and annual conference bishops could add requirements. The Rev. Kelly Brown, co-superintendent of the former Ohio Valley District, helped oversee the voting and legal processes necessitated by the provision. He noted that Bishop Tracy Malone of the East Ohio Conference made no extra demands for disaffiliation.

***The process***

According to a disaffiliation FAQ from the EOC, a local church had to send a letter to the conference expressing its “wish to explore” disaffiliation. The district superintendent or a designee thereof would then meet with the church’s pastor, council and any members to “summarize the information gathered to date, share the disaffiliation agreement and address and respond to questions regarding the process.”

Apart from the district representative speaking to congregations about the disaffiliation process itself and what it entails, how individual congregations handled their informational periods was at their discretion, Brown said, adding that the EOC provided suggestions on how to undergo a prayerful discernment process — speakers, small groups and other formats.

“The churches are gathering information, talking to each other, processing that information, praying together (and) studying through together so they can come to a good, discerning decision,” Brown said. “We wanted to … build on (the process) and make sure there is discussion (and that) it’s not just being driven by one or two people.”

As part of their discernment, congregations could invite speakers to present on the pro-disaffiliation side — individuals like Harris, who presented to more than 100 churches, many in Southern Ohio. Along with a handful of other Global Methodist Church representatives, Harris spoke about the issue from his perspective as vice president pro tempore of the GMC’s Allegheny West Provisional Annual Conference, covering all of Ohio and Western Pennsylvania.

“I never saw anything unfair. It gave people a chance to honestly look at who they are, where they’re at and (whether) they need to make a decision to disaffiliate,” said Harris, adding that he took steps to ensure transparency during his presentations, and Bishop Malone was accommodating of the process throughout.

After a period of prayer and discernment, congregations could motion to request a church conference for disaffiliation, sent through a letter to the district superintendent. The superintendent would call for a church conference, which had to be accomplished within 120 days.

To pass, Brown said, congregations needed a 67 percent vote with a two-thirds majority present at a conference — the district would sometimes oversee multiple conferences per day. If they voted to disaffiliate, a congregation’s name was added to a docket, examined and ratified at the 2023 East Ohio Conference in June.

No congregations in the EOC were denied disaffiliation based on their submitted documents, showing they completed the necessary financial steps to separate — paying forward certain apportionments and paying any back apportionments to the UMC.

(Monday: Area churches are beginning to settle into and reconcile with their new bearings.)