A total of 186 Georgia congregations of the United Methodist Church—including one in East Cobb–have filed a lawsuit seeking the restoration of a disaffiliation process that was halted at the end of 2022.
Mountain View United Methodist Church, located on Jamerson Road, is listed as a plaintiff in the suit, which was filed Thursday in Cobb Superior Court.
Several other Cobb County UMC churches also are named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit, whose attorneys also have filed a motion for an emergency hearing before Judge Kellie Hill.
The suit alleges that the UMC’s North Georgia Conference, which oversees nearly 900 churches, improperly closed down the disaffiliation process on Dec. 28, 2022, “leaving tens of thousands of Christians begging for the process to get back on track,” according to a release issued with the lawsuit (you can read it here).
Former North Georgia Bishop Sue Haupert-Johnson—a central figure in the conference’s dispute with Mt. Bethel Church in East Cobb in 2021 and 2022—is named as a defendant, along with her successor, Robin Dease, the conference board of trustees and several conference district superintendents.
The conference said in December that the disaffiliation process needed to be paused because “many local churches have been misled about the disaffiliation process and have been presented with information about the process, and about The United Methodist Church and its leadership, that is factually incorrect and defamatory.”
Without giving specifics, the conference said that “this information presented to members of local churches about disaffiliation has been outside the bounds of normal and acceptable civil discourse. It has not only been false and misleading but has been antithetical to the concept of a gracious exit or a commitment to honoring the mission and ministry of all Christians.”
In the lawsuit, the suing churches said that the conference is violating the UMC’s Book of Discipline governing documents by stopping the process, and that the current disaffiliation process will be sunsetting at the end of 2023.
The UMC enacted a disaffiliation process in 2019 for conservative churches to leave the denomination under Paragraph 2553 of the Book of Discipline.
That provision allowed departing churches to keep much of their property and assets.
The UMC has been split for years on a number of theological issues, especially over human sexuality. The nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination does not currently allow for lesbian and gay clergy or same-sex marriages in the current Book of Discipline, but that is expected to change.
A formal protocol was to have been voted on at the UMC General Conference in 2020, but that was cancelled due to COVID-19. The conference has been further delayed to 2024.
“The United Methodist Church website specifically states that when General Conference 2024 meets Paragraph 2553 will not exist and therefore, it is not possible to ‘extend’ a provision that does not exist,” the lawsuit states.
“Further, there is no legislation presently before the General Conference to create a new or similar Paragraph 2553.”
In the release, Pastor John Kenney of The Quest Church, in Grovetown, Ga., one of the plaintiff congregations, said that “churches in North Georgia that want to disaffiliate using the previously approved process are stuck.”
The release also claims that only the North Georgia Conference is preventing formal disaffiliation procedures.
In response to a message from East Cobb News, the North Georgia Conference repeated some of its December explanation for pausing the disaffiliation process, saying that conference leaders “have significant concerns about this misinformation and are well aware that it has the potential to do irreparable harm.”
Dease said that “conference leaders remain committed to handling this matter in a fair, transparent, uniform, and good-faith manner that affirms the one universal church in service to Christ and honors the mission and ministry of all Christians” and that they “are prayerfully exploring the best methods for moving forward and next steps available as set forth in the Book of Discipline.”
Among the churches in limbo is Mountain View UMC of East Cobb, which began a discernment process last fall it calls “The Path Forward.”
Meetings were held to offer members viewpoints for and against disaffiliation. A straw poll in January revealed that nearly 80 percent of voting Mountain View members wanted to leave the UMC.
But the church’s official request for a disaffiliation vote was denied, according to its timeline of events.
At the same time, that timelines states that conservative Wesleyan Covenant Association—of which Mt. Bethel is a leading member—was denied a meeting with Dease, who in January succeeded Haupert-Johnson, now a bishop in Virginia.
The WCA and its new Global Methodist Church denomination began working with the National Center for Life and Liberty, a conservative, Florida-based religious liberty organization, to “to assist North Georgia legal strategies,” according to the Mountain View timeline.
In February, Mountain View agreed to become part of the lawsuit, which includes some 70 churches that were allowed to formally disaffiliate in 2022.
The conference and Mt. Bethel settled their legal disputes last June, with the East Cobb congregation paying $13.1 million to leave the UMC.
Mt. Bethel attorneys said they wanted to have a disaffiliation vote, but the conference rejected that option.
Mt. Bethel is prevented from selling properties on its main campus on Lower Roswell Road for seven and a half years without giving the UMC and the North Georgia Conference the right of first refusal to purchase them.
Mt. Bethel also cannot house a denominational office on its grounds on the main campus for that period of time.
Mt. Bethel formally left the UMC in July 2022 without a vote, and some former disaffected members began a new church, Grace Resurrection Methodist Church.
Neither are affiliated with a denomination.
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At Mt. Bethel, Mr. Ray (along with his 24/7 chaperone and minder, Mr. Coppedge) permits *no* question to be voiced about his actions or views by anyone at any time. A member or staff person who does so is immediately expelled and shunned–this happened just last week with the 2 modern worship leaders who “resigned.” And that’s not a church, East Cobbers: that’s a *cult*.
2553 was not for conservative churches. It states it is for those that do not agree with the UMC position on sexuality. Conservatives agree with the position. Bishop Sue and other bishops have manipulated the process so that conservatives need to use 2553. Bishop Sue tried to do the same thing in Va but failed.