Walteer Vernon Explains New Disciplinary Provisions After Unification August 1939 Walter Vernon is well known as the most prolific Texas Methodist historian of the middle decades of the 20th century. In addition to his histories of the North Texas Conference, the Arkansas Conference,and leading the team that wrote the Methodist Excitement in Texas, he also contributed many articles to the Southwestern Christian Advocate and at times served as one of the Associate Editors of that newspaper. The Unification of the MEC, MECS, and MP denominations into the Methodist Church was accomplished in late spring 1939. A few months later Vernon informed readers of the Advocate of changes impacing the new annual confernces enacted at the Uniting Conference. Some of them were radical, others barely significant and almost completely forgotten. For example. The new Discipline allowed annual confernces to demand a physical exam for candiates for the ministry. Today such a provision would violate medical privacy rights and flies in modern consciousness about disability rights. Basically Annual Conferences did not wish to admit feeble or impaired candidates who might soon be put on disability leave and drive up pension and insurance costs. Another new provision was making the District Conference optional. The District Conference was once an important feature of the Methodist calendar. In the 1880s for example, I have found many records of district conferences lasting a whole week. The few district conferences I have attended usually lasted one hour and dealt with property issues about the District Superintendent’s residence. The new Discipline also expanded the number of lay delegates to Annual Conference by determing that each charge, rather than each district would have a lay delegate. In a provision I have never seen, Annual Confernces were given the option of electing lay delegates each year or quadrennially. Another radical provision showed the continuing devolution of examination of preachers and their character. A major part of annual conference in the early years of the denomination was the examination of each preacher’s character. That’s right—every preacher had to stand before the conference and be examined about his character during the preceeding year. By the early 20th century that process had been modified. At Annual Conference each District Superintendent stood before the conference and attested to good character of the ministers in his district. In 1939 that public declaration was eliminated and charges of poor character were resolved in committee meetings prior to Annual Confernce. One can imagine that some preachers felt a sigh of relief over this latter provision.