METHODIST CHURCH SOCIAL CREED
Important Dates in the History of the Social Creed
1907 Methodist Episcopal Church leaders Herbert Welch, Harry F. Ward, Worth Tippy, Elbert Robb Zaring, and Frank Mason North call a meeting in Washington's Ebbitt House to found a "Methodist League for Social Service," patterned after the Wesleyan Methodist Union for Social Service in England. On December 3, 25 people found the Methodist Federation for Social Service (MFSS), electing Herbert Welch as president. The next day the group is received by President Theodore Roosevelt in the White House.
1908 MFSS members author and secure adoption of the first Social Creed by the M.E. General Conference, as well as formal recognition of MFSS itself. Over 1000 persons attend a Federation information meeting during General Conference.
1909 United Brethren in Christ Church adopts a social creed.
1914 The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, adopts a social creed much like that of the Methodist Episcopal Church
1916 The Methodist Protestant Church adopts the social creed of the Methodist Episcopal Church
1972 Following the 1968 union of the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church, the General Board of Church and Society is created; General Conference adopts Social Principles.
The Social Creed (1908)
The Methodist Episcopal Church stands –
For equal rights and complete justice for all (people) in all stations of life.
For the principle of conciliation and arbitration in industrial dissensions.
For the protection of the worker from dangerous machinery, occupational diseases, injuries and mortality.
For the abolition of child labor.
For such regulation of the conditions of labor for women as shall safe guard the physical and moral health of the community.
For the suppression of the “sweating system.”
For the gradual and reasonable reduction of hours of labor to the lowest practical point, with work for all; and for that degree of leisure for all which is the condition of the highest human life.
For a release from employment one day in seven.
For a living wage in every industry.
For the highest wage that each industry can afford, and for the most equitable division of the products of industry that can ultimately be devised.
For the recognition of the Golden Rule and the mind of Christ as the supreme law of society and the sure remedy for all social ills
