This Week in Texas Methodist History  March 17

Orceneth Fisher Calls for Doubling the Number of Bishops, 1854

Orecenth Fisher (1803-1880) was one of the most prominent Methodist preachers of 19th century Texas.  He was an author, pastor, presiding elder, editor, delegate to General Conference.   His membership in the Missouri Conference, Texas Conference, East Texas Conference, and Pacific Conference gave him an above average ability to view the Methodist church as a whole.  As the General Conference of the MECS of 1854 approached, Fisher called for delegates to double the number of bishops from four to eight.   

The reasons for the increase lay in the westward expansion of the United States.  The territorial acquisition as a result of the war with Mexico, the California Gold Rush, the westward expansion of the agricultural frontier, improved transportation, and increased immigration from Europe meant that the US was growing---and so was the Methodist Church.  

As one could tell from the name "Methodist Episcopal", the denomination needed bishops (Episcopal means bishop.  The bishops presided over annual conferences.  In the absence of a bishop the conference could elect a presiding officer, but that officer could not ordain new preachers.  Ordination was vital to supplying the ministers who were organizing the new churches on the frontier.  

The problem was that none of the four effective bishops in the MECS in 1854 lived west of the Mississippi River.  Bishops were elected at the quadrennial General Conference, and most of the voting delegates at those conferences lived in the older states east of the Mississippi River.  Naturally they voted for people they knew best.   The bishops met and decided which bishop would preside over the annual conferences for the next four years.  Often the distant conferences of the West would be assigned to the youngest bishop who was presumably the most able to withstand the rigors of travel. 

In his letter to the New Orleans Christiann Advocate.  Fisher predicted that the two conferences in Texas would soon more than double.  He predicted a San Antonio Conference, a Rio Grande Conference, and an El Paso Conference.  (The 1854 General Conference did not create any of these, but the 1858 General Conference did create the Rio Grande Mission Conference which eventually became the West Texas then Southwest Texas and then Rio Texas Conference.)  

Fisher did not stop with Texas--he predicted that Methodist Conferences would then be created though Mexico and Central America and China.  

He said, "our brothers in the East do not realize the vastness of our territory in the West and how rapidly it is filling up."   The 1854 General Conference needed to double the number of bishops because "Methodism is God's instrument for converting the world."

The MECS did elect 3 bishops in 1854.  (Early, Pierce, and Kavanaugh)

Pierce was only 43 years old and, true to form, was sent to California.   His travel memoir is a treasure.  Kavanaugh was 52 and robust enough to travel.  Early was already 68 when he was elected but lived another 19 years.