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METHODIST
HISTORY
April 2015
Volume LIII
Number 3
The Ordination of Julia Torres Fernandez
EDITORIAL BOARD
Morris Davis
Drew University
Paula Gilbert
Duke University
A. V. Huff
Furman University
Cornish Rogers
Claremont School of Theology
Ian Straker
Howard University
Douglas Strong
Seattle Pacific University
Robert J. Williams
Retired GCAH General Secretary
Anne Streaty Wimberly
Interdenominational Theological Center
Stephen Yale
Pacific School of Religion
Charles Yrigoyen, Jr.
GCAH General Secretary Emeritus
Assistant Editors
Michelle Merkel-Brunskill
Christopher Rodkey
Nancy E. Topolewski
Book Review Editor
Kevin Newburg
Cover: Circa 1960 photograph of Julia Torres Fernandez, the first latina
ordained in the Methodist Church. She would later become the first latina
with full-clergy rights. Image from the records of the Division of Mission
Education, New World Outlook series, GCAH, Madison, New Jersey.
METHODIST HISTORY (ISSN 0026-1238) is published quarterly for $25.00 per year to
addresses in the U.S. by the General Commission on Archives and History of The United
Methodist Church (GCAH), 36 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ 07940. Printed in the U.S.A.
Back issues are available.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to METHODIST HISTORY, P.O. Box 127, Madison,
NJ 07940 or email [email protected].
METHODIST HISTORY
Alfred T. Day III, Editor
Volume LIII
April 2015
Number 3
CONTENTS
Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Editor’s Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
130
131
Triangular Integration in a Black Denomination: James Sisson,
African Methodism, and the Indian Mission Annual Conference
by Christina Dickerson-Cousin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
133
Vision and Persistence: The Genesis of the First Wesley Foundation
by Tami Gallaway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
152
From Rib to Robe: Women’s Ordination in The United Methodist
Church
by Connor S. Kenaston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
162
The African and Caribbean Origins of Methodism in the Bahamas
by David Bundy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
173
Book Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
184
Minutes of the 2014 Annual Meeting of the Historical Society of
The United Methodist Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
186
Eighth Historical Convocation Registration Information . . . . . . . . . .
189
Copyright 2015, General Commission on Archives and History,
The United Methodist Church
Methodist History is included in
Religious and Theological Abstracts,
Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life
ATLA Religion Database
Manuscripts submitted for publication and all other correspondence should be addressed to
Editor: METHODIST HISTORY, P.O. Box 127, Madison, NJ 07940. Prospective authors are
advised to write for guidleines or visit www.gcah.org.
CONTRIBUTORS
CHRISTINA DICKERSON-COUSIN teaches at Gateway Community
College, New Haven, Connecticut. She received a B.A. in History from
Spelman College (2004), graduating Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta
Kappa. She received an M.A (2007) and Ph.D. (2011) from Vanderbilt
University, distinguished as a Harold Stirling Graduate Scholar. While matriculating at Vanderbilt, she received fellowships, including the Robert Penn
Warren Center for the Humanities Graduate Student Fellowship (2010),
the Newberry Library Consortium for American Indian Studies Summer
Institute Fellowship (2009), and The John Carter Brown Library Associates
Fellowship (2008). She has previously produced articles regarding AME
Church history in The AME Church Review and Ethnohistory.
CONNOR KENNASTON is a Young Adult Missionary and a Global Mission
Fellow with the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries,
co-teaching American Methodist History at Central Methodist University,
Fayette, Missouri. He received a B.A. in History from Yale University
(2014) graduating Cum Laude. Other academic distinctions include the
Andrew D. White Prize for “‘If Men Don’t Fight, the Women Will’: Women
and Gender Roles in the West Virginia Mine Wars”; and publication in the
Yale Historical. Kennaston’s article was chosen to receive the 2015 Women
in United Methodist History Writing Award by the General Commission on
Archives and History of The United Methodist Church.
TAMI GALLAWAY is a 3rd year M.Div. student at Perkins School of
Theology, Southern Methodist University. She is currently completing academic coursework and looking forward to a full-time internship at First
UMC Allen, Texas, next year. She will graduate in May of 2016 and looks
forward to ordination as a deacon in The United Methodist Church. Her paper has been selected by the General Commission on Archives and History
for the 2015 John Harrison Ness Award. This annual award is for the best
paper written by an M.Div. student on some aspect of United Methodist history broadly conceived. It was nominated by Ted A. Campbell, Associate
Professor of Church History at Perkins School of Theology.
DAVID BUNDY is Visiting Professor at Seoul Theological University and
Research Professor at New York Theological Seminary. He is a specialist
in Methodist, Holiness and Pentecostal History, focusing primarily on
issues outside of North America as well as on early Asian and East African
Chrisitianities. He is the author of Visions of Apostolic Mission (2009) and
numerous scholarly articles.
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Methodist History, 53:3 (April 2015)
EDITOR’S NOTE
In Africa recently, traveling for the General Commission on Archives and
History, I heard a proverb—not once but twice. It was mentioned first at the
installation of Munashe Farusa as new Vice Chancellor of Africa University
and again at a meeting of the African Association of United Methodist
Theological Institutions (AAUMTI) where I made a presentation about
“Preserving Our Story.”
The proverb: “Plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit.”
The folk wisdom therein is about changing the world for the good, leaving things better than you found them in the first place. In current vernacular
we say, “Pay it forward”: the beneficiaries of some goodness or grace repaying it ahead instead of backwards.
We historians and archivists are sometimes thought of as being backward
thinkers. To be sure, we work diligently to lift up things like context and
causality but not merely for the sake of indulging in nostalgia.
Our work is forward focused, connecting the “back-then” to the “here-andnow” for the sake of making progress.
We are tree planters. The roots of the past we reflect on, the trunks and
branches, the growth and life cycles we preserve and encourage others to
observe are the makings of insights to inspire a better future. The product
of our witnessing and interpretations may not be felt for generations. But we
dig around, plant thoughts and nurture findings because we want what we
do to make a difference, both for the living of these days and the yet-to-be
as well.
This April issue of Methodist History is a good spring planting.
Christina Dickerson’s “Triangular Integration in a Black Denomination”
offers a fascinating profile of an extraordinary white minister in the African
Methodist Episcopal Church. James Fitz Allan Sisson, a nineteenth-century missionary to Native Americans, black Indians and Southern migrants
founded the Indian Mission Annual Conference of the AME in Oklahoma
(1897). The article points to the AME Church’s historic outreach to marginalized communities as well as the denomination’s multi-racial aspirations.
Tami Gallaway’s “Vision and Persistence: The Genesis of the First
Wesley Foundation” is an insightful case study of Park Chapel Methodist
Episcopal Church and the Rev. Willard Tobie’s enterprising idea for the student population of the University of Illinois-Urbana being incorporated into
the local congregation. The essay is a testimony to Methodist campus ministry as a model for the development of other university religious ministries.
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Methodist History
Connor Kenaston’s “From Rib to Robe” is an engaging survey of the
ordination of women in the Methodist tradition. It provides the historical
context surrounding the Methodist Church’s 1956 decision to grant ordination and full clergy rights to women. It considers recent statistics about clergywomen and assesses the transformational nature of the denomination’s
landmark resolve.
David Bundy’s “The African and Caribbean Origins of Methodism in the
Bahamas” is a case study of Methodism’s beginning on these islands as an
African American initiative, not an “official” missionary enterprise from the
outside. Grounded in Bahamian scholarship and early Methodist community sources, it argues for a distinctive Methodism whose leaders had little or
no direct contact with the British homeland of the movement.
There are more trees to plant! Methodist History is always in search of
quality, scholarly essays. See the Contents page for submission details.
Spread the word!
Alfred T. Day III