wfn.org | George McClain to Retire

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS 97" by SUSAN PEEK on April 15, 1997 at 14:24 Eastern, about DAILY NEWS RELEASES FROM UNITED
METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (355 notes).

Note 354 by UMNS on Sept. 29, 1997 at 16:43 Eastern (4752 characters).

CONTACT: Linda Bloom					542(10-71B){354}
		New York (212) 870-3803			  Sept. 29, 1997

EDITORS NOTE: photo available

Under McClain, MFSA regains
influence in church circles

by Linda Bloom*

	NEW YORK (UMNS) -- When the Rev. George McClain first took the helm at the Methodist Federation for Social Action (MFSA) in
1974, the organization still hadn't recovered from the blows it suffered during the Communist-baiting McCarthy era.
	"We were a major player in the denomination up until the early 1950s," he explained. But supporters of Senator Joseph McCarthy
convinced delegates at the 1952 Methodist General Conference to condemn MFSA, which was and remains an unofficial body of the
church.
	 That General Conference established the Board of Christian Social Concerns (now the Board of Church and Society) "as a way of
replacing our influence." Ironically, McClain said, the federation had long called for the church to start such an agency.
	"In the wake of that, we had a really tough time," he added. "Most of our chapters dissolved, a lot of our membership dropped
off."
	When McClain became MFSA's executive director, only two chapters remained -- Oregon-Idaho and California-Nevada. "They were
populated mostly with veterans of the 1930s and '40s," he recalled.
	The mandate was clear: making the federation a part of the church again and fulfilling the need for an "independent, catalytic
agent" for change.
	McClain and MFSA members, who are celebrating the organization's 90th anniversary this fall, have made good on that mandate,
enough so that McClain, now 59, has announced his intention to step down as executive director late in 1998.
	For the Indiana native, social action always has been part of the mix. At Yale University, where he graduated with a bachelor's
degree in history in 1960, McClain wrote an honors thesis on "Segregation and The Methodist Church, 1939-1960."
	He was an active participant in the civil rights movement in the early 1960s and -- after receiving his master of divinity
degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York in 1964 -- traveled to more than 70 campuses with an African-American
colleague as part of a Methodist Student Movement interracial field staff.
	From 1965-68, as a pastor on Staten Island, where he still resides, McClain organized a chapter of Clergy and Laity Concerned
About Vietnam. Then he staffed the Staten Island Peace Coalition for three years.
	During his tenure at MFSA, the organization has been revitalized, growing to more than 30 chapters with nearly 2,000 paid
members. Many of the members live in smaller towns and rural areas. "They are the ones on the front line of the struggle, in
countless local churches and communities," he pointed out.
	One of the federation's most successful struggles was on the issue of apartheid, securing official United Methodist support for
economic sanctions against South Africa.
	For awhile, according to McClain, the Board of Pensions was resistant to their coaxing. He recalled blocking the agency's doors
at its Evanston, Ill., headquarters "to try to get their attention" and building a shanty across the street from a hotel in
Burlington, Vt., where the pension board was meeting. "This was the one instance in which we demonstrated publicly regarding a
general agency," he added.
	Another highlight, for McClain, was lobbying to convince the Israeli government to grant a visa to the Rev. Alex Awad, a
Palestinian-American missionary, and working in general to promote self-determination for the Palestinian people.
	Still, he believes a lot of unfinished business remains. "This is a very uncertain time in terms of what the shape of the church
is going to be," he explained. "The role of social justice in all this is up for grabs."
	Although he will continue to be a part of MFSA, McClain is planning his future around a different mix of ministry -- combining
teaching, retreat leadership, writing and special action projects. He already is teaching in the doctoral program at New York
Theological Seminary.
	McClain also wants to pursue a particular passion: bringing together a life of prayer with a life of action. He's just
established a social justice prayer network for MFSA. And his demonstration project/thesis on integrating spiritual practice and
justice for his own doctorate, earned at New York Theological Seminary in 1995, is to be published by Abingdon next March.
	A member of the New York Annual Conference, McClain is married to the Rev. Tilda Norberg. They have two adult children, Shana, a
recent graduate of Oberlin College, and Noah, a senior at Sarah Lawrence College.
#  #  #
	* Bloom is director of the New York office of United Methodist News Service.  	

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