Abstract
The hopes, dreams, expectations, and demands created by—even the promises made in—the formation of The United Methodist Church in 1968 were, in part, impacted by the cultural context of the America of the 1950s and 1960s. From its beginnings, Methodism in America has had a historical ambivalence on the issue of race. The UMC came into being without the separate black and white Annual Conferences and the Jurisdictional structure based on race that characterized its major predecessor denomination, The Methodist Church (1939–1968). Forty years later, it is clear that the promises made at the formation of the UMC in have been kept and the dreams then dreamed have been achieved even beyond expectation. Racial prejudice is still present in the UMC, but overt racism has no place in the polity and organizational structure of the Church. Each new generation must be prepared to assure that racism, prejudice, and ethnocentrism do not stain the life of the UMC, and be prepared to challenge and eliminate them wherever and whenever they become evident.Authors who publish with Methodist Review agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright ownership and all intellectual property rights to their work, and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal but prohibits modification or commercial use of the work without the permission of the author.
- Authors are free to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), in whole or in part, on the condition that its initial publication in this journal is clearly acknowledged.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.