The Methodist Federation for Social Action (MFSA) is an independent network of United Methodist clergy and laity working for justice in the areas of peace, poverty, and people's rights since 1907.

History

Founding

The first decades of the 20th century were a time of heightened awareness in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

of poverty and social inequality. In an effort to transform the social order and address human suffering, members of the

Methodist Episcopal Church The Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) was the oldest and largest Methodist denomination in the United States from its founding in 1784 until 1939. It was also the first religious denomination in the US to organize itself on a national basis. In ...

(MEC) created in 1907 the organization that would come to be called the Methodist Federation for Social Service and later the Methodist Federation for Social Action. The aims of their

Methodist Federation for Social Service The Methodist Federation for Social Action (MFSA) is an independent network of United Methodist clergy and laity working for justice in the areas of peace, poverty, and people's rights since 1907. History Founding The first decades of the 20th ...

(MFSS) were inspired in a large part by the importance that Methodism founder

John Wesley John Wesley (; 2 March 1791) was an English people, English cleric, Christian theology, theologian, and Evangelism, evangelist who was a leader of a Christian revival, revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism. The soci ...

placed on work for the betterment of humankind, and shared the

theological Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

grounding of the broader

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

Social Gospel movement, which articulated a normative relationship between the

Biblical The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

teachings of

Jesus Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

and efforts toward systemic social change. Originally the Methodist Federation for Social Service, MFSA was founded in 1907 in Washington, DC after meeting with President Roosevelt. Several Methodist Episcopal clergy (including Frank Mason North, author of "Where Cross the Crowded Ways of Life") organized the Federation to direct church attention to the enormous human suffering among the working class. The organization supported labor unions and held socialist views, calling industrial capitalism an "unchristian and antisocial". MFSA met with immediate success in rallying American Methodists around Social Gospel issues, and the MEC General Conference of 1908 adopted the denomination's historic Social Creed which was penned by the leadership of the Federation. The social creed has been adapted several times but is also the basis for many of the civil and human rights laws that exist today. The lines between the nominally independent Federation and the MEC proper were quickly blurred as the former was charged with the coordination of Social Creed-related ministries. The collaboration was a productive one, however, with MFSA members encouraging significant contributions to the labor rights,

Temperance Temperance may refer to: Moderation *Temperance movement, movement to reduce the amount of alcohol consumed *Temperance (virtue), habitual moderation in the indulgence of a natural appetite or passion Culture *Temperance (group), Canadian danc ...

, and

Women's Suffrage Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...

movements by the denomination, while conducting cutting-edge advocacy under their organization's own auspices.

McConnell and Ward era

For almost four decades thereafter the Federation was led by Bishop Francis John McConnell and Harry F. Ward, an outstanding church ethicist and activist. During the 1920s and 1930s this leadership was fully shared by Winifred Chappell, a deaconess and devoted advocate for the workers' struggle. In the 1930s the Federation adopted as its goal the replacement of an economic system based on the struggle for profit by "social-economic planning to develop a society without class or group discriminations and privileges." By the onset of the 1930s and the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, the MFSA consensus position on economic affairs had come to question the basic

capitalist Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...

underpinnings of the U.S. economy, and the Federation joined the ranks of those advocating for a functional

socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...

alternative. In 1932, the church voiced its support for MFSA's views, but by 1936, the socialist viewpoint was a major source of controversy within the Methodist Church. The Church dropped the Social Creed from the Book of Discipline in that year, but reinstated it in 1939.

World War II and the Red Scare

The 1940s were a time of continued growth for the MFSA, as it continued its economic justice activities while contributing to the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

peace movement A peace movement is a social movement which seeks to achieve ideals, such as the ending of a particular war (or wars) or minimizing inter-human violence in a particular place or situation. They are often linked to the goal of achieving world peac ...

. The organization, alongside the Women's Division, also strongly lobbied to end segregation in the church. MFSA attained the height of its growth just following World War II under the leadership of Jack McMichael. By 1950, the MFSA was highly influential in the Methodist Church. While the MFSA had only 5,800 members compared to 9 million in the entire Methodist Church, this membership included half of the church's 16 bishops, as well as having representatives in all the major seminaries at the time. However, with the coming of the anti-communist hysteria of the McCarthy period, relations with The Methodist Church became very strained and the Federation came under sharp attack. In his article ''Methodism's Pink Fringe'', Stanley High accused the MFSA of being pro-Soviet. The group was investigated by the

House un-American Activities Committee The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...

in 1952. The MFSA was one of the chief victims of McCarthyism among religious groups, an attack vicious enough that the Church dropped its connection with the MFSA that year, and the MFSA continued as an independent organization. In the wake of these events MFSA experienced a serious decline. However, a dedicated remnant of volunteers kept the group operating, and in 1960, new director Lee Ball began the rebuilding process and started a campaign against the Vietnam War.

Post-war

Over the past six decades MFSA has experienced a broad revival and has re-established the Federation as a force within United Methodism. In 1974 MFSA sent organizers to support the striking non-professionals at the UM hospital in Pikeville, Kentucky. In 1979 the Federation issued a documented study of the New Far Right presence in the denomination and rallied forces to stem its influence. MFSA was the leading force in the struggle for UM support of

disinvestment from South Africa Disinvestment (or divestment) from South Africa was first advocated in the 1960s, in protest against South Africa's system of apartheid, but was not implemented on a significant scale until the mid-1980s. The disinvestment campaign, after bein ...

, especially by the Board of Pensions. The MFSA, inspired by Latin American

liberation theology Liberation theology is a Christian theological approach emphasizing the liberation of the oppressed. In certain contexts, it engages socio-economic analyses, with "social concern for the poor and political liberation for oppressed peoples". In ...

, resumed its criticism of capitalism. The church advocated for gay rights in the 1980s and 1990s. The Federation continues to make a major impact every four years at the denomination's General Conference. New MFSA conference chapters continue to be organized and now total 38 chapters, with representation in every jurisdiction. There are several new chapters in the formation process. The Federation unites activist United Methodists to promote action on the liberation issues of peace, poverty and people's right while confronting the church and society and to witness to the transformation of the social order that is intrinsic to the church's entire life, including its evangelism, preaching, counseling, and spirituality.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.mfsaweb.org/ Methodism History of Methodism in the United States United Methodist Church