Mt. Bethel UMC Assets To Be Seized 'Immediately' By Conference

EAST COBB, GA — The regional governing board over Mt. Bethel UMC in East Cobb announced Monday it plans to seize the church’s assets rather than let the church leave the denomination.

The vote by trustees of the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church means it will take over Mt. Bethel immediately, according to a statement posted to the conference’s website.

“Mt. Bethel’s leaders and attorneys received notification on Monday, July 12, 2021, of the closure and transfer of assets from the individual church to the Conference Board of Trustees,” the statement said. “While the transfer of assets is effective immediately, the Board of Trustees has given the acting leaders of the local church 10 days to complete the transfer.”

The North Georgia Conference’s announcement is the latest move in a showdown between it and the prominent East Cobb church, which is its biggest congregation with about 10,000 members. The church and its companion Mt. Bethel Christian Academy employ more than 300 people.

The quarrel went public in April when the conference’s decision to reassign senior pastor Dr. Jody Ray— a conservative pastor who was reported to have said he “didn’t bow the knee or kiss the ring of progressive theology” during a recent sermon — was rejected by Mt. Bethel. Bishop Sue Haupert-Johnson, head of the UMC’s North Georgia Conference, said later in a pastoral letter a sermon at Mt. Bethel cast the reassignment as “a ‘hostile takeover’ by an evil, ungodly woman.”

In April, Mt. Bethel declined to accept Ray’s reassignment because the church was “not in a position to receive a new senior minister,” citing both recent pandemic lockdowns and a coming vote that may split the United Methodist Church into separate denominations over their views of LGBTQ marriage and ordination. The church also mounted an online petition to keep Ray, which by Tuesday had nearly 5,000 signatures.

In a press release sent Tuesday, Mt. Bethel leaders said they would “do all in their power” to fight having the church’s assets seized. They also characterized the move as escalating a crisis Haupert-Johnson herself created, according to East Cobb News.

Read the statement from the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church.

Read the stories in East Cobb News and The Marietta Daily Journal.

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