Retirement age, disaffiliation with UMC and clergy rules on alcohol consumption among key issues debated
At the recent 13th Session of the General Conference (GC) held from 2 to 6 September 2024, Rev Philip Lim was elected the next Bishop of The Methodist Church in Singapore (MCS). Bishop-Elect Lim, currently the Pastor-in-Charge of Kum Yan Methodist Church under the Chinese Annual Conference, was elected on the seventh ballot. He will be consecrated on 6 December 2024, taking on the role of spiritual leader for more than 45,000 Methodists in 46 churches across Singapore. He succeeds Bishop Dr Gordon Wong who is retiring after serving as Bishop for a term of four years.
Upon being elected, Bishop-Elect Lim said, “The work of the Bishop is immense; the responsibility as the spiritual head of the Methodist Church is great. The task now is to inspire the Church to the mission that God has called us to and to help the Church grow in spiritual holiness. All this work cannot be done by one person—we need all the churches to come together. Let us all work together, and as the Bible says, let us spur one another on towards love and good deeds!”
Who is Rev Philip Lim?
Rev Lim is currently Pastor-in-Charge of Kum Yan Methodist Church. He is also the Chairperson of the Board of Ministry at the Chinese Annual Conference (CAC). He was posted to Cambodia in 2004 as a missionary with the Methodist Missions Society (MMS) where he served for seven years, laying the foundation and growing MMS’ missional ministry in its early days there, and later returned to the MMS home office to serve as Area Director for Cambodia before becoming MMS’ Executive Director from 2012 to 2018. In 2019, he returned to pastoral ministry at CAC. Rev Lim is married to Lydia Ng and they have an adult daughter, Olivia.
Over five days at Faith Methodist Church/Queenstown Chinese Methodist Church, the GC delegates reviewed a total of 30 petitions, and Bishop Dr Wong chaired the sessions each day. Three key issues are highlighted here:
Retirement age of Presidents and Bishop
Leading up to the Episcopal Elections, the GC delegates debated on the issue of whether to raise the retirement age of the Bishop and Annual Conference Presidents from 65 to 70. Because the retirement age determined the list of eligible elders for the Episcopal and Presidential Elections, it would also determine whether the incumbent Bishop and Presidents would be eligible to take on a second term if elected, as they had crossed the age limit under the current rules.
A robust debate took place on Day 1 of the GC during the legislative session where several petitions regarding this issue were reviewed. Views that were put forth ranged from the stability of MCS if the top leadership were to change at one go, to the ethics of changing the rules right before elections. A related issue was when to implement the new rule should the retirement age be raised, whether with immediate effect or at the next session of the GC, and whether it would apply to both Episcopal and Presidential Elections at the same time.
At the plenary session on Day 2, the GC delegates voted to raise the retirement age of the Bishop and Presidents from 65 to 70 and implement this at the start of the 14th Session of the GC in 2028.
These legislative changes set the stage for the Episcopal Elections on Day 2. The key contenders were Rev James Nagulan (ETAC), Rev Philip Lim (CAC) and Rev Kenneth Huang (TRAC), with Rev Lim eventually garnering more than two-thirds of the valid votes.
Disaffiliation from the United Methodist Church
Following the watershed legislative changes earlier this year by the United Methodist Church (UMC) to remove the ban on the ordination and appointment of “self-avowed practising homosexuals”, and to broaden the definition of marriage to include “two people of faith, an adult man and woman of consenting age, or two adult persons of consenting age into union with one another”, it was not surprising that there were petitions submitted to disaffiliate from UMC given the latter’s departure from biblical teachings.
MCS has historical links to UMC, which is based in the United States, as UMC is MCS’ founding Church. However, these historical links do not bind MCS to any UMC rules or policies because MCS, while affiliated, is an autonomous Church and determines its own rules which are recorded in MCS’ Book of Discipline (BOD).
Of pertinence was the “Covenant of Cooperation” that was signed between UMC and MCS (while it was still joined with The Methodist Church in Malaysia) in 1968 and any changes to alter the covenant must be done with mutual agreement. Mr Kim Seah, who has chaired the Discipline Revision Commission (DRC)—which oversees the work of the BOD—for the last 28 years, led the delegates to consider their arguments in terms of the “what, why and how” of disaffiliation.
The “what” saw the house debate on the definition of the term “disaffiliation”. Mr Kim Seah advised that the term had to be defined carefully because MCS holds both formal and informal ties with UMC. The formal ties included, among others, accepting UMC membership certificates and the transferring of pastors between UMC and MCS, while the informal ties had more to do with daily practices, such as use of UMC-produced Bible study material by Disciple Agency and the use of The United Methodist Book of Worship as a reference for crafting liturgies.
Therefore the “how” of disaffiliation, i.e. the way disaffiliation will take place operationally, needed more thought.
Mr Kim Seah recommended that a deferment of the rest of the petitions relating to UMC was in order, until a decision had been made on the petition to discontinue the affiliation at the GC Special Session in July 2025. All voted in favour of deferment.
Abstinence of alcohol by MCS clergy and local preachers
A petition that proposed a change to a long-standing rule of alcohol and tobacco abstinence by clergy and local preachers was reviewed. The rule in the BOD dates back to the 1920s, when the Temperance movement was strongly led by Methodists in America.
It was argued that the essence of the rule was to encourage dedication and prohibit behaviours that would damage the influence and reputation of the local preacher; the prohibition should therefore be against drunkenness, rather than a blanket ban on alcohol.
Those who supported the petition largely felt that holiness should not be equated with the consumption of alcohol. Furthermore, since holiness was exemplified by Jesus, and Jesus himself created and drank wine (at the wedding at Cana), it would be difficult to justify why a pastor could not. The rule seemed incongruent with the times, where the younger generation did not think complete abstinence was relevant anymore.
However, there were also several counter arguments. One was that ordained ministers took this vow as a symbol of the highest ideals of Christian ministry. Allowing the consumption of alcohol could be problematic in defining permissible limits. Pastors who had to counsel those with drinking habits could find it difficult to set a positive example.
Given that the issue had both theological and practical dimensions, the current wordings in the BOD would require refinement so as not to stumble anyone. The house voted to refer this matter to the DRC in consultation with representatives from the Boards of Ministry and the Boards of Laity of the three Annual Conferences.
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As the 13th Session drew to a close, Mr Kim Seah reminded all that the BOD is the “good and hard work” of the General Conference and asked for delegates to defend this work if ever they heard “a lie to the contrary”.
“For a lie left repeated, may become the truth,” he said.
Bishop Dr Wong called for a vote of thanks to the DRC in the last quadrennium and the house gave a standing vote of approval.
Key office-bearers elected to serve in the 13th Quadrennium
The following persons were elected to these key positions of the General Conference.
The Secretary of the Trustees
Mr Guan Yeow Kwang
Assistant Secretaries of the Trustees
Mr Anton Moses, Mr Kim Seah
General Conference Secretary
Mr Jeffrey Lim
General Conference Treasurer
Mr Melvin Dineshraj
General Conference Assistant Treasurer
Mr Nicholas Au-Yong
Chairperson, Finance and Administration Council
Mdm Daisy Pang
Chairperson, Discipline Revision Commission
Ms Aurill Kam
Chairperson, Council on Archives and History
Rev Dr Andrew Peh
Chairperson, Council of Governance
Mr Steven Seah
Members of the Council of Governance
Chairpersons of the Boards of Governance from CAC, ETAC and TRAC; Ms Susan Goh, Mr Kang Kok Kwan, Mr Colin Chen
Chairperson, Disciple Agency
Mr Philip Oh
Chairperson, Methodist Missions Society
Mr Collin Tan
Lay and Ministerial members of the Judicial Council
Substantive: Rev Dr Gregory Goh, Dr Leong Sieu-Hon Benjamin, Mr Anton Moses, Rev Raymond Fong and Dr Cheah-Foo Fung Fong
Alternate: Rev Andy Goh, Mr Tan Boon Chok, Dr Stephen Yeo, Rev James Nagulan, Mr Selvathurai Rajamani, Mrs Jessy Birgediah, Rev Reuben Ng, Rev Tay Li Ping and Mr Charis Gabriel Lim