by Heather Hahn

A church law designed for handling church closures cannot be used as a way for congregations to leave The United Methodist Church with property, the denomination’s top court ruled.

“With the expiration and deletion of Paragraph 2553, the postponed 2020 General Conference effectively removed from The Book of Discipline, 2016, …the only pathway for the disaffiliation of local churches,” the Judicial Council said in Decision 1512.

In a separate ruling, the Judicial Council also struck down changes to the Discipline’s church-closure provision, Paragraph 2549, that would empower a church council to initiate a congregation’s closure.

These changes violate the denomination’s constitution, the church court said in Decision 1507, because “they deny and circumvent the authority given to the Charge Conference”—which has general oversight over a church council.

The decisions were among five rulings the denomination’s high court released Oct. 29 that address questions related to church withdrawals and closures. In the words of Decision 1512, The United Methodist Church is now “in a new season” after five years of congregations leaving under the auspices of church law.

The special General Conference in 2019 instituted the Discipline’s Paragraph 2553 amid intensifying debate and defiance over bans on same-sex weddings and gay clergy. Under the provision, congregations could leave with property for “reasons of conscience” related to homosexuality if they met certain financial and procedural requirements.

In essence, Paragraph 2553 provided a temporary and limited 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.

Over the next four years, the paragraph opened the door for more than 7,600 U.S. churches (about a quarter of the denomination’s U.S. congregations) to exit with property.

Paragraph 2553 set its own expiration date at the end of last year. The COVID-postponed General Conference that met earlier this year took the additional step of eliminating the provision entirely from the Discipline. That same gathering of the denomination’s top lawmaking assembly also ended the denomination-wide bans related to LGBTQ people.

In General Conference’s aftermath, some conferences (regional bodies consisting of multiple congregations) have looked to the church-closure provision, Paragraph 2549, as an alternative disaffiliation method. Essentially, these conferences sought to use the provision to close a church and then transfer the assets to the closed congregation under the same parameters outlined in Paragraph 2553.

The South Carolina, South Georgia and Rio Texas conferences already have used Paragraph 2549 to approve the exit of more than 200 U.S. congregations this year.

In Decision 1512, the Judicial Council was responding to a question from the Alabama-West Florida Conference about the meaning, application and effect of Paragraph 2549 as it relates to such separations going forward.

The Judicial Council said that using Paragraph 2549 for disaffiliations contradicts its clear intent. The provision specifically states that a closed church’s remaining congregants are to be connected with other United Methodist congregations in the area. Paragraph 2549 also says a closed church’s assets are to be vested with the annual conference’s board of trustees, “who shall hold said property in trust for the benefit of the annual conference.”

Using Paragraph 2549 for denominational separations “is another failed attempt to circumvent the trust clause, a hallmark of United Methodist polity,” the Judicial Council said.

If Paragraph 2549 could be used for church disaffiliations, the church court goes on to say, there would not have been a need for General Conference to pass Paragraph 2553. Now, General Conference has voted not to extend that disaffiliation policy.

The Judicial Council previously determined in a 2022 decision that absent General Conference action, annual conferences do not have the authority to withdraw en masse from The United Methodist Church. In Decision 1512, the church court applies the same principle to individual congregations.

“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,” the church court said.

“Any such action, plan, or attempt to do so intrudes upon the exclusive prerogative of the General Conference and is unconstitutional, null, and void.”

The Judicial Council’s ruling comes just days after the Alabama Supreme Court denied a request for a rehearing of its ruling against United Methodist churches that sued the Alabama-West Florida Conference to leave the denomination and take property with them. The state Supreme Court had previously ruled that the churches must pursue the matter through the denomination’s own judicial system.