Epilogue (part iii)

Good Friday

Treacherous best describes my final days at Las Vegas Trinity United Methodist Church. Preceding the last charge/church conference I ever attended, Bishop William Dew literally commanded me to meet with him in his Phoenix office. The mandate was communicated by District Superintendent Thomas Mattick who was also to attend, and who informed me that, even though the bishop was ordering me to fly down and back, it would be at my own expense. Michael Downing (I discovered later) was already “staying with friends” in Phoenix in order to facilitate his preemptive tattling. To this day I do not know what Michael’s political connection to the conference hierarchy was, but its existence became increasingly evident as the course of events unfolded.

Much against my wishes, the Trinity Staff-Parish Relations Committee—now totally disgusted with Downing—sent a representative, Jerry Stewart, to meet with Bishop Dew. Stewart’s assignment was to inform the bishop of the S-PRC’s complete dissatisfaction with Downing and its desire to have me appointed as Trinity’s sole pastor. Such naiveté probably amused Dew, but his condescending retort to Stewart apparently gave no hint of that. Stewart reported back to the S-PRC a shaken man, still in shock at having been told by Dew that he didn’t “give a damn” about what Trinity wanted. I could have counseled the committee that to directly challenge the bishop’s authority would be counterproductive, but Downing had already thrown down the gauntlet and they ignorantly overreacted.

At our audience with Dew he ordered Downing and me to shape up and at least give the appearance of getting along until we would each be appointed elsewhere at the upcoming session of the annual conference in June. Dew clarified that Downing was the senior pastor, that I was the associate pastor, and that his word with regard to this subject was final. While unpleasant, the meeting to this point was justified. What I will never know is what transpired between Dew, Mattick and Downing during the next hour that I was dismissed to wait in the lobby. For all intents and purposes I was in Mattick’s custody, having no way of catching a return flight to Las Vegas until he escorted me.

Downing returned to Trinity with the knowledge that he was on the S-PRC’s “hit list” and this ironically put him in the same camp as Linda Petty and Raymond Barnes. I can only surmise that Dew had also communicated through Mattick to Preston Howard that his complicity with Smith, Altman, Petty, and now Downing, was reason enough for him to have a vested interest in the quick and dirty suppression of the local revolt. Yet another church conference was called for some frivolous reason that masked its true purpose of serving as a forum for Michael’s supporters who now included some of the very people he had been trying to fire.

As mentioned earlier, a district superintendent presides at a church conference. When the D.S. cannot—or will not—be present, he appoints an Elder other than the pastor-in-charge to serve instead. I had always understood this polity to essentially serve to protect parishioners from an autocratic pastor, but Downing and Mattick put an entirely different spin to it. For reasons unknown, Mattick was unable to attend the conference he had authorized, and the Reverend Dan Morley of neighboring Desert Spring UMC was designated to officiate.

I honestly cannot remember the single issue for which the charge conference was convened (a textbook example of repression, I’m sure) but the “official” business took all of ten minutes to complete. At that point, Morley adjourned the session, yielded the floor to Preston Howard, and took a seat next to Francine Greene at the back of the sanctuary. For the next forty-five minutes Downing’s select railed against me for having conspired with the S-PRC to oust Downing, Petty, and Barnes. In the presence of my wife and daughters I was libeled and slandered in ways I never believed possible, especially in The United Methodist Church. Michael sat quietly at the front of the sanctuary as one after another “witnesses” did the talking for him.

Although I was the alleged ringleader, members of the S-PRC were not spared the attack. Had not the evidence against Rick Altman been so overwhelming at the time of his dismissal, I’m sure that we would have stood accused of all his misdoings, as well. Instead, Linda Petty gave a tearful testimony of how she was actually afraid to come to the office for fear of my violent behavior, while others testified to the heresy I had been espousing to young and old alike. Incredibly hurtful accusations were hurled at members of the S-PRC as well as “traitorous” council and committee members who had been openly involved in the process of trying to address Trinity’s pastoral crisis.

When the venomous assault was finally over, Jim Rogers, chairman of the S-PRC, stepped to the microphone and resigned. In what I believe was an unprecedented move with regard to a local United Methodist church, every member of the S-PRC that was present followed Jim’s lead. Hoping to awaken from this nightmare, I gathered Mary, Rachel and Rebecca to my side and dazedly headed for the exit. Francine came up to us and said that she could not believe what she had just witnessed, and that as chairperson of the District Committee on Ordained Ministry she was going to lodge a complaint with the District Superintendent for the blatant and flagrant violations of church discipline that Downing and Morley had allowed to take place (Greene has since left the Desert Southwest to reenter the parish ministry in Iowa).

Once the initial shock subsided, I reluctantly accepted that I no longer had a future in The United Methodist Church. Through a litany of errors (both mine and others’) I was no longer “welcome” in the Nebraska or Desert Southwest conferences, and I was thoroughly disillusioned by the realities that had shattered any respect for what I once regarded as “my church.” Feeling a deep sense of responsibility for the other victims, I accepted what in retrospect was an ill conceived request to minister to an independent, non-denominational congregation to be formed from others who also felt alienated from Trinity.

Still the loyal Methodist, I knew that I could not engage in such an enterprise while still ordained in The United Methodist Church. So it was that I arranged a meeting with Mattick at which I surrendered my credentials. He disingenuously told me about his own sabbatical from the ministry in order to get his head on straight (did I remember to report that Mattick was on his second or third wife?), and in his glad-handed style that was second only to Downing’s he suggested that I not let the door slam me in the ass on the way out of his office. I received the perfunctory call from Dew expressing his regret over my decision, but wanting me to know that I was leaving the conference in good standing should I ever decide to return. (John Cox had been exiled to Winslow, Arizona for his shortcomings so I could only imagine what kind of hellhole Dew would have gleefully condemned our family to.)

I was free to celebrate my forty-ninth birthday without the church of which I had been a member for thirty-seven years. The Trinity congregation gave us a three month grace period to remain in the parsonage while we looked for new housing, although Mattick attempted to evict the family upon learning that about thirty of us had gathered after business hours in a borrowed mortgage loan office to conduct a Tuesday evening worship service. Another attorney in the Trinity congregation, Richard Jost, in concert with the Board of Trustees, informed Mattick that he was way out of bounds and assuaged our panic with the assurance that we had the originally promised deadline to move out. (Downing never did move into the parsonage; it is my understanding that Mattick arranged to have a newly appointed pastor and his family live there as they attempted to start a new church.)

So, now you have it. Now you know why I am no longer an ordained United Methodist minister. Now you know why, because I was fortunate enough to have been befriended by the Clark County District Attorney, Stewart Bell (a charter member of the experiment eventually known as La Madre Faith Community), I have been working as a case manager for the D.A.’s Family Support Division (Stew knew that I could work a four-ten schedule at DAFS which would leave my Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays free to develop the new congregation). La Madre closed its doors at the end of 2001, and so I have spent the last six years with no formal religious ties. Having literally been born into the church, it has been eye-opening for me to join the ranks of ordinary human beings who are seemingly blind to the often sinister inner workings of organized religion. Dew has retired from the episcopacy. Upon completion of his term as District Superintendent Mattick gave himself Desert Spring UMC. Downing remained at Trinity until he was finally able to legitimize his youngest son’s in-state tuition via an appointment to Chandler, Arizona.

On this Good Friday, it is incomprehensible to me how to pray as the Christ did from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.” I still have much to learn.