Author: Crystal Caviness

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The United Methodist Commission on the Status and Role of Women marks its 50th anniversary on Sept. 15, celebrating a half century of advocating for the full inclusion of women in church life as well as helping to promote sexual ethics. General Secretary Dawn Wiggens Hare discusses the history of the organization, its impact, and where she envisions the organization going in the next 50 years.

Guest: Dawn Wiggins Hare currently serves as General Secretary of the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women, a position she has held since 2013. She is an attorney and was the first woman elected in the 35th judicial circuit as circuit judge in Monroeville, Alabama. She has also served as a delegate to the last four General Conferences.

Host: Dr. Ashley Boggan Dreff, General Secretary of the General Commission on Archives and History of The United Methodist Church. Dreff earned her PhD from Drew Theological School’s Graduate Division of Religion, specializing in both Methodist/Wesleyan Studies and Women’s/Gender Studies. She is the author of Nevertheless: American Methodists and Women’s Rights (2020) and Entangled: A History of American Methodism, Politics, and Sexuality (2018).

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How did Methodism come to India?

Guest: Dr. Glory Dharmaraj is President of The World Association for Christian Communication-North America. She is also the Retired Director of Mission Theology for United Methodist Women, now called United Women in Faith. She is the author of the denominational mission study on “India and Pakistan” in 2005-6, along with several other books on Christian mission as well as interfaith.  She lives in New York with her husband Jacob Dharmaraj.

Host: Dr. Ashley Boggan D., General Secretary of the General Commission on Archives and History of The United Methodist Church. Dreff is a lay member of the Arkansas Annual Conference and the daughter of two ordained United Methodist ministers. She is the author of Nevertheless: American Methodists and Women’s Rights (2020) and Entangled: A History of American Methodism, Politics, and Sexuality (2018).

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How did Methodism come to Puerto Rico? What were the long-term ramifications of the original colonial aspects of mission? Guidance for the UMC in this moment?

GUEST:

Dr. Jorge Juan Rodriguez V is the son of two Puerto Rican migrants, grew up with his parents, grandmother, and uncle in a small affordable housing community in urban Connecticut. He holds degrees in biblical studies, social theory, liberation theology, and a Ph.D. in History from Union Theological Seminary where his work focuses on the intersections of religion and social movements. He currently teaches, consults, and serves as Associate Director for Strategic Programming at the Hispanic Summer Program—a nonprofit that creates year-round educational spaces for Latinx graduate students of religion.

HOST:

Dr. Ashley Boggan D., General Secretary of the General Commission on Archives and History of The United Methodist Church. Dreff is a lay member of the Arkansas Annual Conference and the daughter of two ordained United Methodist ministers. She is the author of Nevertheless: American Methodists and Women’s Rights (2020) and Entangled: A History of American Methodism, Politics, and Sexuality (2018).

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As of late, your social media and inbox may keep referencing a particular paragraph in the Book of Discipline, paragraph 2548.2. But what is this paragraph about? When did it originate and why? Is it useful to us today or not?

GUESTS:

Rev. Mark Salvacion senior pastor of Historic St. George’s UMC in Philadelphia and as of 2019, he was the founding Executive Director and Legal Policy Director of Justice For Our Neighbors of the Delaware Valley, which provides low-cost and pro bono immigration legal services to migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in the Eastern Pennsylvania, Greater New Jersey and Peninsula-Delaware Annual Conferences.

Thomas Starnes, Chancellor of the Baltimore-Washington Conference since 2004. He’s served as litigation counsel for that Conference, and for the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, in several lawsuits brought to enforce the Wesleyan “trust clause”.

Lawrence Hillis, PhD student at Drew University, candidate for ordination in the GNJ annual conference, and research consultant for GCAH. He specializes in the intersection of religion, politics, and economics, with a particular focus on violence against children.

HOST:

Dr. Ashley Boggan Dreff, General Secretary of the General Commission on Archives and History of The United Methodist Church. Dreff earned her PhD from Drew Theological School’s Graduate Division of Religion, specializing in both Methodist/Wesleyan Studies and Women’s/Gender Studies. She is the author of Nevertheless: American Methodists and Women’s Rights (2020) and Entangled: A History of American Methodism, Politics, and Sexuality (2018).

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In honor of Women’s History month, we’re speaking with Rev. Emily Nelms Chastain about how Methodist women have changed the trajectory of the denomination in a multitude of ways.

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How has the United Methodist tradition evangelized to non-white persons via the Woman’s Home Missionary Society?

GUEST:

Alex Parrish is the Methodist Librarian at Drew University. His is currently a PhD Candidate at Garrett Evangelical School of Theology where his research focuses on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American Methodist missions.

HOST:

Dr. Ashley Boggan Dreff, General Secretary of the General Commission on Archives and History of The United Methodist Church. Dreff earned her PhD from Drew Theological School’s Graduate Division of Religion, specializing in both Methodist/Wesleyan Studies and Women’s/Gender Studies. She is the author of Nevertheless: American Methodists and Women’s Rights (2020) and Entangled: A History of American Methodism, Politics, and Sexuality (2018).

CORRECTION:  Mr. Parrish misspoke during the recording of this epsiode and said there had not been any Caribou in Alaska prior to their being brought from Russia. However that is not the case. Caribou existerd in much smaller in numbersand had not been domesticated until that point.

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The African American Methodist Heritage Center (AAMHC) has a mission: “To establish and provide for the maintenance of an African American Methodist Heritage Center, connected with a historically Black institution, that will preserve and protect artifacts and be accessible for research about African American people in Methodism.” This month we discuss the history of this important institute, the present, as well as where they hope to be in 10 years! More on their website at https://aamhc-umc.org

GUESTS:

Carol Travis was baptized at Asbury UMC and is recorded as having delivered her first prayer at the age of 6 over 60 years ago. After a long career in corporate America, she retired to start another career in church administration, serving on the staff of diverse churches in urban and suburban settings  She currently works in several ministry areas at Asbury UMC and at the Annual Conference level where she helps to advance the UMC ‘s dismantling racism agenda.  She holds degrees from Trinity University and American University in Washington, DC. For 15 years, she was a board member of the African American Methodist Heritage Center and has been the Executive Assistant to the board since 2014.

HOST:

Dr. Ashley Boggan Dreff, General Secretary of the General Commission on Archives and History of The United Methodist Church. Dreff earned her PhD from Drew Theological School’s Graduate Division of Religion, specializing in both Methodist/Wesleyan Studies and Women’s/Gender Studies. She earned an M.A. from the University of Chicago’s Divinity School, specializing in American Religious History. She has previously worked as staff at the General Commission on Archives and History (2012-2014) and the Connectional Table of The United Methodist Church (2014-2016). She was the Director of United Methodist Studies and Assistant Professor Christian History at Hood Theological Seminary (Salisbury, NC), an AME Zion Seminary, from 2017-2019 and was the Director of Women’s and Gender Studies and Assistant Professor of Religion at High Point University (High Point, NC) from 2019-2020. Dreff is a lay member of the Arkansas Annual Conference and the daughter of two ordained United Methodist ministers. She is the author of Nevertheless: American Methodists and Women’s Rights (2020) and Entangled: A History of American Methodism, Politics, and Sexuality (2018).

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Happy 2022! John Wesley often participated in Watch Night Services, also known as Covenant Services, on New Years Eve. Is this the Wesleyan form of New Year Resolutions? Is this tradition still around? How have different communities, particularly African American forms of Methodism, adopted and adapted the Watch Night Service?

GUESTS:

Dr. Martin Wellings serves as Superintendent Minister of the Barnet & Queensbury Circuit, in London, UK. He chairs the Faith and Order Committee of the British Methodist Church and is a Past President of the World Methodist Historical Society. He has recently become editor of the online Dictionary of Methodism in Britain and Ireland (https://dmbi.online/ ).

Dr. Sharon Grant is an Associate Professor of the History of Christianity at Hood. She joined the faculty in 2016, and teaches the major required surveys on the History of Christianity and elective courses in the fields of American Religious History,  Wesleyan and Methodist Studies, Black Church History and World Religions. As a former environmental scientist, her research interests have converged to integrate religious studies, theological inquiry and scientific content as the Founder and Director of the International Center of Faith, Science and History.

HOST:

Dr. Ashley Boggan Dreff, General Secretary of the General Commission on Archives and History of The United Methodist Church. Dreff earned her PhD from Drew Theological School’s Graduate Division of Religion, specializing in both Methodist/Wesleyan Studies and Women’s/Gender Studies. She earned an M.A. from the University of Chicago’s Divinity School, specializing in American Religious History.

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We hear so much about the Christmas Conference as a crucial piece of Methodist History, but what exactly happened there?

GUEST:

Rev. Bonnie McCubbin serves bi-vocationally as the Director of Museums & Pilgrimage/Conference Archivist for the Baltimore-Washington Conference of The United Methodist Church where she oversees 33 historic sites and as the pastor of Old Otterbein UMC (Baltimore, MD), the Mother Church of the United Brethren in Christ branch of our denomination. Her research interests includes Cokesbury College, the first Methodist College in the world and Baltimore Methodism; and her most recent publication was as a contributing author to When Kids Ask Hard Questions, volume 2, ed. McCleneghan & Jackson (Chalice Press. 2021).

HOST:

Dr. Ashley Boggan Dreff, General Secretary of the General Commission on Archives and History of The United Methodist Church. Dreff earned her PhD from Drew Theological School’s Graduate Division of Religion, specializing in both Methodist/Wesleyan Studies and Women’s/Gender Studies. She is the author of Nevertheless: American Methodists and Women’s Rights (2020) and Entangled: A History of American Methodism, Politics, and Sexuality (2018).

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What were indigenous boarding schools and how were Methodists involved?

GUEST:

Rev. Shirley Montoya is an ordained elder in the UMC serving in the Desert Southwest Annual Conference. She was raised in the valley of Shiprock, New Mexico and attended a Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school there. She currently lives on the Navajo reservation and serves her community as Project Manager for the Healing Circle Wellness Center in Shiprock, NM.

HOST:

Dr. Ashley Boggan Dreff, General Secretary of the General Commission on Archives and History of The United Methodist Church. Dreff earned her PhD from Drew Theological School’s Graduate Division of Religion, specializing in both Methodist/Wesleyan Studies and Women’s/Gender Studies. She is the author of Nevertheless: American Methodists and Women’s Rights (2020) and Entangled: A History of American Methodism, Politics, and Sexuality (2018).