Struggling for Soul and Purse

Disgruntled Methodists challenge their biggest agency

The 9.5 million-member United Methodist Church is a denomination in which smoking and drinking still carry the faint air of impropriety. Conservatism remains a powerful force in other ways: homosexuality has been openly condemned by the church as "incompatible with Christian teaching," and liberation theology is regarded by some Methodist clergy as the dogma of radical leftists. Conservative members tend to blame their leaders' increasing liberalism for a serious decline in the church. Since 1968 membership has fallen by 1.5 million, Sunday-school enrollment is down by 3 million, and American Methodists sent abroad to spread the word as missionaries are down to a mere 531, a decline of 65%. The tensions between members and administrators are I now creating a damaging | split over the church's biggest and most influential agency, the General Board of Global Ministries.

The board, based in New York City, has an annual income of $74 million, which is spent on ministering to both spiritual and material needs in the U.S. and in 45 foreign countries, particularly those of the Third World. But some of those who have provided major financial support for the board, wealthy Methodist congregations in cities such as Dallas, Orlando and Tulsa, have been angered by what many regard as the agency's left-wing theology and politics. Next week a rival mission board, the Mission Society for United Methodists, will open for business in Atlanta with $150,000 donated by large churches, and the hint of much more to come. "We can no longer support the direction in which the board has gone," says Ira Gallaway, a Peoria, Ill., pastor who is secretary of the new mission society.

For the past ten years, conservatives in the church have been attacking the mission board in the pages of Good News, an independent Methodist magazine. Last year, for example, the publication claimed that the board's headquarters staff was larger than the number of missionaries out in the field and that the head office consumed an unreasonable share of the agency's budget. The board replies that a large New York staff is necessary because of the scope of the agency's U.S. program. Good News also complains that the board is replacing old-fashioned evangelism with a political crusade. Gallaway charges that the board is biased against hiring anyone "who is not a political leftist advocating liberation theology and radical social change." Support for the mission society includes more moderate church members.

L.D. Thomas Jr., the pastor of the First United Methodist Church of Tulsa and the new agency's chairman, gives a key reason for the widening dismay: the election last October of Peggy Billings, 55, to run the mission board's overseas division. She is, Thomas declares, "the most radical person" on the staff.

The overseas division is central to what many Methodists continue to see as the major role of the church: spreading John Wesley's zealous revivalism around the world. In 20 years on the board, Billings shas been far more social activist than evangelist and a single-minded advocate of causes from abortion to nuclear disarmament. She is also closely identified with the liberal effort to end the church's opposition to homosexual activity, which is likely to be the most divisive issue at the Methodists' policymaking conference in May.

Billings turns aside the t conservative charges about | the board's political drift and says she is only carrying out policies set by elected church delegates. Fewer missionaries have been sent overseas, "she explains, simply because it is cheaper and more effective to use nationals to evangelize in their own countries.

The board came under attack, she says, when U.S.

congregations began to understand the importance of issues such as racism and discrimination against women:

"Maybe it's a world they're not happy with any longer."

The new rival in Atlanta does not bother Billings. She is confident that bishops and local church officials will ensure that the board continues to receive financial support from members. But if the biggest congregations continue their rebellion, the board could be in trouble. The Rev. Leighton Farrell, whose Dallas church spends one-fourth of its $4.2 million budget on foreign and domestic missions, argues that the creation of the new mission society was the only avenue open to frustrated Methodists. The old board, says Farrell, is "off track."