This Week in Texas Methodist History May 21 Advocate  Promotes Family Reuniting During Reconstruction One of the most despicable atrocities associated with slavery in the Southern United States was family separation.  Every type of family relationship could be destroyed at a moment's notice.  Children were torn from their parents.  Siblings had little confidence that they would stay together.  Husbands and wives may be separated and moved hundreds of miles apart.  In other words, it would be hard to imagine a more cruel system.   The reasons of t ..read more

 This Week in Texas Methodist History  May 14 Trinity MEC in San Antonio Lays Cornerstone, 1879 The MEC had a difficult time in Texas since most Methodists preferred the MECS to the "northern" church, but that did not stop their evangelization efforts.  The first successes were with African American and German-Texans who had   been MECS before the Civil War, but switched denominations after 1865.  By the 1872 there were separate conferences in Texas for African American, German speakers, and English-speaking Anglos.  The Anglo MEC churches were most promine ..read more

 This Week in Texas Methodist History  April 23 Advocate Promotes Evangelization of Mexico and Central America but Decries Filibusters 1855 One of the attractions of Texas for Methodists in the 19th century was our state's proximity to Mexico and Central America.  Texas often depicted as the gate way through which Mexico and Central America were to be converted from Roman Catholicism to Protestantism.   Eventually Laredo did become the main portal to northern Mexico.  After rail connections to Laredo were established in the early 1880s and Laredo Seminary was es ..read more

 This Week in Texas Methodist History  April 16 86 Year Old Retired Bishop Boaz Named Grand Chaplain of Grand Lodge of Texas,  1953 One of the Texas Methodist bishops who remained very active in retirement was Hiram Abiff Boaz (1866-1962).  He had been elected bishop in 1922 and served four quadrennia, the first four years in Asia and the last twelve in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arkansas.   He retired in 1938 at the age of 72 and resided in Dallas.  His main recreation was golf, but his passion was fundraising for SMU.  His main emphasis in rais ..read more

 This  Week in Texas Methodist History April 9 Marshall District Tries Four Local Preachers on Insubordination Charges,  1895 In the last decades of the 19th century Methodism was engulfed in a struggle brought about by the rise of the Holiness Movement.  This movement was most often referred to in the press as the "second blessing movement" at the time.  The seeds of the movement had been sown in the emphasis in Methodism on experiencing the presence of the Holy Spirit in one's own personal life.  The revivals of the early 19th century were directed toward atte ..read more

 This Week in Texas Methodist History  April 2 Bishop Hartzell Receives Stage Full of Roses in San Antonio    1923 One of the most significant bishops in Methodism came to San Antonio in 1923 as a representative of the Foreign Mission Board of the MEC.  His welcome was unlike anything I have ever heard of. James C. Hartzell was born in Moline, Il., in 1842.  He was ordained in 1866 and served Pekin, Il, but in 1870 transferred to New Orleans.  He served a local church there, but in 1873 was appointed to editorial and educational duties for the MEC in the S ..read more

 This Week in Texas Methodist History   April 2 Presiding Elder Mack Henson Tells How He Travels His District   1891 One of the most common themes of Methodist history is travel.  We have numerous accounts of circuit riders, presiding elders, and bishops who detailed how they traveled to the churches and conferences to which they were appointed and assigned.  One of my favorite eras of such accounts is the 1880s and 1890s in the full bloom of rail transportation.  Those decades saw rail replace horseback as the main transportation for presiding elders ..read more

 This Week in Texas Methodist History March 19 Dean Eugene Hawk of SMU Creates Student Pastor Group March 1942 The entrance of the United States into World War II created a demand for military chaplains.  Texas Methodists stepped up to the plate and dozens of young Methodist ministers entered the chaplaincy.  The exit of these preachers meant that local church pulpits needed to be filled.  One obvious source of pastors was the School of Theology at SMU later to be named Perkins School of Theology.  The Dean of the schools then was Eugene Hawk who had recently served ..read more

 This Week in Texas Methodist History March 5 Reports Show Impact of World War II Industrialization on Church Membership   March 1943 One of the most dramatic demographic movements in Texas history was caused by the industrialization during World War II.   Hundreds of thousands of Texans moved to take advantage of new war industries and those industries also attracted non-Texans.  Obviously the large cities gained the most new residents, but even some rural churches saw their membership balloon.   After the November 1942 annual conferences, the Journa ..read more

 This Week in Texas Methodist History  February 19 Southwestern Advocate Embraces Southwestern University's Most Famous Alum, J. Frank Dobie,  February 1941 Most Texans in the 2020s have little appreciation for the esteem in which J. Frank Dobie was held in the 1930s and 1940s.   Today he may be casually dismissed by historians as a folklorist rather than an historian.  It is true that he was a stalwart of the Texas Folklore Society and contributed hundreds of articles relating to that field.  His work is also dismissed for relying too much on telling a goo ..read more