Methodists: The Challenge of Fortune

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Such signs of life impress critical observers outside the church. "Methodism was the hottest lava in the 19th century," says Lutheran Theologian Martin Marty of Chicago. "If it is true to its own genius, it should be a religion that 'heats up' again easier than some others." Some of the heat can be felt now in the Inner City slums, where young Methodist ministers are beginning to rehabilitate all-but-abandoned churches. It can even be felt in the suburbs, where thousands of Methodist laymen have formed Christian "cells" for Biblical and theological study.

And there is plenty of vitality in the Methodist debates on the moral issue of race and the relevance of the church. Obviously, it is relevant, and fully entitled to the optimism summed up by Gerald Kennedy in the episcopal address to the conference: "We do not share the current pessimism which speaks of a 'post-Protestant era.' We believe that the signs of the times proclaim that ours is still the relevant Word. Let the Methodist Church proclaim that so far as it is concerned, the best is yet to be."