Glide severs all connections to Methodists
The Glide Foundation, a San Francisco institution known for its charitable work and spiritual community, severed ties with its parent church Thursday after a protracted legal battle over control of the foundation’s assets and Tenderloin property.
The foundation agreed to surrender a $ 4.5 million trust fund as well as make a onetime payment of $ 1.5 million to the United Methodist Church in exchange for complete autonomy. The foundation will keep its home of 88 years in the Tenderloin.
The settlement, though hefty, is not likely to have longterm financial consequences for the foundation or its iconic Glide Memorial Church, President and CEO Karen Hanrahan said Friday.
“We came out of this in a very good place,” Hanrahan said. “We maintain the bulk of our liquid assets and will own the building outright.”
Glide is now free to pursue its religious and charitable work apart from the Methodist church, which has sometimes been at odds with the Tenderloin organization’s liberal leanings. In 2019, the worldwide United Methodist Church, which has 12 million members, declared homosexuality to be “incompatible with Christian
“We came out of this in a very good place. We maintain the bulk of our liquid assets and will own the building outright.” Karen Hanrahan, Glide Foundation president and CEO
teaching” and rejected samesex marriage.
“Glide began to evolve, the city of San Francisco began to evolve,” Hanrahan said. “It became clear that our visions for the future of our work and our values were going in different directions.”
Tensions between the foundation and its parent church had been building for years. Methodist Bishop Minerva Carcaño said in 2018 that Glide Memorial Church’s Sunday services did not reflect Methodist teachings and were instead attended by people of “other faiths such as Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim and Wiccan.”
The parent church filed suit against Glide in December 2018, accusing the organization of violating the denomination’s governing rules. The suit also laid claim to all the foundation’s property, including the church building at Ellis and Taylor streets.
The foundation countersued with a declaration of independence two months later in February 2019.
Carcaño applauded the settlement Friday, calling it a “good way forward” that was achieved “with mutual respect.”
The bishop declined to comment on the foundation’s sometimes contentious relationship with its parent church, except to say, “Things change. We are at that place of embracing that change and wanting to move forward.”
The foundation, which has a yearly operating budget of $ 25 million, ramped up its meal program and provided coronavirus testing throughout the city in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
That programming will continue in light of the settlement, Hanrahan.
“Our mission and values are the same,” she said.