The slowly evolving trainwreck that is the disunited United Methodist Church is an unbelievably complicated story and I have lots of sympathy for journalists who are being asked to cover it — week after week — in normal-length news reports.

I have some right to say this, since I have been covering this story since 1984 or earlier.

For starters, there is no one United Methodist Church and there hasn’t been one for decades. See this flashback column that I wrote a few years ago: “Old fault lines can be seen in the ‘seven churches’ of divided Methodism,” which was followed by “Doctrinal debates that define the divided United Methodists.”

The bottom line, once again: This war has always been about biblical authority and a host of other doctrinal clashes, with battles about homosexuality grabbing the headlines.

Anyway, I was reading another update from The Nashville Tennessean the other day — “United Methodists grapple with schism as 300-plus churches leave across U.S.” (high paywall) — and something hit me (other than the fact that “schism” still isn’t an accurate word for what is happening here). The key was looking at several key events on a timeline.

First, let’s plug in a key fact from a recent Religion News Service report about the doctrinally conservative UMC congregations who are trying to hit the denominational exit doors in Western North Carolina and Florida. The lawyers trying to sue the UMC establishment are, you see, are working on a deadline

A lawyer for the Western North Carolina Annual Conference, which has more than 1,000 congregations, responded … saying it would not comply since the request does not follow the disaffiliation plan approved by a special session of the United Methodist Church’s General Conference in 2019.

That plan allows churches to leave the denomination through the end of 2023. They can take their properties with them after paying two years of apportionments and pension liabilities.

Tick, tick, tick.

That 2019 General Conference was, of course, the watershed event in which a coalition of growing Global South churches and some conservative Americans infuriated the shrinking UMC establishment by passing the “Traditional Plan,” while also (#TriggerWarning) urging enforcement of “Book of Discipline” doctrinal stands on marriage and sexuality.

See this piece of a Wall Street Journal op-ed — “A Messy Methodist Church Schism” (high paywall) — by conservative Methodist activist Mark Tooley:

What brought United Methodism to this divide was its decision-making body’s 2019 “Traditional Plan” — a document that affirmed its ban on same-sex marriage and mandated that all clergy be celibate if single and monogamous if married. That sets the church apart from nearly every other mainline Protestant denomination.

No one anticipated the coronavirus pandemic, of course, which ate years of potential voting and negotiating time from this painful divorce process.

Thus, a coalition of liberals and conservatives met and negotiated the 2020 “Protocol of Reconciliation and Grace through Separation,” an attempt to allow the warring armies to separate without paying secular lawyers on both sides millions of dollars for court fights over properties, pensions, trust funds, etc.

So what happened to the Protocol? That’s where the 2019 rules are crucial.

You see, that 2023 exit date under the 2019 “disaffiliation plan” is getting closer and closer. If UMC leaders could keep delaying global votes on the Protocol — COVID-19 has been their trump card — that means leaders in the church establishment in the United States are in total control of the exit process, with zero interference from all of those troublesome African and Asian Methodists.

Why vote on the Protocol when the UMC establishment has a chance to run out the clock?

Meanwhile, could leaders of the “Traditional Plan” global coalition trust the UMC leadership to treat exiting churches fairly, without the centrist approach of the Protocol to protect them?

This is a good place to remind readers of another basic fact about this story: This is not a simple left vs. right situation. See this earlier post — “Never forget: There are more than two strategic camps in the global United Methodist war.” The events have shown that there are basically FOUR camps:

I. The candid left that wanted a negotiated divorce, lessening grief and lawyer fees.

II. The establishment left has kept saying “Peace, peace” while making moves to land church properties and additional fees from exiting congregations.

III. Conservatives that still want the divorce plan, to save everyone grief and lawyer fees.

IV. Conservatives who have given up on the leaders in camp II and are hitting the nuclear option with (wait for it) lots of aggressive lawsuits.

With that in mind, let’s work through some chunks of that Tennessean story I mentioned back at the beginning of this post:

More than 300 churches from across the U.S. recently left the United Methodist Church in the first major wave since the launch of a more conservative, breakaway denomination.

The churches received permission to leave the UMC at annual meetings for regional conferences. The South and Midwest saw the most churches leave.

The splintering of America's largest mainline Protestant denomination was the focus of debate at many of the 51 regional conferences that met since late May. Some leaders who oppose the schism lamented or tried to steer focus elsewhere, while the other side celebrated. …

What is causing the trouble? This appears to be a key element of the Tennessean thesis:

The Wesleyan Covenant Association is a traditionalist Methodist group helping likeminded churches trying to leave the UMC and join the Global Methodist Church. The Global Methodist Church launched in May after years of debate over thorny theological and cultural issues, including LGBTQ rights.

Why did the GMC go ahead and launch, thus starting the legal dominos to fall?

Maybe it has something to do with (a) the looming 2023 deadline and (b) the growing evidence that the North American UMC establishment will delay, delay, delay and ultimately crush the Protocol?

The Tennessean added this:

The drawn out way in which the UMC is splintering is largely due to a delay in the General Conference regular session, originally scheduled for 2020. Delegates were expected to vote on a plan that would split the denomination, called the Protocol of Reconciliation and Grace Through Separation.

After the General Conference was postponed yet again earlier this year for 2024, the Global Methodist Church preemptively launched. The new denomination would receive $25 million from the UMC if the Protocol is approved. It would also establish an easier process for churches to leave.

Again, why was the GMC “preemptively launched”? What made that move somewhat logical, if the terms of the Protocol are better?

My guess is this: Maybe they knew the UMC establishment was doing everything it could to not write that $25 million check, running out the 2023 clock while also seizing an opportunity to squeeze additional funds out of congregations forced (without the Protocol) to exit under that 2019 “disaffiliation plan” controlled by regional church leaders?

On top of that, the Global South coalition leaders STILL think that the UMC establishment should enforce the doctrines that are STILL in the denomination’s “Book of Discipline.” That leads to this Tennessean summary:

… [T]raditionalist delegates in some regional conferences have been seen as agitators. Delegates at a Florida conference in June dismissed a slate of 16 clergy candidates because a couple candidates are openly gay, provoking national outrage — including from majority progressive regional conferences. 

"The Desert Southwest Annual Conference stands with the Florida 16," read a resolution approved at the Phoenix-based conference. "We ... continue to be a Safe Harbor to any candidate or clergy who seeks it, as we have continue to support, the queer clergy."

Why would the Global South coalition Methodists assume that (a) the Protocol will never get a global vote and that (b) the UMC establishment will — while promising that centuries of small-o orthodox teachings are not up for grabs — has no interest in the current contents of the “Book of Discipline”?

Thus, here is some questions for journalists covering this story: Why are the traditionalists filing these lawsuits? Why not fight for the Protocol? And, yes, what happens to conservative congregations if their bishops manage to run out the 2023 clock?

Look at the sequence of dates in these various reports. I think this timeline is a crucial part of this big, big story.

FIRST IMAGE: The Woodlands Methodist Church, north of Houston. United Methodist News photo, provided by The Woodlands Church.