Kenneth Rowe, a historian who was known as the leading United Methodist bibliographer, died on October 8. He was 84.
“He completely reshaped how we understand the narrative of Methodism in America, expanding it to include indigenous persons, women and LGBTQ+ persons,” said the United Methodist Commission on Archives and History in a remembrance.
Rowe was an ordained United Methodist elder, but after a brief period in local church and campus ministry, he found his calling in academia.
Because she wants to be a witness to others on a similar journey, minister Mary Johnson is beginning to share the story of her gender transition and her choice to now live fully as the person she feels God created her to be.
A retired pastor in the United Methodist Church, Johnson is married to UMC bishop Peggy Johnson, who retired as episcopal leader of the UMC’s Peninsula-Delaware and Eastern Pennsylvania Conferences in September.
The United Methodist Publishing House announced on October 4 that the sale of its Nashville property has been completed, at a price of $24.5 million. The lakefront campus was sold to R2, a Chicago-based real estate investment firm.
UMPH is the denomination’s oldest continuous entity, dating to 1789. However, recent decades have seen it contracting along with the denomination’s US membership.
In 2012, UMPH announced that it would be closing all of its brick-and-
Though the electricity was turned off in all buildings on the site, visitors arriving at Crystal Springs camp on September 12 for its official decommissioning were embraced by the sacred power of the place. Until its closing in 2019, Crystal Springs had been a United Methodist camp and retreat center for 160 years.
But earlier this year, Michigan Area United Methodist Camping sold the Dowagiac, Michigan, campgrounds to the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi. The United Methodist group could no longer maintain the grounds, due to increasing costs and declining membership.