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The United Methodist Church’s South Central Jurisdictional Conference last week filed a lawsuit against Southern Methodist University to prevent the university from reconfiguring its relationship with the church.
At stake is whether the university is controlled by the South Central Jurisdictional Conference or by the university’s own board of trustees.
The dispute is related to division within the United Methodist Church over the church’s stance on LGBTQ inclusion.
Delegates at a conference in February voted in favor of a proposal called the Traditional Plan, which strengthened bans on LGBTQ-affirming practices within the church. The proposal widened a rift within the church’s progressive and conservative members. The controversy has raised the possibility that the church will split into different denominations.
On Nov. 6, SMU amended its articles of incorporation to say the university is not controlled by the SCJC but by the school’s own board of trustees.
SMU President R. Gerald Turner said the university’s actions were done to protect the school’s future.
“We’re trying to get this done before the church decides what kind of split they’re going to have, so that we can continue to educate everybody from all Methodist denominations and from other denominations, and people who don’t believe at all.” he said.
The Rev. Kim Jenne, director of Connectional Ministries for the Missouri Conference of the United Methodist Church, offered a statement via email late Saturday: “The Mission Council of the South Central Jurisdictional Conference regrets that a lawsuit was even necessary. However, SMU’s actions jeopardize the over 100-year relationship between the two institutions by terminating the Conference’s rights and relationship with the University.
“Changes to the relationship between the two organizations should happen through prayer, dialogue and discernment and do require the legislative action of the SCJC according to the 1996 articles of incorporation,” the statement read.
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Those articles state that SMU is “to be forever owned, maintained and controlled by the South Central Jurisdictional Conference of the United Methodist Church.”
The 1996 agreement does not leave any room for SMU to withdraw from the conference’s jurisdiction without its consent.
“The November 2019 Articles are plainly founded upon and resulting from unauthorized acts by SMU’s Trustees,” the lawsuit reads. “Put simply, the Trustees of SMU had and have no authority to amend the Articles of Incorporation without the prior approval and authorization of SCJC.”
As if to emphasize its point, the words “no authority” were presented in bold typeface in the lawsuit.