Your use of the words “cowardice” and “slave mentality” both suggest that the bishop’s power is what I say, and that those who bow and scrape to them in hopes of assignment to a larger church with larger salary, actually constitute their real power. Again, though, that is intra-conference and not inter-conference.
Therefore, their power is WITHIN their own conferences.
As I’ve stated, they have no power to change the law of the denomination. That is set only by the every 4 year general conference.
In political terms we are looking at a confederacy and not at a federal system.
I am not debating the Book of Discipline. It is what it is and it is the law of the church. However, the COB works daily along with all the various Super Commissions and Agencies to affect the direction of the global body. As with any bureaucracy they are the real power.
Officials who work daily to redirect world Methodism away from the Book of Discipline and the spasms of the General Conference are not an aberration to be ignored. They have the blessing of the Council of Bishops who dictate policy to presiding Bishops in local conferences. That is the nature of the beast.