Costs are in, implications still debated, in Bishop Bledsoe controversy

Bledsoe speaks to clergy

The arguments go on about whether the victim in the failed effort to oust Bishop Earl Bledsoe was accountability for bishops or Bishop Bledsoe himself. What’s beyond dispute is that the episode came at a cost, including financial. The South Central Jurisdiction recently paid nearly $100,000 to cover legal fees and other expenses of Bishop Bledsoe, as ordered by the UMC’s Judicial Council, which reinstated him last November. That money comes from apportionment payments—in other words, from people in the pews across the South Central Jurisdiction. Highland Park UMC in [...]

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Notable UM Newsmaker of 2012 – William Lawrence

The Rev. William Lawrence

There are plenty of critics of the Judicial Council’s high-profile decisions in 2012. But nobody can accuse the council of blowing with the prevailing winds, since it overruled majority actions of both General Conference and the South Central Jurisdiction. The Rev. William B. Lawrence led the Judicial Council through much of this tumultuous year, even as he continued his full-time work as dean of Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. For that dual role, he’s a Reporter notable UM newsmaker of the year. The Judicial Council, including Dr. [...]

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UMC reformers feeling thwarted by Judicial Council

Judicial Council (PHOTO BY KATHLEEN BARRY/UMNS)

The frustration level for reformers of the struggling United Methodist Church appeared to reach a new high as the denomination’s Judicial Council struck down the last major reform standing after [...]

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All In – Don’t look now, but Methodists are getting dunked

Bishop Dyck at the lake_web

The Rev. David Lee had a request this summer from a girl finishing confirmation class. She wanted to be baptized by immersion. Mr. Lee, in his second clergy appointment, had never done a baptism that way. And the church, Covenant UMC in Charlotte, N.C., had no place to immerse anyone. But a woman helping with the class offered her swimming pool. So on Sept. 9, a group of informally dressed church members, from kids to seniors, gathered there for a cookout and a baptism. Mr. Lee read Scripture, and spoke [...]

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