Near-Insurmountable Challenges and Persistent Hope: A History of the (United) Methodist Annual Conference in Southern California and Arizona from World War Ii to the Present

By Paul F. McCleary

Methodism did not function in a void. It was carrying out its mission in an environment charged with dynamic change. To fully understand the history of Methodism in Southern California, one has to find a way to allow one’s mind to alter as far as possible into the conditions and events of the period.

As we are so keenly aware today, these circumstances determine the success or failure of the church to carry out its mission. While Methodism was an early arrival in California, within fifty years, the environment was changing to one that was highly competitive. In addition, the political environment was changing to a more conservative one while Methodism’s leadership and ministerial training of its clergy were more liberal. Added to these external complexities, there were internal difficulties unique to Methodism that needed to be resolved. The task ahead is to examine the challenges and accomplishments of California-Pacific Conference from 1945 to the present.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984537898

Paul F. McCleary

Paul F. McCleary shares how the trajectory of life was changed by a single encounter and the ramifications that were produced. The author assumed when he enrolled in seminary his future would probably involve being a pastor of a church in rural downstate Illinois. A visit to the seminary by a Methodist bishop from Latin America became an encounter that changed entirely the direction of his career from that of a local church pastor to a missionary. The McCleary family arrived in Bolivia in the last decade before Methodism transitioned from being a mission to becoming a national autonomous church. The author shares the challenges of contributing to the formation of a new church in a developing country struggling to find its new identity. The view of open country churches visible over the cornfields of Central Illinois, where he served as a student pastor, stands in sharp contrast to living in the poorest country in South America—a country second only to Haiti as the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. Methodism’s footing in Bolivia came through the fact that at the turn of the century, the Bolivian president had a daughter who was sent to Santiago, Chile, to gain a high school education not yet available to girls in Bolivia. The author’s real education, even after a degree from college and seminary, came from Bolivia. Living among the poor and ministering to families with children is a quick course in understanding how conditions of absolute poverty shape the world in which many people live. As incongruous as it may seem, the country was rich in natural resources whose benefit failed to trickle down to improve the daily lives of the indigenous majority of society. As the author quickly learned, as insignificant as Bolivia appeared, it was an attractive pawn in the larger context of global politics. The expansion of Nazism took easy roots in the Bolivian quest for an alternative social order different from the past. The end of World War II in Europe only served to scatter the seed to other corners of the world. There were attempts to continue it in countries such as Bolivia. Klaus Barbie was a resident in Bolivia under protective cover offered by lenient military administrations. The emergence of a Cuban presence led by Che Guevarra was an effort to establish a colony in the more isolated Eastern area of Bolivia and was another political influence. The author shares how new theological currents were also influencing the Christian faith as an outgrowth of conditions in Latin America. These new challenges came in the form of liberation theology articulated by Gustavo Gutierrez, and identification with the poor by Paulo Freire was also gaining wider acceptance. The author was so influenced by these ten years in Bolivia that he went on to direct three different international nonprofit organizations that focus on combating the conditions of absolute poverty on children and families. In so doing, he served as staff of the National Council of Churches, on commissions of the World Council of Churches, as president of the Non-Governmental Organizations Committee to UNICEF, and as a member of the Bishops’ Task Force on Children and Poverty of the United Methodist Church.

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Copyright © 2018 by Paul F. McCleary.

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Illustrations

Preface

Introaduction

Section I Leadership

Chapter 1 Episcopal Leadership in Southern California Methodism

Chapter 2 Clergy and Laity Who Served Beyond the Local Church

Section II Formation Leadership Formation and Nurture

Chapter 3 Formation for Service: The Resolve to Provide Ministerial Training

Section III Committed to Character Formation Methodist Education Through Colleges and Universities

Chapter 4 Committed to Character Formation Methodist Education through Colleges and Universities

A. The University of Southern California

B. California Western University

C. Through Christian Education

D. Through Camping and Informal Training

Section IV Composition

Chapter 5 Locations of the Headquarters of Conference Offices

Chapter 6 Asianization of the California-Pacific Annual Conference

A Black Methodists in Southern California

B Hispanic Methodists in Southern California

C Filipino Methodism in California

D Methodism’s Mission to the Chinese

E Methodism’s Inclusion of the Japanese

F Korean Methodism in the Cal-Pac Conference

G The Church Inclusion of the Vietnamese

H Inter-Ethnic Cooperation

Chapter 7 Changing Boundaries of the Conference

A. The Transition of Hawaii from Mission to District

B. The Creation of a New Conference: Desert Southwest Annual Conference

Section V Outreach

Chapter 8 California-Pacific United Methodist Foundation

Chapter 9 The Ministry of Healing

A. The Methodist Hospital of Southern California, Los Angeles/Arcadia

B. The Good Samaritan Hospital, Phoenix

Chapter 10 Care for the Elderly Pacific Homes Litigations

Chapter 11 Not All Efforts Successful The Agricultural Aid Foundation

Chapter 12 Racism and Civil Rights Mississippi Mafia

Chapter 13 Inclusiveness and Integration

A. The Watts Riots

B. The Rodney King Riots

Section VI Interaction

Chapter 14 Into the Future

In Summary

Appendix I

Appendix II

Bibliography

Near-Insurmountable Challenges and Persistent Hope

A History of the (United) Methodist Annual Conference

in Southern California and Arizona

from World War II to the Present

For now we see in a mirror dimly… (1 Corinthians 13:14)

Paul F. McCleary

For the Conference Commission on Archives and History

California-Pacific Annual Conference

The United Methodist Church

2018

Dear Colleagues and Historians,

As the current chair of the Commission on Archives and History, I am honored to welcome you to Near-Insurmountable Challenges and Persistent Hope: A History of the Southern California Methodist Annual Conference from World War II to the Present. This book has been fifty years in the making. This book is the culmination of many years of work and preparation by the commission and especially by the conference historian, Rev. Dr. DarEll Weist. Without his foresight and planning during his tenure as commission chairperson, it is doubtful that this book would be in your hands today.

Prior to the completion of this history, the Annual Conference history only covered the periods prior to World War II. Weist and others recognized the need for an updated review of the Annual Conference and its ministry. In 2013, the Archives and History Commission under Weist’s direction began requesting a set-aside budget line item for the writing of an updated history. In 2016, with the funds already allocated and fully supported by the conference treasurer, Archana Carey, the book began to be a reality.

After much searching, the commission was delighted that Dr. Paul McCleary was available and willing to write this history. Dr. McCleary’s background and work in the international Methodist Church as well as in a variety of nongovernmental agencies providing aid and relief to those in need are a great match with the Annual Conference’s commitment over the years to social justice and care for the poor and least among us.

Now that the book is complete, we have a greater understanding of the ways that the Annual Conference worked within and against the social and political settings of its geographic location and in the world to carry the Gospel to the world. In the opening paragraph of the preface, McCleary states:

In developing this history of the California-Pacific United Methodist Annual Conference, we are doing more than describing events and personnel. We want to construct, as best as we can, the human character of the church and its mission with its successes and with its failures. The approach to be used is to construct the understanding of the conference had of itself as part of the Church of Jesus Christ as reflected in the decisions it made. Each decision is an expression of what the majority determines to be the best expression of the group’s commitments, values, and goals within the context of circumstances at that time.

I am grateful for this Annual Conference which has continued to be a beacon of hope throughout its history. Thanks is a small token of how much I appreciate the work of Rev. Dr. DarEll T. Weist and Rev. Dr. Paul F. McCleary as well as the members of the Commission on Archives and History. We cannot move wisely into the future if we forget or ignore our past. With the completion of this volume, the commission is making clear the need for continuing to value our history as we build our future. Let us rejoice in the expression of dreams and hopes and the development of new ways of carrying God into the world.

Peace,

Rev. Randa J. D’Aoust

Chairperson, Commission on Archives and History

California-Pacific Annual Conference

In gratitude to our forefathers and foremothers whose faithfulness and dedication laid for us the foundation on which we have built with the work of our hands and hearts in hope for a better future.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A PPRECIATION TO THE Mississippi Conference for permission to reproduce the Born of Conviction statement from the Mississippi Methodist Advocate dated January 2, 1963.

Appreciation to the Good News Magazine for permission to reprint in its entirety the article, A West Coast Lament, from the Good News issue of October 11, 2010, by Steve Beard.

In deep gratitude for the leadership of DarEll Weist whose vision saw the importance of the history project and whose determination brought this project into being and finally to fruition.

In deep gratitude to the Annual Conference Commission on Archives and History for the ongoing support of the project and for their desire to continue the recorded history of the conference by adding an updated selection of information on the projects of the conference.

The record-keeping of J. Wesley Hole has been a resource par excellence for this part of the history. His notes and articles have been quoted extensively with the permission of his heirs. His long tenure in leadership responsibilities in the conference placed him in a position to be a participant in much of the decision-making crucial to the foundation of the present-day Annual Conference. In deep appreciation to the J. Wesley Hole family to quote from unpublished writing by J. Wesley.

A primary resource for this period of conference history has been the dissertations written by graduate students as part of their fulfillment for a graduate degree. These dissertations have provided an unusual foundation for several programs and events in the recent history of the Annual Conference. Our special appreciation to those whose research proved beneficial for the work of the conference.

Especially insightful are the many articles and theses written by pastors and laypersons of the conference about specific events and incidents. Only a few have been included in the bibliography though many more are on file. Most of these are found in the files of the Cal-Pac Commission on Archives and History and are available for future research projects.

The conference obituaries files have been most helpful as a source of accurate information of the lives of past leaders in the conference. They have been a source of liberal borrowing to make the story of these lives more complete.

At the time of writing, there are still alive many pastors and laypersons who so graciously contributed information and resources crucial to firsthand insight to the events recorded here. Too many to list by name, yet they are immeasurable in value as primary sources for a faithful recording of events.

Special thanks for the assistance in the form of researching articles and compilation of information by Linda Larsen, archivist for the Cal-Pac Commission on Archives and History.

Thanks also to Jerry Weaver for his technical support during the drafting of this story.

A grateful thanks is due to Connie Kimos who served as style editor for this history. She made the text more readable.

And finally, but not last in importance has been the contribution of the Claremont School of Theology in whose library are the files of the Commission on Archives of History. Its support, in an infinite number of ways, made the work of drafting this history a much less arduous process.

ILLUSTRATIONS

P ICTURES OF BISHOPS who served the Conferences beginning with beginning with Kennedy.

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Gerald Kennedy

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Charles Golden

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Jack Tuell

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Roy Sano

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Mary Ann Swenson

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Minerva Carcaño

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Grant Hagiya

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Ethnic Churches in Hawaii District

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Aldersgate Retreat Center

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Pictures from Camping

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Pictures from Camping

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Picture of 2015 conference

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German First Church with present church sign

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Claremont School of Theology

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Work teams

PREFACE

I N DEVELOPING THIS history of the California-Pacific United Methodist Annual Conference, we are doing more than describing events and personnel. We want to construct, as best we can, the human character of the church and its mission with its successes and with its failures. The approach will lead to the understanding that the conference had of itself as part of the Church of Jesus Christ, as reflected in the decisions it made. Each decision is an expression of what the majority determined to be the best expression of the group’s commitments, values, and goals within the context of circumstances at that time.

In most instances, it goes without stating that when a decision is taken, it is a choice from among several options. Such a choice becomes an expression of the values held by an individual or a group. One of the tasks of the historian is to assist the reader not only to become knowledgeable about the events which have taken place, but also to help make more evident the values behind the choices. In so doing, it is possible to piece together a construct of the self-understanding of an individual, or, in this case, the conference, of what it meant to be Church of Jesus Christ.

History reflects that there are times when the conference is in complete harmony with the society around it. However, there are other times when the decisions made by the conference are in opposition to what is happening in society around it. These periods of difference can and lead to high levels of tension and opposition. In both instances, the conference was expressing values and a reflection of its corporate understanding of what it means to be the church. A study, such as this history, of decisions made over a period of time should give us greater clarity on what the California-Pacific members understood to be their purpose as the Church of Jesus Christ at different moments in time.

What is also important to note about decisions taken by a body such as the California-Pacific United Methodist Annual Conference is that, over time, values are clarified or change. This will be especially noteworthy in the area of character formation or education and leadership formation or ministerial training. The programmatic expression of values held by the conference changed over the years due to changes in the environment. The changing environment resulted in the need for greater clarity of values. These changes influenced the programs of the conference or its interface with society.

What will be noted is the significant challenge to values as the external environment evolved from liberal to conservative. As the time frame under study begins, the Southern California-Pacific Annual Conference was predominantly an outstandingly liberal entity and continued so. It was the environment in which the conference existed that changed radically to a more conservative one. Not only was this true of the political environment but also the religious one. It has been observed that the Good News never attained an important role in the conference leadership. History will demonstrate the conference’s ongoing interaction with the changes which occurred in the dominant political philosophy.

What was true for the conference was also true for the denomination. Methodism, one of the mainline churches at the forefront of the liberal churches in America, was also under pressure from a growing conservative environment of Protestantism in America. Reference will be made to the influence this had for the California-Pacific United Methodist Annual Conference.

The history we are developing is clustered into five areas of activity as we review decisions and activities undertaken by the conference. The five sections are:

1. Leadership. Most of the changes in this area of activity were the result of policy decisions by the denomination. However, the conference took the initiative on some issues that were not required by the denomination. For example, with regard to ministerial pensions, the conference initiated a new form of pension which became a policy change adopted by the denomination. This was a value-laden decision accepted by the denomination.

2. Formation. From the early start of the conference, there was strong impetus to provide opportunities for ministerial training and general education. The impetus was given expression in the creation of colleges, universities, and seminaries. As time passed, especially during the period of history we are reviewing, financial constraints made it necessary to review these commitments. The present configuration of educational opportunities is the result of conscious choices expressed in decisions by the conference.

3. Composition. The Annual Conference went through significant changes due to mergers, union, and addition of new areas or the spin-off of portions of the conference. In some of these instances, the merger was an act of the denomination and not a choice of the conference. For clarification: denomination refers to the national body while conference refers to the regional judicatory. In other instances, it was the initiative taken by the conference to add or release defined geographic areas which changed the conference boundaries and, at the same time, changed the ethnic composition of the conference. The large influx of ethnic groups from Asia had a major influence in the composition of the conference.

4. Social involvements. The area of social involvement is one where the Annual Conference gave the most expression to its self-understanding as the Church of Jesus Christ. Several events and activities unique to the California-Pacific United Methodist Annual Conference revealed its values. These are the Church of All Nations Ministry to the poor, the litigations due to the Pacific Homes cases, the influx of the Mississippi Mafia, and Methodist response to the Watts Riots.

5. Interaction. One can ask: Is the California-Pacific United Methodist Annual Conference in California a part of the same denomination as the Rock River Conference, or the Florida Conference? The answer must be unquestionably affirmative. However, the California-Pacific Annual Conference must fulfill its ministry within a social context quite different from that of other conferences. We have searched for a means of not only telling the history of the ministry of the California-Pacific United Methodist Annual Conference, but also showing how it attempted to carry out that ministry in the social context in which it was called to serve.

The concluding chapter takes a look to the future. In today’s activities are the formative early stages of the programs of the future. In many respects, they reflect the values of the past. Nonetheless, they are the progenitors emerging out of the ever-changing context. These are examined by Dr. DarEll Weist. His long relationship with the Annual Conference uniquely equips him for this task. Through his insights, we are privileged to view tomorrow’s church.

INTRODUCTION

T HE CONTEXT IS the Playing Field

The first Methodist known to reach California was probably Jedediah Smith in November of the year 1826. He was a Methodist layman who led several fur-trapping expeditions to the West. Smith was part of a party of seventeen trappers which had departed from Bear Lake, Utah. Smith and his party had opened a southern route to the West Coast.

The treaty of the Mexican War of 1846 brought the major part of the Southwest into the possession of the United States. The acquisition of this new territory awakened interest in the area. It was during 1846 that Adna Hecox with his wife and three children reached Sutter’s Fort before moving on to Santa Clara. It was here on the first of October that Hecox, a licensed Methodist exhorter, preached at a funeral; it was the first Methodist sermon delivered in the boundary of California. Within a month, the first Methodist Church in California was organized, which continues as the Community Methodist Church of Santa Clara. That was the beginning of the spread of Methodism throughout the state.

An early history of Methodism has been recorded by Edward Drewry Jervey in a volume entitled The History of Methodism in Southern California and Arizona.¹ Jervey has left us a thorough record of the Methodist presentation of the Gospel in Southern California and Arizona from its beginning up to 1960 at the time of publication. This is the past which serves as prologue to our story.

Over the intervening years, a great deal has occurred. Methodism has gone through significant changes which had an impact on the Southern California Conference. There have been mergers with other denominations—most recently with the Evangelical United Brethren Church—changes of the name of the conference to denote new relationships and accommodations in the boundaries of the conference by setting apart the state of Arizona, Southern Nevada, and part of California near Yuma as a new Annual Conference, the desert southwest, while incorporating the Hawaii Mission Conference and other islands in the Pacific as a new district.² Some twenty-three conferences form the corporate history of the conference. In the years prior to the terminal point of the previous history, Californian Methodism absorbed several conferences, some of which had followed linguistic and cultural characteristics. During the first decade of the period covered by this history, church unions continued. In addition, the district of Hawaii along with several other island cultures of the Pacific were added. The present California-Pacific Conference embodies a great diversity of racial and cultural backgrounds that give expression to the unity of the body of Christ.

The great ethnic and cultural diversity manifest in early California and given expression in the history of the California-Pacific Conference has continued through the present for the state. California has the highest concentration of Vietnamese and Chinese speakers in the United States, the second highest concentration of Korean and Spanish speakers, and the third highest concentration of Tagalog speakers. The state’s department of motor vehicles offers the standard written driver’s license test in thirty-one languages.³ Our review of history will take into account the conference’s adjustment to the new pluralism.

The geographic area included in the conference experienced a great influx of population over several decades. This population explosion began in the last decades of the earlier history, the 1940s, and continued through the early period of the present study. By the year 1965, twenty-five years into our study, California had become the most populous state in the Union.⁴ Comparing California’s population to other countries, it would be ranked larger than thirty-four countries of the world. When our study begins, Arizona was a district of the conference. The population growth came first to California and slightly later to Arizona, prompting the conference to launch programs of church extension. One result of the potential for church growth was to separate off Arizona and Southern Nevada as an Annual Conference. As new persons appeared in our churches and as analysis suggested need for new churches, organized efforts were made to embrace these new migrants and bring them into the fellowship of the church. Bishop Gerald Kennedy is quoted, in a 1964 Time article, to have said that conference membership had gone from 143,000 to 270,000 in twelve years. Twenty-four new churches had been built in the past three years.⁵

This was a tumultuous time in the Southern California-Arizona Conference. The rapid growth and expansion was a cause for dynamic changes in structure and mission. Before we launch into a recitation of the events that make up the recent history of the conference, it will be helpful to recall some of the events that occurred in the states of California and Arizona to set the historical context in which Methodism carried out its mission.

Among the external factors shaping the social order in the area of the conference—California and Arizona—was a dynamic political force that was to influence the national scene. In fact, the locus of national political activities was in the process of becoming redirected to the Southwest.

One of the influential persons in bringing this focus on the Southwest was an Arizonan businessman named Barry Goldwater, who had been elected to the United States Senate in 1953, a seat he occupied until 1965. In 1964, Goldwater won the nomination of the Republican Party for the US presidency. Known as Mr. Conservative, Goldwater was instrumental in transforming the dominant political party in the state from the Democratic to the Republican Party. Goldwater was the politician most often credited for sparking the resurgence of the American Conservative political movement in the 1960s.⁶ He lost the 1964 election to the Democratic incumbent, Lyndon B. Johnson—by a landslide—taking down with him many Republican candidates as well as officeholders. His loss, however, did two things: it cleared the way for a new wave of younger Republicans and brought a renewed and refocused conservatism unto the national scene. Goldwater returned to the Senate after his defeat for president where he served honorably from 1969 until 1987. His son, Barry Goldwater Jr., served as a United States House of Representatives member from California from 1969 to 1983.⁷

Almost simultaneously in California, there was an emerging political figure gaining national recognition with complimentary credentials. Richard Milhous Nixon was born in California into a family of Quakers. Richard’s father had been a Methodist who became a Quaker at marriage. Nixon did his undergraduate studies at Whittier College.⁸ He gained a law degree from Duke University School of Law, a Methodist university, and returned to California to practice law in 1937. His military service during World War II was with the navy. In 1946, Nixon was elected to the House of Representatives. His election to the US Senate in 1950 was largely due to the notoriety he gained as a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee. During these years, Nixon established notable anti-communist credentials. In 1952, he became the running mate of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Republican nominee for president. For the next eight years, Nixon served as Eisenhower’s vice president. In 1960, he waged an unsuccessful presidential campaign against John F. Kennedy. In 1968, Nixon ran again for the presidency and was elected.

The 1968 campaign was full of surprises. Early in the primary campaigns, President Johnson withdrew as a Democratic candidate. Another Democratic candidate, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated in California just after winning the state primary. The final choice of Democratic candidate fell to Vice President Hubert Humphrey. On the Republican side, in addition to Nixon, were several hopeful governors. Governor George Romney of Michigan, Nelson Rockefeller, of New York, and Ronald Reagan of California stood ready to serve if the occasion arose. However, Spiro Agnew, governor of Maryland, was selected as Nixon’s running mate for vice president.

Nixon brought to the Republican Party’s new conservatism more popularly appealing religious credentials from his Quaker background than those of Goldwater’s Jewish and Episcopal heritage. Nixon also added an aggressive anti-communist posture to Goldwater’s military credentials, though some doubted Nixon’s genuine commitment to conservatism. The Southwest was contributing elements shaping a new national amalgamation of political philosophy. The locus of national politics remained in the Southwest with the emergence of Ronald W. Reagan. Born and raised in farm communities in Illinois, after graduation from Eureka College,⁹ Reagan moved to California where he sought employment in the entertainment industry. Reagan came to California as a Democrat but, by 1962, switched to the Republican Party. From 1947 to 1952, he served as president of the Screen Actors Guild. During the blacklisting era, he testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, going on record with a strong anti-communist stance.

In 1964, Reagan endorsed the campaign of Conservative presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. His speech entitled A Time for Choosing brought him the notoriety that would launch his political career. In 1965, he declared his candidacy for governor of California, winning the governorship in the 1966 election.¹⁰ Reagan won a second term in 1970. He was a poor third in his run in the Republican presidential primaries in 1968 and lost again in 1976. Reagan was challenging President Ford who wrapped up the necessary number of delegates needed before the Republican convention met. However, in 1980 he won the Republican primaries and went on to defeat Jimmy Carter for the presidency. In 1984, Reagan won a second term in the White House by a landslide victory. He left office at the end of his term in 1989.

Reagan had chosen as his running mate George H. W. Bush.¹¹ Though born in Massachusetts, Bush had strong ties to Texas. He served the two Reagan terms as vice president and in 1988 ran for the presidency and won to become the forty-first president. His son, after serving as governor of Texas, became the forty-third president of the United States.