With a world-class professional mediator and a 16-member Mediation Team, including Bishop Rodolfo “Rudy” Juan, representing every major region and faction of the United Methodist Church, the painstakingly negotiated “Protocol of Reconciliation and Grace through Separation” promised to bring an acceptable-to-all-sides peace to our denomination’s decades of internal conflict.
Released in early 2020, the Protocol demanded extraordinary, one-sided concessions from theologically traditionalist United Methodists. Remember, traditionalists, by definition, are those who support our own denomination’s doctrinal and moral standards. And yes, it was a big problem how, despite everyone knowing that non-American delegates overwhelmingly supported the Traditional Plan at the last General Conference, not one of the four non-Americans on the Mediation Team clearly identified with this position. For example, Bishop Juan is notably more liberal than the center of gravity in Filipino…
