The United Methodist Church, the predecessors of which grew up during the rise of the United States of America, parallels the American government in that we have three branches: the legislative (General Conference), the judicial (Judicial Council) and the executive (the Bishops and the General Boards).
As a court system goes, our Judicial Council is pretty solid. It seems that once in a while, though, there’s a decision by the Judicial Council that is a head-scratcher or an outright farce (see JC1032). Then again, the same decisions that I think were 100% right-on were called an error by others (see the dueling PlanUMC dissolution arguments pro and con). So it goes with the judicial system in any arena, I guess.
This most recent round of court decisions had not a huge blow-up but really a head-scratcher:
