At the end of last month, 185 Methodist congregations in Georgia filed suit in a Georgia state trial court against their parent body and its officials. The congregations are attempting to disaffiliate from the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church pursuant to a provision (❡2553) added to the Church's Book of Discipline in 2019. The provision, which applies to disaffiliations completed by the end of 2023, allows disaffiliating congregations to keep their real and personal property. The complaint (full text) in Carrollton First United Methodist Church, Inc. v. Trustees of the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church, Inc., (GA Superior Ct., filed 3/30/2023), alleges in part that:
Defendants have conspired to "run out the clock" on Plaintiffs ability to utilize ❡2553 by a combination of ultra vires actions, fraudulent misrepresentations, and promises which they have failed to keep so that, unless this court intervenes, Plaintiffs cannot and indeed will not be allowed to fulfill the legislated requirements of ❡2553 in time to meet the sunset date of 12/31/23.
The complaint also alleges that the parent body is no longer allowing disaffiliating churches a credit for their share of a $23 million pension plan reserve fund.
In introductory paragraphs, the complaint contends:
This case can be resolved in accordance with secular Georgia law ... without interfering with the separation of church and state.... Defendants cannot be heard to contest this point, as Defendants have availed themselves of the same principles recently in a substantially similar context in this very court....
UM News, reporting on the lawsuit, says in part:
The lawsuit ... involves more than a quarter of the North Georgia Conference’s nearly 700 congregations.
It’s also the most congregations that have banded together in a single lawsuit since the denomination began undergoing a slow-motion separation after decades of intensifying debate over LGBTQ inclusion.
