wfn.org | American delegate reflects on role in British Methodist gathering

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

July 22, 1999  News media contact: Tim Tanton*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.
10-71B{383}

By Kathleen LaCamera*

SOUTHPORT, England (UMNS) -- Is it right to allow British Methodist churches
to apply for national lottery funds for its charitable programs? Does
alcohol have any place on church premises? Should members boycott Nestle
products because of the company's approach in promoting infant formula to
Third World mothers? Around the world, Methodists continue to talk, pray and
agonize over many of the same issues year after year.

But for Harriet Olson, United Methodist lay delegate to the British
Methodist Conference for two years running, there seemed to be less
consensus at the annual gathering this year than last.

"This (1999) conference had a different feel. There were a few more close
votes that had to be counted and a little less of a sense of a single mind,"
observed Olson, who is a vice president with the United Methodist Publishing
House in Nashville, Tenn.

Olson was one of two United Methodist delegates to the conference. The other
was Bishop William Boyd Grove of Charleston, W. Va., who attended as the
clergy delegate.

A three-time delegate to the United Methodist General Conference, Olson is
one of the first overseas representatives to attend the British Conference
as a voting member for two years. In the past, such delegates came only
once. She has no doubt about the benefits of the new policy, which enables
the delegate to become more familiar with the conference.

"It's not all new," she said. "You get a better sense of who all the players
are. ... It's been broadening for me. I have an understanding of a broader
church which I take home and deeper sense of the church's ecumenical
context."

Olson admitted that at times it was difficult to vote as someone coming from
outside the everyday experience of British life. For instance, the Rev. John
Kennedy, divisional secretary for political affairs, reported to delegates
that Britain's national lottery is fast becoming the major 
source of funds for charitable work in the United Kingdom. The debate
following his report centered on whether to allow all Methodist charities to
apply for lottery funds or to limit such funding to those serving the poor.
Olson struggled to be both fair and true to her convictions. 

"It was hard to vote," she said. "I'm pretty clear about how I see the
issues but I'm not living with the results." 

The United Methodist Church's official position, stated in the Book of
Discipline, holds that gambling "is a menace to society. ... Christians
should abstain from gambling and should strive to minister to those
victimized by the practice."

On the issue of consumption of alcohol on church premises, the British
Conference voted to initiate a churchwide discussion, asking people in
congregations across the country to make their views known as part of a
report that will be debated in 2000. 

Dealing with the issue of Nestle's baby formula advertising, British
Methodists decided to support a worldwide boycott of the company's products.
The United Methodist Church adopted a resolution in 1992 supporting the
primacy of breastfeeding over infant formula.

In other debate, delegates rejected a proposal that would both do away with
confirmation and require all church members to renew their membership every
six years. They also accepted a report making ministerial sabbaticals
compulsory.   

Olson said she has enjoyed the opportunity to watch this part of the
Methodist family working out who it is to be in the world, and seeing how
the church is changing and how it stays the same.  
"History tends to be more heavily relied on here, and there is more of a
sense of the fact that the church needs to be reliable," she said. "It is
almost a value here that says change ought to be questioned, especially
rapid change because it is too disconcerting for people." 

She also feels that the British church spends more time talking about its
relationship to the many nations of the world than do United Methodists in
the United States.    

Watching the church change during the last two years, Olson has also seen
some of British Methodism's most high-profile leaders come and go. Those
have included the Rev. Brian Beck, the longtime church secretary, and
Baroness Kathleen Richardson, the conference's first woman president and now
a House of Lords member. Both retired from ministerial service this year.  

Also announced at this year's conference was the appointment of the
Kenyan-born and Sikh-educated Rev. Inderjit S. Bhogal as
president-designate. Bhogal is the director of the Urban Theology Unit in
Sheffield and will take up the office of British Methodist president next
July.

Olson said she values her experience with British Methodism as a lay
delegate, which has given her a deeper understanding of what the "essence of
what the church is meant to be." 
# # #
*LaCamera is a UMNS correspondent based in England.

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