Mark Tooley: And if you had to predict, to the best of your ability, what will unfold assuming the General Conference next year does approve the Protocol as written? How quickly would the new denominations emerge?
Keith Boyette: Well, the new denomination composed of theologically conservative Methodists or traditional Methodists will be ready to be launched upon the adjournment of the General Conference in September of 2021. We have a group that came out of a dialogue in Atlanta in March of 2020, which you Mark were a part of. That is the transitional leadership council that is doing the work to have everything in readiness for that launch to occur. And we were fully confident that all of that work will have been completed and so the new denomination will be operational upon the adjournment of General Conference and under the Protocol legislation. Central conferences, annual conferences and local churches can begin making decisions almost immediately. Now obviously church central conferences and annual conferences will likely wait until a scheduled conference to do that, whether it be there regularly scheduled or a special session, but local churches could begin the process almost immediately to withdraw, and we will be fully operational ready to receive churches and clergy who would want to align. They will align in a transitional period under the leadership of the transitional leadership council, and we will be moving toward a convening conference for the new denomination that would occur in I believe the fall of 2022, which would allow time for these central conferences, annual conferences to make decisions and then have meaningful participation in the convening Conference, which is something we think is important for them to do.
Mark Tooley: So the new traditional Methodist Church would emerge immediately, but its founding General Conference likely would not be until a year afterwards.
Keith Boyette: That’s correct, it would it would begin to function and it would be in transition, basically, but its founding or convening conference would be that next year, essentially.
Mark Tooley: And the old United Methodist Church, presumably its leaders would want to reconvene fairly quickly to liberalize the teachings about which we’ve been fighting for the last almost 50 years. How fast you think that would unfold?…
Organizer of United Methodist split plan likely approved next year explains details as USA’s 3rd largest religious body prepares to divide into 2 or 3 parts. @TheIRD https://t.co/ZGkspu977R
— Mark Tooley (@markdtooley) October 10, 2020