"Love Gifts"

For "unChristian tempers, words or actions and imprudent or unministerial conduct" the Rev. James J. Stewart of Albuquerque was defrocked as a minister of the Methodist Church last week. His imprudent and unministerial conduct had been to bring public charges that his bishop, the Rev. W. Angie Smith of Oklahoma City, had accepted fees in the form of "love gifts" for consecrating and dedicating churches, that he had allowed preachers to solicit funds for himself and his family, and that he had even permitted the superintendent of the Methodist Indian Mission Conference to solicit Indians for gifts of jewelry, saddles, beaded handbags.

Bishop Smith, who two weeks ago began a one-year term as the world's highest ranking Methodist, president of the Council of Bishops, was cleared of Stewart's charges by his district committee. But to the Pennsylvania-born Rev. James Stewart, 51. who won his B.D. at Yale Divinity School, Bishop Smith is only a target of opportunity in a larger campaign against what he calls a widespread practice in the Methodist Church, i.e., local ministers being expected to chip in with presents for the bishop from time to time. Love gifts from congregations to pastors--including TV sets and tours of the Holy Land--are not uncommon in churches. What Stewart is charging is the improper acceptance of money for services supposed to be given free, and the more or less open solicitation of funds from ministers by district supervisors for the benefit of a district's bishop. Before bringing the specific charges against Bishop Smith, Stewart's church (St. John's in Albuquerque) had submitted to the General Methodist Quadrennial Conference a resolution banning such gifts; the resolution had been quashed in committee.

The Methodist Church authorities have done their side of the dispute no good by closing doors to the public. Stewart and his 13 witnesses walked out of the proceedings at which he was defrocked when the trial committee refused to make it an open hearing.

Stewart, preparing for a teaching career, still hopes to get into open court, if only with a civil libel suit. "Reforms never come without agitation," he said last week. "And the role of the agitator is never popular or pleasant. But I am confident that once the laymen get the truth, they will save Methodist preachers from humiliation and the Methodist Church from disgrace."

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