Church court: No new elections needed for GC2024

The United Methodist Church’s highest court ruled that new delegate elections “are not required” for the long-delayed and potentially pivotal General Conference, now set for 2024.

“The delegates duly elected to the 2020 General Conference for the 2020-2024 Quadrennium stand as submitted and certified by the annual conference secretaries,” the Judicial Council said in Decision 1451.

In practice, this means that the same delegates elected in 2018 or 2019 to a General Conference facing multiple proposals for a denominational split or reorganization can continue to serve when the session finally convenes. The United Methodist Church’s top lawmaking assembly is the only body that can speak for the denomination and formalize such changes.

The church court also said the duly elected delegates can vote at the jurisdictional and central conferences that follow the next General Conference. Jurisdictional conferences in the U.S. and central conferences in Africa, Europe and the Philippines elect the denomination’s bishops. Recently, the same cohort of delegates elected bishops in the U.S., Philippines and Central and Southern Europe.

Read more at this link.