This Week in Texas Methodist History June 26 Wallace Crutchfield Explains Unification Changes to Texas Methoists, June 1939 As Texas Methodists leanred about how their church would change after the Uniting Conference of 1939, Wallace Crutchfield, Associate Editor of the Southwestern Christian Advocate, felt it necessary to summarize changes as they entered the new denomination, the Methodist Church. Perhaps the greatest change was the creation of five geographic jurisdictions and one jurisdiction based on race. Election of bishops moved from the General Conference to the Jurisdictional Conference. Not only were bishops elected by the Jurisdiciton, they were also assigned to that jurisdiction and a jurisdictional committee would assign the bishops to the annual conferences in that jurisdiction. Previously bishops served the entire denomination and, for most of the denomination’s history, the bishops had divided the annual conferences among themselves. Another change was the creation of the Judicial Council---a Supreme Court of the denomination, containing 9 members who were specifically barred from the ranks of the General Confernce delegates. The MECS had already created a Judicial Council, but the MEC had not. After 1939 it was applied to the whole denomination. You might ask how polity decisions were decided before 1939. Almost all the cases involving polity questions arose when a bishop ruled on a point of law in an annual conference. The losing party had a right to appeal that decision to the General Conference. That meant that General Conferences before 1939 inlcluded both electing bishops and listening to debates about episcopal rulings. After 1939 both of those activities did not occur in General Conference. One area in which the MECS adopted MEC nomenclature was the adoption of the term District Superintendent, replacing Presiding Elder. The office of District Superintendent or Presiding Elder could be described as middle management. The main duty of the office was presidng over a regional grouping of churches and conducting quarterly conferences at every charge (appointment) in the district. The P.E. or D. S. had the power to liscense local preachers who had authority to serve a particular charge. Ordination was beyong the power of the D. S. or P.E. That power was reserved for bishops. D. S.s also presided over both District Conferences and Church Conference. Those conferences were made optional. The General Confernce designated six General Boards to extend through the entire denomination. In addition to overseeing the denominational work, each jurisdiction, annual conference, district, and local church was expected to have a formal structure to work in those areas: Mission and Church Extention; Temperance and Public Morals; Lay Activities; Hospitals and Homes; Confernce Claimants (pensions); and Education. The Geneeral Confernce also added to the ritual—making it more “high church” than most members of the MECS were used to. Another area new to Southern Methodists was a difference Social Creed. The Social Creed of the MEC had been adopted during the Progressive Era and had been hugely influenced by the Social Gospel movement. It called Methodists to work for social justice for industrial workers, immigrants, children in poverty, etc. The Southern church’s involvement in social issues was focused almost entirely on the prohibition of alcohol. The changes listed above created the church of my youth, and probably yours.

This Week in Texas Methodist History June 19 Abilene Woman Reports on 1938 General Conferene June 1938 One one the outstanding women of Texas Methodism was Mrs. Nat Rollins (Elva Lena Hyder Rollins 1867-1950) od Abilene. She was active in the Mission work of her church, district, conference and denomination. She was a skilled writer and submitted articles to the Southwestern Christian Advocate. Some of the artiles were even opinion pieces and as early as the 1930s refuted arguments against the ordination of women. In 1938 her experience with the Advocate allowed her to obtain press credentials to cover the MECS General Conference held in Birmingham, Alabama. Her press badge was not a token allowing her to cover the “woman’s angle” of the conference. She reported what we would call hard news. The 1938 General Conference was going to vote on unification with the MEC and MP denominaions so everyone knew the real business of the church would be conducted in committees related to the 1939 conference. As I said in a recent post, there had been no bishops elected in 1934 so it was time to elect a larger number of bishops than usual—thereby bringing more bishops into the church in 1939. 1938 was especially important in Methodist history because it was the bicentennial of John Wesley’s Aldersgate experience. The conference therefore transacted little business and spent its time in bishop elections and bicentennial celbration. Mrs. Rollins acknowledged that her reporting was “one woman’s view” and I found nuggets I have not seen in other reportage of the conference. For example, she openly acknowledged that Birmingham had problems with its racial relations. She also noted that, with the exception of Cuba, all lay delegates from outside the US were all female. Rollins reported that a whole day was spent debating the question of unification. Bishop John M. Moore was presiding when the vote was called for. Moore was well knowsn as one of the bishops who had been working enthusiastically for the motion. He was also a Texan. The vote was taken and thre results announced. 436-26 in favor. Mrs. Rollins noted that all 26 no votes came from men who lived east of the Mississippi. After the vote Moore introduced James Straughn, President of the MP Church that did not have bishops, and Bishop Edwin Holt Hughes of the MEC. Those three men appear on the cover of Moore’s Long Road to Methodist Union, a book thaty has shaped our understanding of the process. Mrs. Rollins continued to submit articles to the Advocate.

Advocate Highlights Texan Leadership at 1948 General Conference June, 1948 When the Methodist Church was formed by the merger of the Methodist Epsicopsl Church, Methodist Episcopal Church South and the Methodist Protestant Church, at least some of the MECS members feared that they would be junior partners in the new denomination. As the name suggests, MECS membership was concentrated in the southern states and in the states to which southerners had migrated such as California. The MEC, on the other hand, was a truly national church and therefore brought more membrers into the Methodist Church in 1939. The Methodist Protestant Church had far fewer members than either the MEC or MECS. Negotiations leading to the merger bent over backwards to accommodate the MECS, most notably in creating the Central Jurisdiction so that the MECS could continue its policy of racial discrimination. Other concessions to the South concerned the perpetuation of MECS institutions such as the Publishing House in Nashville. Ten years after the merger it was obvious that MECS fears were not justified. Former members of the MECS excercised considerable power in the MC sunukar ti the way Southern states exercised disproportional power in the U. S. Senate. Southern states often elected young men to the Senate and continuing reelecting them until they had seniority to assume committee chairmanships. In those powerful committee chairs, they could block legislation concerning civil rights and also direct federal funds to the southern states. In the Methodist Church bishops were often elected at a young age and accumulated seniority in church bodies. The role of the bishop in the MECS was more authoritarian than in the MEC so after the merger, the former MECS bishops were used exercising authority. In addition to political power based on seniority Texas also gained political power as it exploited its petrochemical resources, and had money ---which translates into political power. Money also counts for influence in the Methodist Church. After the MC General Conference of 1948 the Advocate summarized the Texans who exercised influence out of proportion to our membership in the denomination. Two University Presidents, J. N. R. Score of Southestern and Umphrey Lee of SMU chaired powerfule committee. Score chaired the Committee on Ministry and also a super-committee of committee chairs. Lee chaired the Sifting Committee. That was the committee that decided which resolutions and business items could make it to the conference floor for debate and vote. Hubert Johnson of the Methodist Home in Waco was chair of the Committee on Hospitals and Homes, Ray Nichols of Vernon was Chair of the Committee on Lay Activities. Dawson Bryan of St. Paul’s Hoston was Chair of Membership and Evangelism. Named to the Fedeal Council of Churches of Christ in America were Bishops Frank and Angie Smith, Edmund Heinsohn, and both Mrs. W. W. Fondren of Houston and Mrs. J. J. Perkiins of Wichita Falls—both of whom were reknown for their philanthropy based on petroleum wealth. Like most large deliberative bodies, most of the work of General Confernce is done in Committees and 1948 showed that Texans would shape much of the future of the Methodist Church.

This Week in Texas Methodist History June 5 Texas Conference Votes to Merge with EUB, Abolish Central Jurisdiction, June 6, 1967 The Texas Annuyal Conference met in June 1967 with two resolutions on the agenda that would have dramatic consequences. The dresolutions were both the result of a special session of General Conference that had been held in Chicago the previous November 11. Delegates to that conference ratified the work produced by committees authorized by the 1964 General Conference of the Methodisyt Chruch held in Pittsburgh. The first resolution called for a new constitution for the denomination that would now include the Evangelical United Brethren (EUB) denomination and create a new denomination with a new name, The United Methodist Church. The EUB was also the produce of a previous merger of the Evanglicl Associaiton and United Brethren. Both of those denominations were prominent in Pennsylvania and states to which immigrants from Pennsylvania moved such a Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, but had little prese3nce in Texas. The Texas Conference voted 495 to 6 with no abstenions to approve the merger of the Methodist Church and the EUB. The other resolution was far more consequential and was also supported by an overwhelming positive vote of the conference. That vote authorized that the Central Jurisdiction would be abolished. The Jurisdictional system had been created in 1939 with the Merger of the Methodist Episocal, Chruch, the Methodist Episcopal Church South and the Methodist Protestant Church. The African American annual conferences in the MEC had been put into a Jim Crow, segregated body at the insistence of the MECS. African American delegates to the 1939 conference recognized the move for what it was and refusted to vote for a system in which segrregaiton was maintained. In 1964 the General Conference recognized that the Central Jurisdcition had to go. It voted to set up committees at both the denominational and annual conference level to re-write the Discipline and integrate the church. The plan was passed at the Chicago special session and sent to the annual conferences. The Texas Confernece voted on June 6, 1967 to accept the report. The vote was 605 to 16 with two abstentions. One year later in Dallas both the EUB merger and the Central Jurisdiction abolition were accepted. Annual Conferences were given four years to make the desegregation work at the Conference level. The Texas Conference took two years and completed the task at Jones Hall in Houston in 1970. I later talked to one of the 16 preachers who had voted against desegreaiton. He told me that his reason was based on his opposition to the penision plan that would take effect after the merger. Pension plans were based on years of service and were funded by contributions paid into a pension fund durng a preachert’s working life. African American preacher salaiies were far below the European American preacher salaries so they had paid less into the pension fund. One of the provisions of the resolution was that African American pensioners would receive pensions based on the higher pension contributions of the white preachers. He perceived that provision of the plan was unfair.