Methodists: The Challenge of Fortune

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John Wesley thought that preaching at 5 o'clock in the morning was one of the world's best exercises. Kennedy has never tested his oratory on predawn Los Angeles, but he does rise at 5:30 for a quick breakfast, then scoots off to his office for an hour or two of serious theo logical reading (he still likes Reinhold Niebuhr best) before office work begins. Kennedy heads the fastest-growing area in his church; with his "bishop's cabinet" of nine superintendents, he heads 700 ministers and 460 churches, and his lay membership has grown from 143,000 to 270,000 in twelve years. In church circles, he is admired as a first-rate fund raiser who has built 24 new churches in the past three years. He is also considered a shrewd judge of personnel, with a knack for appointing the right man to the right pulpit—and for trading off weaklings to unsuspecting brother bishops. Kennedy seldom takes work home from the office, spends much of his evenings reading contemporary novels, which he reviews for the Methodist monthly Together.

Spare & Witty. Kennedy believes that a bishop should be a teacher as well as an administrator, and just about every Sunday of the year he finds a vacant pulpit to preach from. His sermons are a far cry from the stem-winding exercises in dour purple prose that 19th century congregations loved. His language is spare and unchurchy, larded with wit and timely references to the secular world around him. Yet his message is always related more to eternal truths than to the morning's headlines.

Like Oxnam or McConnell, Kennedy has never been afraid to discuss political and social issues from the pulpit, but he picks his controversies with care. "A fellow that's shooting off his mouth all the time—nobody listens to him after a while," he says. In 1957 Kennedy led a fight to elect some moderates to Los Angeles' conservative-dominated school board—and as a reward found himself named to the State Board of Education.

Kennedy has been one of the church leaders most active in battling the campaign to repeal a state fair-housing law.

Is Separation Sinful? The bishop is willing to risk unpopular stands on ecclesiastical issues as well. Kennedy approaches the topic of church union as a

Methodist first and an ecumenist second, has long had grave doubts about Dr. Eugene Carson Blake's proposal that the Methodists should join with five other faiths to form a great new denomination, both catholic and reformed. "I don't use the term 'sinful' about our separation," he explains. "Our unity must be of the spirit. I don't think it demands one organization." Kennedy firmly believes that the sermon should remain at the center of Methodist worship. He has no patience with what he calls a "sloppy, unbuttoned service," but he is skeptical about claims that more and better liturgy is the solution to the church's problems. Says he: "The church with the most beautful liturgy is probably the Russian Orthodox, and they sat by while Communism took over their country."