Smoothing the Bulges

In San Francisco, the General Conference of the Methodist Church wound 1 its business for another four years. In tv weeks the delegates had managed squeeze most of the controversy out of tl 1,500-odd recommendations before ther A survey commission's drastic proposa for streamlining (and centralizing) chun organization were reduced to smoothii out only a few of the more unsight bulges. By & large, the church's old cumbersome administration stayed that way.

One major recommendation of the surve got through. An official Board of Social ar Economic Relations was set up, to get in the field now dominated in the church t the unofficial, embarrassingly left-wir Methodist Federation for Social Actk (TIME, May 5). The delegates also askc that the federation remove the wor "Methodist" from its title.

Delegates also approved a resolution cal ing for a vigorous, worldwide evangelist] campaign in 1953, the 250th anniversar of the birth of Methodism's founder, Joh Wesley. As the titular leader of U.S. Mett odists, Philadelphia's 56-year-old Bisho Fred P. Corson, new president of the Metf odist Council of Bishops, puts the emphasi on attracting youth. "The Communist! Fascists and ultra-fundamentalists, like tb Youth for Christ," he said, "all came t power via the youth movement. We mu< face that fact and recognize that they suf plies some sort of inner urge."

Bishop Corson had strong views on tw other matters: 1) U.S. relations with th Vatican, and 2) a Methodist merger wit the Protestant Episcopal Church. Presider Truman, said the bishop, "set back th movement of religious cooperation 75 year by his injection of the Vatican issue." A for the Episcopalians, there is no chance of a merger so long as they insist that Methcdist ministers must be first re-ordaine by Episcopal bishops. Said Methodist Coi son: "If the Episcopalians want union, a they need to do is declare John Wesley de facto bishop."*

*Both John Wesley and his brother Charles the co-founder of Methodism, were ordained a; Anglican priests. When John began to ordain ne\ Methodist ministers himself, Charles, who wanted only to reform the Church of England from within, strongly opposed him. Charles was such a thoroughgoing Anglican that, before he died, he announced his refusal to be buried in his Methodist brother's churchyard.

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