This Week in Texas Methodist History  May 31

.   First Session of the (Re-organized) Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church, June 1-4, 1970

On June 1 we will celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the re-organized Texas conference of the United Methodist Church.  This anniversary is significant because it put an end to 130 years of institutional racism. 

The Texas Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church was organized at Rutersville on Christmas day 1840.  When the Methodist Episcopal Church South was organized in 1846, the Texas Conference joined it.   During the Reconstruction Era the Methodist Episcopal Church organized Texas Conferences for both African American and European Americans.  In 1939 those conferences became part of the Methodist Church with the union of the MECS, MEC, and Methodist Protestant Churches.  That union was made possible by the creation of jurisdictions whose main purpose would be electing bishops.  There were five geographic jurisdictions and one (the Central) which would contain only African American churches.  In other words the price of union was throwing African Americans under the bus and making racial segregation integral to church law.

The Methodist Church existed from 1939 until the General Conference of 1968 when the United Methodist Church was organized with the union of the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church.  The General Conference of 1968 also abolished the Central Jurisdiction but gave annual conferences four years to implement the merger of the former Central Jurisdiction churches into the annual conferences of the five geographic jurisdictions. 

That brings us to June 1, 1970.  From 1939 to 1968 there had been two Texas Conferences of the Methodist Church.  One was African American in the Central Jurisdiction and one was European American in the South Central Jurisdiction.  The two conferences decided complete the merger in two years.  For those two years, the former Texas Conference of the Central Jurisdiction would be re-named the Gulf Coast Conference so there would not be two conferences with the same name.

The years 1968-1970 were filled with planning the merger.  Some of the issues were fairly easy.  What should be the composition of boards and agencies?   The committee decided that representation on such bodies would be based on percentage of membership in the two merging conferences.  Since the boundaries of the two conferences did not align exactly, what should be boundaries of the newly merged conference?   The Texas Conference South Central Jurisdiction boundaries were maintained with some formerly Texas Conference Central Jurisdiction moved to the North Texas and Central Texas Conferences.

The most contention issues by far were about money.  The two items in question were pensions and minimum salaries.    The Central Jurisdiction preachers had coped with far lower salaries and pension benefits.   Some of them including Elders in full connection had to supplement their salaries with secular employment.

The committee urged that pastors from both conferences be awarded pensions based on the same formula.  The scattering of no votes on the final adoption of the articles of merger were mainly from Anglo pastors who objected to the pension provision.

Annul Conference was to be held at First Methodist Houston, but on the first night, June 1, 1970, the venue was Jones Hall..  Members of the Houston Symphony provided instrumental music and Roger Deschner led a massive combined choir.  Bishop Kenneth Copeland presided, and Bishop Earl Gladstone Hunt delivered the sermon.  Bishop Willis King (former Central Jurisdiction) and Bishop Willis King (former South Central Jurisdiction) provided brief histories of their respective Texas Conferences. 

Dr. Robert E. Hayes, Sr., led the Scriptures and prayed.   Representatives youth, lay women, lay men, and clergy  from the two conferences met on stage to symbolize the merger.  The two clergy were Rev. John Wesley Hardt and Rev. Allen Mayes.  W. E. Greer presented a motion to transfer all property from the former conferences to the new conference.

Monday, June 2, began with Rev. Hayes preaching the memorial sermon for those pastors who had died since the last conference.  Rev. Bob Parrott presented Astronaut and Mrs. Gordon Cooper who presented the conference with a flag that had been flown to the moon on Apollo X. 

The question of pastors working during the week at secular occupations reached the conference floor on Wednesday afternoon during the report of the Committee on Minimum Salary.  Rev. Noel Lark offered an amendment to the committee recommendation which would allow for outside work.  The result was spirited debate and eventually Rev. Lark withdrew his amendment.  Bishop Copeland announced that he would not require a pastor serving a full time appointment to give up an extra job, but eventually the pastor must do so.

The last fifty years have demonstrated the wisdom of desegregation.  We only wish it could have occurred sooner.