Proposed plan of joint commission on unification

Joint
Commission
on

Unification

of the
Methodist
Episcopal

Church

ProDosed
Plan

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Proposed Plan of Joint Coinmis-
sion on Unification

Transmittal.
We, the Commissions on the Unification
of the Methodist Episcopal Church and
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South,
holding that these two Churches are
essentially one Church, one in origin, in
belief, in spirit, in purpose, and in polity,
and desiring that this essential unity
may be made actual in organization and
administration throughout the world, do
hereby propose and transmit to our re-
spective General Conferences the follow-
ing plan of unification and recommend its
adoption by the two Churches by the
processes which they respectively require:

Article I.

DECLARATION OF UNION.
The Methodist Episcopal Church and
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South,
shall be united in one Church with two
jurisdictions under a constitution with a
General Conference and two Jurisdictional
Conferences.

Article 11.

NAME.

The name of the Church shall be .

[Name to be selected by the first General
Conference of the united Church.)

Order of Laroar & Barton, Nashville, Dallas, Richmcnd, San
Francisco. Prices: Each, 6 cents; per dozen, SO cents; per
hundred, $1.25.

^ ' Article III.

JURISDICTIONS,

Section 1, Jurisdiction number one
shall comprise all the Churches, Annual
Conferences, Mission Conferences, and
Missions now constituting the Meth-
odist Episcopal Church and any other
such Conferences and Missions as may-
hereafter be organized by its Jurisdictional
Conference with the approval of the
General Conference,

Section 2, Jurisdiction number two
shall comprise all the Churches, Annual
Conferences, Mission Conferences, and
Missions now constituting the Methodist
Episcopal Church, South, and any other
such Conferences and Missions as may
hereafter be organized by its Jurisdictional
Conference with the approval of the
General Conference,

Article IV,

COMPOSITION OF GENERAL AND JURIS-
DICTIONAL CONFERENCES,

The General Conference and the Juris-
dictional Conferences shall be composed
of the same delegates. Said delegates
shall be elected by and from the Annual
Conferences, provided said General and
Jurisdictional Conferences shall have not
more than one ministerial delegate for
every forty-five members of each Annual
Conference and not less than one minis-
terial delegate for every one hundred and
twenty members of each Annual Con-
ference and an equal number of lay dele-
gates, chosen according to the regulations

I of each of the two jurisdictions; but for a
[ fraction of two-thirds or more of the
number fixed by the General Conference
as the ratio of representation an Annual
Conference shall be entitled to an addition-
al ministerial and an additional lay dele-
gate, and provided further that each
i Annual Conference shall be entitled to at
least one ministerial and one lay delegate.

Article V.

THE GENERAL CONFERENCE.
Section 1 . Voting.
Every vote in the General Conference
shall be by jurisdictions and shall require
the accepted majority vote of each juris-
diction to be effective.

Section 2. Powers.
Subject to the limitations and re-
strictions of the constitution, the General
Conference shall have full legislative power
over all matters distinctively connectional
and in the exercise of said power shall
have authority as follows:

1. To define and fix the conditions,
privileges, and duties of Church member-
ship.

2. To define and fix the qualifications
and duties of elders, deacons, local preach-
ers, exhorters, and deaconesses.

3. To make provision for such organiza-
tion of the work of the united Church
outside the United States as may promptly
consummate the unity of Episcopal Meth-
odism in foreign lands.

4. To define and fix the powers, duties,
and privileges of the episcopacy; to fix the

3

number of bishops to be elected by the
respective Jurisdictional Conferences and
to provide in harmony with the historic
practice of Episcopal Methodism for their
consecration as bishops of the whole
Church.

5. To alter and change the Hymnal
and Ritual of the Church and to regulate
all matters relating to the form and mode
of worship, subject to the limitations of
the first Restrictive Rule.

6. To provide for a judicial system and
for a method of judicial procedure for the
Church, except as herein otherwise pro-
vided.

7. To govern any and all enterprises
and activities which may be agreed upon
as being of a connectional character.

8. To provide for the transfer of mem-
bers, preachers, Churches, pastoral charg-
es, districts, Annual Conferences, Mission
Conferences, and Missions in the United
States from one jurisdiction to the other,
provided that no transfer shall be made
without the consent of the member,
preacher, Church, pastoral charge, dis-
trict, Annual Conference, Mission Con-
ference, or Mission that it is proposed to
transfer.

Section 3. Restrictive Rules.

In making rules and regulations for the
Church the General Conference shall be
under the following limitations and re-
strictions:

1. The General Conference shall not
revoke, alter, or change our Articles of
4

Religion or establish any new standards or
rules of doctrine contrary to our present
existing and established standards of
1^ doctrine.

2. The General Conference shall not
i change or alter any pait or rule of our
* governnrient so as to do away episcopacy
j or destory the plan of our itinerant general
I superintendency.

I 3. The General Conference shall not
revoke or change the general rules of the
United Societies.

4. The Gene -al Conference shall not do
away the privileges of our ministers or

I preachers of trial by a committee and of
j an appeal; neither shall they do away the
; privileges of our members of trial before
I the Church or by a committee and of an
appeal.

5. They shall not appropriate the pro-
duce of the Publishing House or of the
Chartered Fund to any purpose other than
for the benefit of the traveling, super-
numeraiy, superannuated, and worn-out
preachers, their wives, widows, and chil-
dren.

AliTICLE VI.
BISHOPS.

The bishops of the two Chui'ches as at
present constituted shall be the bishops
of the united Church without further
action.

Immediately after the union shall have
been consummated the bishops shall meet
i and organize as one body and shall ar-
range for the superintendence of the work
of the Church.

6

A bishop may be assigned to administer
in any part of the Church, provided that
when he is assigned to administer within
the jurisdiction other than that by which
he was elected it shall be with the consent
of the majority of the bishops of the
jurisdiction involved.

Article VII.

PRESroENCY OF THE GENERAL CONFERENCE.

The bishops shall select by a majority
vote of the bishops of each jurisdiction one
or more of their number from each juris-
diction to preside at the session of the
General Conference.

Article VIII.

JURISDICTIONAL CONFERENCES.

Each jurisdiction shall have a Juris-
dictional Conference, possessing the full
powers of the General Conference of the
Church now constituting said jurisdiction,
except such powers as are herein vested
in the General Conference or which may
hereafter from time to time be legally
delegated to the General Conference by
the Jurisdictional Conferences.

Each Jurisdictional Conference shall
meet quadrennially where the General
Conference is to assemble and immediately
prior to its assembling and when desirable
may meet during the session of the General
Conference and may meet at such other
times and places as it may determine.
6

Article IX.

THE JUDICIAL COUNCIL.

1. The General Conference shall at its
first session provide a Judicial Council,
to be composed of an equal number of

' members elected by each Jurisdictional
Conference, and the Judicial Council
shall provide its own methods of procedure.

2. The Judicial Council shall be author-
ized to review upon appeal of one-fifth of
the members of the General Conference
or of either Jurisdictional Conference or
on the appeal of a majority of the bishops
on constitutional grounds the acts of the
General Conference and of the Juris-
dictional Conferences; to hear and to
determine all other appeals and matters
coming to it in the course of legal procedure .

3. The Judicial Council shall have the
right on its own motion, subject to such
rules and regulations as shall be deter-
mined by the General Conference, to
review the legislative acts of the General
Conference or of either Jurisdictional Con-
ference and to pass on the constitutionality
of said acts,

4. The Judicial Council shall also have
power to arrest an action of a connectional
board or other connectional body when
such action is brought before it by appeal
by one-fifth of the members of said body
present and voting or by a majority of
the bishops.

5. All decisions of the Judicial Council
* shall be made by a majority of the total

membership of the Council.

i

Article X.

AMENDMENTS.

The General Conference shall at its
first session provide in harmony with the
existing procedure of the two Churches a
method of amending the constitution, and
until such method shall have been adoptee
amendments shall be effected through
the process now prevailing in the Church-
es, respectively.

Article XI.

SCHEDULE.

In all matters not specifically set forth
in these Articles and until the General
Conference by legal process shall other-
wise ordain, the rules of government in
the Disciplines of the respective Churches
shall be of full force and effect and bindin^
upon the jurisdictions, respectively.

Recommendation.

We recommend that financial support
of the Colored Methodist Episcopa
Church be continued by the jurisdictioi
with which it is historically related an(
to such an extent as that jurisdiction ma;
deem wise.

For Commission of Methodist Episcopa
Church:

William F. McDowell, Chairman;
A. W. Harris, Secretary.
For Commission of Methodist Episcops
Church, South:

Edwin D. Mouzon, Chairman;
H. H. Sherman, Secretary.
8

Date Due

1

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BX8428 .J74

Proposed plan of joint commission on

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