Word: methodist
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...Council, argued that it was time for Methodism to "fish or cut bait." If the church was really not interested in following through with the Blake proposal, he asked, "would it be wiser to withdraw now rather than later?" In the current issue of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Methodist Church Historian Franklin Littell complains that his church's leaders have approached merger "with the mind-set of 'all deliberate speed.'" He further charges that the present self-satisfied state of Methodism as the one truly national church precludes any serious involvement in the ecumenical task...
...Ready." Although harshly put, the charges of Outler and Littell ring true to many other Methodists. "We're not ready for organic merger," admits Bishop Donald Tippett of San Francisco, a supporter of the Blake union. Many Methodist leaders believe that priority in church goals should go to resolving internal problems. Bishop Paul Martin of Houston, for example, argues that Methodism has its hands full attempting to integrate the Negro Central Jurisdiction into previously all-white church structures and carrying out a scheduled 1968 merger with the Evangelical United Brethren, a Methodist-like body of German origin...
While the bishops may be concerned with the church's institutional needs, argues the Rev. Leroy Hodapp of the First Methodist Church in Bloomington, Ind., "the great mass of Methodists are totally indifferent to church union. If you were to poll the average congregation about the six-church consultation, half the members wouldn't know what you were talking about." According to the Rev. Albert Shirkey of Washington's Mount Vernon Methodist Church, "the pulpit is far more interested than the pew"; yet other church observers feel that some ministers have been reluctant to talk up union...
...clerics, sent twelve of its members on a "ministry of reconciliation" to Viet Nam. Among the delegates were Unitarian Universalist President Dana McLean Greeley; Baptist Minister Edwin T. Dahlberg, a former president of the National Council of Churches; and the Rev. Harold Bosley, pastor of Manhattan's Christ Methodist Church. On returning, the clerics proposed an immediate peace conference, including both Communist China and the National Liberation Front (meaning the Viet Cong...
...Debate. Attacks on the Administration's actions have not been limited to individual pastors. This year the annual conferences of the Church of the Brethren and the Central Conference of American Rabbis issued formal statements criticizing U.S. policy in Viet Nam; so did the executive committee of the Methodist Board of Christian Social Concerns. The Protestant magazines Christianity & Crisis and The Christian Century recently published a joint appeal to the National Council of Churches, urging it to take a more active role in organizing debates on foreign policy. As it happens, the council twice this year has issued resolutions...