Churches
Former Belin leaders sue to force vote on leaving United Methodists
Three former leaders at Belin Memorial United Methodist Church are seeking a court order to allow the congregation to vote on whether they should leave the national church. In the meantime, they want to enjoin the denomination from changing the ownership of the Belin property, estimated to be worth $18 million.
A suit filed last week in Circuit Court comes two years after the Belin church council voted to end a process to leave the national church, known as discernment. The suit said the vote was flawed because some council members didn’t know a vote would be taken and didn’t attend. It also claims two members of the church clergy voted although they were not part of the council “and their participation materially and wrongfully altered the outcome.”
The suit was brought by the Belin Revival Group, a nonprofit created in May, Clif Smith, Derrick Temple and Frasier Wall, who previously served as church trustees and council members. It names the state conference of the United Methodist Church, its current and former bishops, Belin Memorial and four of its clergy, including senior pastor the Rev. Will Malambri, as defendants.
The United Methodist Church itself is not a party to the suit because it is not incorporated and cannot own property, according to the complaint.
“This case does not require the Court to consider, evaluate, or decide questions of disputed doctrine, internal church rules, or ecclesiastical matters,” it states.
That makes the suit different from others filed in the state over the split in the United Methodist Church, according to the complaint. It can be decided based on “neutral principles of secular South Carolina law.”
The schism itself is based on what the plaintiffs call “the denomination’s liberal theological shift,” particularly the ordination of homosexual clergy and same-sex marriage. In 2019, the national church added a “special disaffiliation provision” to its 900-page governing Book of Discipline. It expired at the end of 2023 and was not renewed.
The South Carolina Conference allowed churches to leave under a different provision. About 215 did so in 2023 and 2024, according to the suit.
Belin’s church council began a “discernment process” in October 2023. At a council meeting on Veterans Day in 2023, “a slim majority” voted to end the process. They were told by the Rev. Steven Brown, superintendent of the denomination’s Marion District, that the process recognized by the state conference “is not going away and is available any time any place,” according to the suit.
The Belin council voted to start that process in August 2024. The following October, the judicial council of the national church ruled that the process used in South Carolina could not be used by churches to leave the denomination.
“There will be no congregational vote regarding separating from the United Methodist Church. Belin Memorial will remain a United Methodist Church,” Malambri said in a letter to church members cited in the suit.
Many church members, it states, “were frustrated with not being given the opportunity to meaningfully engage in Discernment or have their voices heard on the issue. As a result of these improper, unlawful, and/or tortious actions, Belin Memorial Church is in a state of decline, and its purpose, mission, ministry, and operations have been harmed and hindered.”
The suit seeks an order requiring Belin to hold “a corporate meeting, not an ecclesiastical one.” It wants the approximately 2,800 members listed in the 2023 church directory, the most recent available, to decide whether to stay or leave the denomination by “a simple majority vote.”
It also seeks a ruling that the church itself owns its real and personal property since Belin, created in 1925, existed before the United Methodist Church was formed in 1968.
And the suit seeks damages from the state conference, its leaders and the Belin clergy for breaching their fiduciary duties and making what the plaintiffs say were false claims about the disaffiliation process. Those claims were made “as any disaffiliation from the UMC would deprive the UMC of the significant property interest in Belin Memorial Church’s property and the tithing from Belin Memorial Church, which represents a significant portion of the State Conference’s total tithing/giving,” according to the suit.
