Bob’s Blog

We will continue with a search for a UMC policy that discredits the church's involvement in politics.  Thus far, it has not been found.      Does the General Board…

For the next couple of weeks we will go a bit off course in discussing the church's involvement with politics.  I had been told by a local minister that politics…

Final peace terms between the US and North Vietnam were concluded in early 1973 after the US 1972 "Christmas" bombing that so outraged many church officials.  But the war in…

The full Council of Bishops met for three days at the United Methodist Church Center for the United Nations in 1971 to discuss how the church could help make the…

In 1969, the World Division of the Board of Global Ministries became the first church agency to directly condemn the war, explaining that if government policies serve death over life,…

     In a less controversial setting, Vice President Hubert Humphrey spoke at a testimonial dinner for Indiana Bishop Richard Raines in 1967 at DePauw University. "Almost persuadest thou me…

The 1966 National Conference of the Methodist Student Movement, meeting in Washington, DC, voted "no confidence" in South Vietnam's government, while hearing radical speakers praise the "new revolutionary." Meanwhile Board…

In 1965, after President Lyndon Johnson's reelection, the US roles in Vietnam escalated.  Four officials from the Board of Christian Social Concerns, including two bishops and board chief Dudley Ward,…

Today many pastors...church leaders... find comfort in avoiding politics thus not 'offending' anyone.  However, politics is not about to let the church off that easy.  The church must be willing…

It was only a matter of time before the Methodist Church would move beyond the political turmoil of racial politics and into the realm of societal politics...national and worldwide.  In…

Even with the forward progress the Methodist Church had made in race relations, all was not yet well.  Some black demonstrators protested at the 1968 General Conference in Dallas for…

The 1963 Methodist Human Relations Conference was attended by 1,100 Methodists and featured activist James Meredith, comedian and activist Dick Gregory, and Martin Luther King Jr.  It also sent a…

     The 1958 Council of Bishops were especially "disturbed by a growing disregard of law evidenced by the bombing of synagogues, churches, schools, and even private dwellings."  They urged…

Despite continued Methodist church segregation in the form of the Central Jurisdiction, Methodist bodies continued to denounce societal segregation.  This is a form of hypocrisy...accepting segregation in the church but…

The politics of segregation wasn't coming from outside the church but from within the church.  Methodists were finding fault with each other.  For example, in 1955 a white West Virginia…

As I write about the hypocrisy of racism in the Methodist Church...or any church on the account...I am still amazed that it was or is even a controversy. How any…

One of Methodism's first black bishops was Robert Jones, who was elected in 1920, and who spoke on human equality at Gammon Theological Seminary in Atlanta in 1951. "There is…

In 1948 the Methodist Church was still dealing with the question of racism and segregation within the church.  In that year 10,000 young people, including 500 "Negro" delegates, gathered at…

After World War II, Methodism struggled with racial relations and segregation, both within the church and within America.  The 1939 reunification of the northern and southern churches had created a…

In 1959, a Chicago Methodist minister mocked Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's claims to be a "champion of peace" as an "ironic and ludicrous spectacle."  (Imagine an icon of liberalism being…

Having largely won his confrontation with congressional critics, Bishop Oxnam continued to speak in defense of civil liberties and against communism.  "In my view, the Communist Party is a conspiracy. …

During the MFSA conference of 1951, the conference chief McMichael denounced the Korean War.  Even during this conference some division was starting to appear.  Retired Bishop Francis McConnell, at the…

Meanwhile, conservative Los Angeles Methodist pastor Bob Shuler in 1949 condemned his local bishop for publicly opposing the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as an alliance to defend…

Last week we were left with the Soviet forces having invaded Eastern Europe.  Soviet governments were placed in control and thus began the rule of evil by the anti-Christs that…