Remarks by The Rev. Joe Peabody,
senior pastor, Marietta First UMC,
urging rejection of Amendment IV
and its companion amendments

2001 N. Ga. Annual Conference Session
Athens, Georgia
June 12, 2001

The United Methodist Church has historically believed that. . .we ought to make significant change as difficult as possible. . . .

My [concern] is that what's going to happen at Annual [Conference Sessions] all across Methodism is that there will be people who are going to say, "Oh, well, if the General Conference passed this legislation, it must be all right. I guess we ought to just rubber-stamp this and send t along."

To do that is to fail in our task of trying to understand what's before us and why it's there. . . .

I plan to vote "no" on constitutional amendments 4, 7, 8, 10, and 11. The reason I'm going to vote "no" on those particular amendments is because I believe the change that is proposed will signal a dramatic shift in the thinking of the United Methodist Church. The constitutional amendments that we're being asked to approve will change the language of The [Book of] Discipline so that all baptized persons, whether confirmed or not, will by virtue of their baptism be termed "members" in the church.

I had a conversation with a preacher while we were standing on the stairs a little while ago and he said, "Well, y'know, we have 'preparatory members' now and we're going to have 'baptized members' if this passes."

Not really. Although we [informally] use language the language "preparatory members" for persons who have been baptized and have not yet been confirmed, the fact is -- as far as the Discipline of church is concerned, those people are not referred to as members.

This is the issue that [came] before the Judicial Council in 1996. The General Board of Discipleship and those who were enthusiastic about the change [in terminology] that has been proposed, came to General Conference and they proposed legislation. And somebody picked it up and said, "Hey, Judicial Council, can these people be members under the way our constitution explains membership?" And the Judicial Council said, "No."

You see, the constitution of the United Methodist Church says that a member is a person who can profess [his or her] faith in Jesus Christ. [This] legislation is going to change it so that a member is person who has been baptized, whether they have made a profession of faith or not.

Some two weeks ago. . .a preacher in the South Georgia Conference sent me a ten-year-old essay prepared by Bishop William R. Cannon. It was in response to the second revision of the baptismal study document [that has led to this proposed legislation]. The bishop's argument was simple. He said the United Methodist Church has in its Discipline something called the Restrictive Rule. Let me read the Restrictive Rule for you: The General Conference "shall not revoke, alter, or change our Articles of Religion, or establish any new standards or rules of doctrine contrary to our present existing and established standards of doctrine."

In his paper, Bishop Cannon not only cites the First Restrictive Rule, he makes this statement: "The proposed statement that baptized infants shall become 'baptized members,' if ratified, will become a substitute for the Methodist doctrine of conversion and regeneration, and will therefore be a violation of the First Restrictive Rule.". . .

[W]e in the Protestant tradition lay claim to the thought that we are justified by faith and not by works. . . . I'm going to vote against changing the constitution because I believe United Methodism is fundamentally a Protestant church in which members become members by profession of faith, personally experienced and witnessed to.