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Using two geographically contrasting case studies, this paper explores the multiple ways in which London's purpose-built Wesleyan chapels were used between the 1851 religious census and the reunification of the Methodist Church in 1932. Specifically focusing on chapels in the Bow and Highgate areas of London, it explores how the uses of these spaces varied over time and space, highlighting similarities and differences between urban and suburban Wesleyanism. Identifying three categories of chapel use associated with worship, social gatherings, and more-than-Wesleyan uses, it traces the practices, people and objects connected to these different uses and argues that they can provide insights into historical congregational experiences. As such, this paper makes a rare historical contribution to broader discussions within current geographical studies of religion about individuals' everyday experiences of religion, faith, and spirituality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper by Han, Bandi, and Nohadani on "On Finite Adaptability in Two-Stage Distributionally Robust Optimization" studies finite adaptability with the goal to construct interpretable and easily implementable policies in the context of two-stage distributionally robust optimization problems. To achieve this, the set of uncertainty realizations needs to be partitioned. The authors show that an optimal partitioning can be accomplished via "translated orthants." They then propose a nondecreasing orthant partitioning and binary approximation to obtain the corresponding "orthant-based policies" from a mixed-integer optimization problem of a moderate size. For these policies, they provide provable performance bounds, generalizing the existing bounds in the literature. For more general settings, they also propose optimization formulations to obtain posterior lower bounds that can serve to evaluate performance. Two numerical experiments support these findings. A joint inventory-routing problem highlights the practical applicability for large-sized instances with mixed-integer recourse. A case study from a pharmacy retailer demonstrates that the orthant-based policies are less sensitive to cost parameters than optimal solutions, enabling these policies to outperform comparable methods when the realized cost ratio deviates from its nominal value. In many real applications, practitioners prefer policies that are interpretable and easy to implement. This tendency is magnified in sequential decision-making settings. In this paper, we leverage the concept of finite adaptability to construct policies for two-stage optimization problems. More specifically, we focus on the general setting of distributional uncertainties affecting the right-hand sides of constraints, because in a broad range of applications, uncertainties do not affect the objective function and recourse matrix. The aim is to construct policies that have provable performance bounds. This is done by partitioning the uncertainty realization and assigning a contingent decision to each piece. We first show that the optimal partitioning can be characterized by translated orthants, which only require the problem structure and hence are free of modeling assumptions. We then prove that finding the optimal partitioning is hard and propose a specific partitioning scheme with orthants, allowing the efficient computation of orthant-based policies via solving a mixed-integer optimization problem of a moderate size. By leveraging the geometry of this partitioning, we provide performance bounds of the orthant-based policies, which also generalize the existing bounds in the literature. These bounds offer multiple theoretical insights on the performance, for example, its independence on problem parameters. We also assess suboptimality in more general settings and provide techniques to obtain lower bounds. The proposed policies are applied to a stylized inventory routing problem with mixed-integer recourse. We also study the case of a pharmacy retailer by comparing alternative methods regarding computational performance and robustness to parameter variation. Funding: E. Han is funded by the Southern Methodist University start-up fund for this research. Supplemental Material: The e-companion is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.2022.2273. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the process of moral discernment in the United Methodist Church [UMC] in Germany in the face of differing convictions on issues of human sexuality within the horizon of the comprehensive study process of the World Council of Churches [WCC] on "Churches and Moral Discernment". After an introduction to the challenging debates within the worldwide United Methodist Church in the face of different convictions on human sexuality, a first section unfolds approaches to theological doctrinal formation and ethical discernment in a Methodist perspective. in a second section, the current process of ethical discernment in the UMC in Germany is examined. The paper concludes with some highlights on the significance of the analytical tool developed in the study process of the WCC for processes of moral discernment such as in the UMC in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines a badly understudied topic, the feminist leadership provided by southern women in the Department of Christian Social Relations, a subunit of the Woman’s Society of Christian Service (WSCS), and the United Methodist Women (UMW) from 1940 to 1990. It examines the origins and influence of the powerful UMW and its predecessor organizations, and explains why southern women predominated in leadership and why southerners, who are usually understood to be forces of conservatism, led the church to adopt progressive positions and policies regarding racial and gender justice in the mid- to late twentieth century. Profiled are the three most influential women within the UMW and its predecessors: Thelma Stevens, Peggy Billings, and Theressa Hoover. It briefly describes the effect that the Religious Right had on progressive women, and concludes with a brief discussion of the current debate over human sexuality within Methodism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper seeks to explore the perceptions of ministers on context and leadership aspects in the Alice Region of Methodist Church of Southern Africa (MCSA). The problem statement for this paper is to explore the relevance of context to church leadership styles. The stationing of ministers in a different context to theirs does not suit them and it affects the Alice Region church leadership. The study, from which this paper is derived, is informed by a qualitative approach using Alice Region in a case study design. The study uses the data that has been collected from 5 respondents. The study revealed the following thematic findings: Leadership style used by respondents, leadership limps and challenges in the Alice region and leadership components that respondents used in a particular context. This paper employed a contextual leadership approach as a theoretical framework. The data revealed that stationing as such in the Alice Region did not always account for issues related to context and leadership. God gives us the ideal example of relationship as the church can only exist in associations forged by relational and transformational leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While historians have examined how Australians represented and imagined Asia, fewer scholars have considered their responses to Islanders – particularly Islanders visiting Australia. This paper explores a moment when Tonga was firmly in the minds of the Australian public. In December 1932, a group of 16 Tongan choristers arrived for an extended visit to raise spirits and funds for the Methodist Overseas Mission. A month later, Tonga's Premier, Prince Viliami Tungī, commenced a tour of his own. Both Tungī and the choir presented an image of Tonga as Christianized, increasingly 'civilized' and confidently facing the future. This paper considers the extent to which their message resonated in Australia. It contends that while the Tongans attracted attention and admiration, outside of the church the intended meaning of their presence was often lost. More generally, their struggles demonstrate how such encounters could – and could not – alter entrenched 'rumours' and perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets out an archival account of events leading up to the mass agencification of the British civil service by the Thatcher administration (1979–1990). This account holds lessons for contemporary understandings of the ideological roots and institutional structures of corporatization. When Thatcher came to power in 1979, she wanted to make government "efficient" through the adoption of "business‐like" practices. We show that this project was grounded in her Methodist upbringing and the emerging neoliberal economic theories of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. Thatcher's efforts to instill a "market mentality" were met with stubborn resistance from a bloc of Ministers and senior civil servants. We find that Thatcher used agencification to break this resistance. Agencification removed Ministerial control over service delivery and saw "business‐like" managers placed in charge of the newly created agencies. This curtailed the workings of democracy. Like Thatcher's agencification, corporatization today imperils democracy in pursuit of "efficiency." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to understand the people of God's giving glory to God as a responsive participation in God's infinite glory which is known in the radiance of its perfect effulgence. The paper begins by outlining the implications of the claim that God is perfectly glorious in Godself. The second section seeks to unpack what it means to see the glory of God as a perfection of divine movement, in which the radiance of the effulgence of God's glory is made present in the theatre of creation. Section three of the paper turns to the Christian's glorification of God. This glorification is understood, in virtue of the preceding sections, as a responsive participation in the overflowing and superabundantly gracious, glorious life of God. This responsive participation by the Christian is the response of active sanctification in which the creature is conformed by the Spirit to the image of Christ so as to participate in the perfection of God's eternal glory. This very response of the Christian is itself one of overflow and grace as she participates in and witnesses to the logics of the Lord's glory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of recent moves to develop a shared history of Australia and New Zealand (Australasia), this paper identifies a religious dimension in the re-emerging shared history that is connected with other dimensions of the relationship. Building on this recent work, it uncovers the interconnectedness of Presbyterians, Methodists, Congregationalists and Baptists on opposite sides of the Tasman and finds some strength and consistency in the connections over the last 150 years. Starting with an examination of the denominations' attempts at institutional connection and cooperation, the paper moves onto an analysis of the exchange of personnel and ideas between them. It will also argue that these “religious” links strongly imply the existence of substantial “secular” links at both institutional and grass-roots levels. Finally, other areas for future research into trans-Tasman Christian linkages are briefly proposed and introduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

United Methodist Church polity bars "self-avowed practicing homosexuals" from ordination and prohibits same-sex wedding celebrations in their churches or by their clergy. Recently, the consequences for disobeying church polity have increased in severity and the denomination is expected to split. This paper profiles three churches who openly disagree with the denomination and disregard these policies. Interviews with youth and the adults who work with them show that reconciling youth and their churches have insights to offer about how young people can intentionally practice their faith, teach their congregations, and learn from their congregations as they seek to find their way through disagreement with their own denomination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article constitutes the first large-scale examination of the Cork anti-Methodist riots of 1749–50. Methodist hagiographers have described the rioters as disengaged foot soldiers for Cork's corporation and Anglican clergy. By exploring these disturbances in their religious, political and social context, this paper suggests that the predominantly Catholic rioters were fuelled by their own politico-theological grievances, thereby illuminating the persistence of religious violence in eighteenth-century Ireland. Furthermore, by exploring tensions between Cork Methodists and Baptists, it highlights both the ways in which Methodists sometimes fuelled opposition and the fact that they were not always the sole victims of anti-Methodist violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a fresh look at the 'Dissensions' that held up scientific business at the Royal Society during the spring of 1784. It focuses attention on the career and personal networks of Charles Hutton, whose dismissal from the role of Foreign Secretary ignited the row. It shows that the incident had no single cause but was the outcome of several factors that made Hutton intolerable to Joseph Banks, President of the Society, and of several factors that made Banks unpopular as President among a group of about 40 otherwise rather disparate Fellows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses three case studies—(1) community building by Methodist Chinese in Sibu, Sarawak; (2) the construction of transnational temple networks originating in Chinese temples in Sibu; and (3) hybrid spirit medium processions in Kalimantan—to explore aspects of the role of religion within the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia. Analytic approaches to Chinese religion proposed by Weber and Mauss are discussed, and an argument is made in favor of following the spread of civilizational techniques into hybrid social and ritual formations. 摘要: 本文通過三個案例研究：1）華人衛理剬會在沙撈越州詩巫的社區建設；2）源自中國寺廟的跨國寺院網絡建設；3）加里曼丹的混合靈媒介隊伍遊行，來探討宗教在東南亞華人社群中的角色。文中討論了韋伯和毛斯對中國宗教提出的分析方法，並提出一個支持跟隨文明技術的傳播向社會和禮儀混合形式發展的論點。 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a well-established interest in the relationship between space and identity, geographers still know little about how communal identities in specific places are built around a sense of religious belonging. This paper explores both the theoretical and practical terrain around which such an investigation can proceed. The paper makes space for the exploration of a specific set of religious groups and practices, which reflected the activities of Methodists in Cornwall during the period 1830–1930. The paper is concerned to move analysis beyond the 'officially sacred' and to explore the everyday, informal, and often banal, practices of Methodists, thereby providing a blueprint for how work in the geography of religion may move forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Methodist Review Newsletter is a quarterly electronic newsletter that provides updates on events, resources, and opportunities related to Methodist and Wesleyan studies. It covers topics such as scholarly society news, academic events, recent publications, and scholarly resources. The newsletter announces upcoming conferences, exhibitions, and research grants, as well as the inclusion of personal papers and court documents in the United Methodist Archives and History Center. It also highlights job postings for academic positions with a focus on justice-oriented approaches. The Methodist Review is an open-access, peer-reviewed electronic journal that publishes scholarly articles in the field. [Extracted from the article]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a research from a study undertaken with Methodist circuit ministers in the UK and those that work closely with them. It considers in what way and to what extent ministers think of themselves as managers and to what extent and in what way they are expected to perform as managers by those they work with. Design/methodology/approach – The research that informs this paper was gathered through a qualitative study which involved in-depth semi-structured interviews with 22 participants both Methodist ministers and those who worked closely with them. Findings – The study shows that, whilst those who work with ministers typically do not problematize management and expect managers to be able to perform management tasks, the ministers themselves are ambiguous about or rejecting of the discourse of management. Research limitations/implications – The relatively small sample size limits generalizability. Practical implications – The study challenges trainers in this context and in other contexts where the “language” of management is contested or rejected to find a discourse of management which is acceptable. Originality/value – The study contributes to the small body of literature on management and the development of managers within religious organizations. It contributes to the literature on managerial identity and the importance of management language in becoming a manager by presenting an example where this language and identity is contested or rejected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the contemplative techniques that comprised wesley's method of spiritual transformation. By employing a psychoanalytic perspective that explains the pastoral effectiveness of the method, I claim that Wesley's view of spiritual growth was therapeutic and transformative as measured by contemporary clinical standards. Wesley's developmental model involved a series of spiritual phases each characterized by techniques and meditations (ritual mourning, the practice of the presence, introspection) that culminated in sanctification, a cognitive-emotional transformation marked by the eradication of sinful temptations and the perfection of altruism. Couched in a theological idiom, the method helped individuals to work through conflicts created by the three main traumata of British middle class childhood: authoritarian parenting and unresolved bereavement grief. This paper argues that religious-cultural symbolism may promote transformations of archaic affect and neurotic conflict that progressively reshape these pre-reflective materials into complex existential insights and convictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article constitutes the first large-scale examination of the Cork anti-Methodist riots of 1749–50. Methodist hagiographers have described the rioters as disengaged foot soldiers for Cork's corporation and Anglican clergy. By exploring these disturbances in their religious, political and social context, this paper suggests that the predominantly Catholic rioters were fuelled by their own politico-theological grievances, thereby illuminating the persistence of religious violence in eighteenth-century Ireland. Furthermore, by exploring tensions between Cork Methodists and Baptists, it highlights both the ways in which Methodists sometimes fuelled opposition and the fact that they were not always the sole victims of anti-Methodist violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will highlight attitudes to British colonialism among some middle-class Indian Christian communities and will use as a case study the anti-colonial discourse within the Methodist Church. It will illustrate how diverse shades of political resistance existed among this Church community despite fears of state retribution. Discourses such as Dravidian Nationalism, Eastern Nationalism, and even the Methodist Church itself were influential in creating oppositional space and fostering intellectual freedom at a time when such expressions were frowned upon. This study thus challenges the perception that middle-class Indian communities were so pro-British that others often derogatorily referred to them as "Black Europeans". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conference paper discusses the role of Japanese Methodist pastor Tanimoto Kiyoshi in the formation of the International World Peace Day Movement (IWPDM) and the operations of the Hiroshima Peace Center (HPC). Both organizations were part of a large peace movement that was deeply influenced by the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima, Japan and Nagasaki, Japan during World War II. The author is also largely concerned with the transnational nature of the IWPDM and HPC.

The association of the Methodists with the Roman Catholic and Lutheran Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification was a significant ecumenical event. The Methodist Statement that allowed this agreement, though, does not include a description of the connection between baptism and justification. This paper examines John Wesley's understandings of baptism and justification to suggest a way that they may be held together in Methodist theology. The Methodist practice of infant baptism stands in tension with an understanding of justification built on the model of adult conversion experience, and this tension is found in Wesley's own work. It is possible, though, to find in the way Wesley engaged certain questions some indications of how baptism and justification may be both connected and distinguished in order to display a flexible understanding of God's ongoing work in human life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper explores the historical relationships between Methodist Sunday school tea treats and parades and the formation of religious identity in west Cornwall between c. 1830 and 1930. Through these ritual activities, people were entrained into the symbolic identity-forming apparatus of Methodist faith and practice. Moving beyond the spaces of school rooms and chapels, the paper focuses on the organisation, the use of public space and the territorial significance of annual tea treats and parades in the nurturing and maintenance of a Methodist constituency. In so doing, the paper draws on work in the history of Nonconformity, geographies of religion and the historical geography of parades to conduct a critical analysis of tea treats and parades as ritual, spectacle and carnival. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Northern Ireland is a place that is more peaceful due principally to the cessation (although imperfect) of republican and loyalist paramilitary violence in 1994. While the violent excesses of ethnic dispute in Northern Ireland no longer saturate media reports, there remains much fear, distrust, and insecurity between Protestant and Catholic communities. This article conducts a microexamination of church-led attempts at cross-community reconciliation by Protestant clergy in the city of Londonderry. These attempts are often hampered because of factors that affect both the clergy and the wider Protestant community within which the clergy discharge their pastoral duties. The constraints in their ecumenical activity and interfaith contacts that Protestant clergy experience highlight other factors that hinder the evolution of a more peaceful society. It also causes one to reflect carefully upon the effectiveness of ecumenism and interfaith dialogue as a model for advancing society towards peace and reconciliation. The findings of this paper are based upon a qualitative methodology that involved eight semistructured interviews with clergy of the Church of Ireland, Presbyterian, and Methodist traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ralph Edward Dodge, a Methodist missionary and bishop, played a significant role in indigenizing the Methodist Church in Angola, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe. He emphasized training indigenous people for leadership roles and incorporated traditional African worship practices into Christian worship. Dodge also formed an ecumenical alliance of churches in Zimbabwe and advocated for social justice. He implemented the Safari to Learning program, which sent African students to overseas colleges and universities, and many of its graduates became opponents of colonial policies. Dodge believed in the correlation between individual salvation and the salvation of society. [Extracted from the article]

Late in the Civil War, northern missionaries from African Methodist denominations flooded into Kentucky and across the upper South, where they sought new members, especially among Black Methodist congregations. But they encountered resistance from an unexpected foe--the law of church property. White Southern Methodists had prided themselves on their "Mission to the Negroes," and white churchmen used litigation to ensure that Black churches remained in the hands of the proslavery church, even after emancipation. This article recovers an otherwise unknown series of Kentucky court decisions on questions of race and church property. Other jurisdictions followed Kentucky's lead, frustrating shifts in allegiance to Black northern denominations. These cases give new context to the formation of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church (CME) in 1870, which tied Black congregations firmly to the southern church. By taking law into account, the role of sacred space, church property and financial wealth, and the use of state power all emerge as key elements of the story. The legal history of CME's founding and its early growth highlight a reconstituted white supremacy, which imposed a strict requirement that the new denomination avoid all politics and yet could not prevent the emergence of a vibrant and longstanding spiritual community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Memorialization of Ambrosio Gonzales, a nineteenth-century Methodist convert from New Mexico, has aided in the maintenance and expansion of Latinx Protestantism. Gonzales's trajectory matters to communal and institutional memories, I argue, because his life was embedded within the very origins of Latinx Protestantism in the Southwest. Moreover, Gonzales became emblematic of Protestantism at a time of westward expansion. Even today, commemorating Gonzales bolsters Latinx Protestant identities and legitimizes missionary efforts. While memorializations of Gonzales have often been symbolic, his life also had long-lasting structural effects on Latinx Protestantism in the West. This article is part of a special issue of Pacific Historical Review, "Religion in the Nineteenth-Century American West." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Swinney Conservatory of Music at Central Methodist University in Fayette, Missouri has a long history with unique beginnings. After the Civil War, Central College (Central Methodist's original name) grew alongside a "Female Seminary," Howard-Payne Female College. Through the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the two schools developed their own distinct musical cultures with Howard-Payne faculty developing a music curriculum, and Central students forming their own musical ensembles. When the schools merged in 1923 these two cultures united to create a conservatory of music at a time when many other American conservatories were being established. Just before the merger, Kansas City banker Edward Fletcher Swinney, who had strong family ties to the Fayette area and a history of philanthropy towards causes in Missouri education, donated $35,000 to Howard-Payne College for the construction of the conservatory building that would eventually bear his name. This article focuses on the early history of both Central College and Howard-Payne Female College, the role that music played at both schools (as a curricular and non-curricular activity) and the events leading to the formation of Central College's music curriculum and construction of the Swinney Conservatory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under Ryerson's leadership, Canadian Methodists retook control of the Book Room in Toronto from the British Wesleyans and stocked it with cheap books ordered from New York. Methodists found themselves compelled to import their literature from one of two institutions: the British Wesleyans' London Book Room or the New York-based Methodist Book Concern run by the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) in the United States. If Canadian Methodists were willing to pay a denominational premium for the Concern's books, perhaps they were more like American Methodists in that respect. [Extracted from the article]

Though rural Protestant missionaries stationed in Cuba routinely reproduced Anglo-American epistemologies and values, often in the service of US corporations, they also worked alongside their parishioners to challenge state and economic violence, as well as break the cyclical nature of Cuban poverty. Shared struggle with Cubans against Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship proved transformative for many rural missionaries who, in the late 1950s, developed a revolutionary consciousness born through transnational solidarity. Missionaries challenged the dominant narrative coming from the US government and foreign corporations, as the Revolution pursued an increasingly anti-imperial and anti-capitalist agenda after Batista entered exile. While corporate executives and government officials from North America and Europe feared the new government, rural missionaries, often funded by these same corporations, defended the structural changes taking place after 1959. Through oral history and archival research, this article exposes how Cuban Protestants proved particularly influential in shaping the lens by which foreign missionaries came to understand, appreciate, and ultimately support the Cuban Revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

William Holland's Short Account describes church life in the City of London in the 1730s with special reference to the religious societies and their connections with Wesley's "Oxford Methodists." He shows how the Moravian Peter Böhler's preaching cross-fertilized these networks' High-Church Anglicanism with the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith alone and thereby sparked the English Evangelical Revival. Recounting the early life of the resulting Fetter Lane Society, which served as the Revival's London headquarters, Holland emphasizes the frequent visits to and from the Moravian congregations in Germany and the Netherlands. All of this was intended to support his argument that the English Anglican members of Zinzendorf's Brüdergemeine, while accepting the Lutheran doctrine of justification, were neither Dissenters nor "Old Lutherans" (the name Zinzendorf had invented for them in order to distance the Moravian tradition from them). Rather, they had joined the Moravian Church on the understanding that in doing so they were not separating themselves from England's established church but joining a "sister church" in a form of "double belonging." This text thus illuminates not only the early history of the Moravian Church in England but also Anglican church life in 1730s London and the origins of Wesleyan Methodism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Some scholars have speculated whether the conservative New Testament Calvinistic scholar, Machen and the New Testament critical scholar, Bultmann attended Marburg University at the same time. We now know that they did. They even attended two courses together which were taught respectively by Weiss and Jülicher. Although these men were strong opposites with respect to the environment in which they were raised as well as their theological presuppositions and conclusions, they both enjoyed the engaging environment of Marburg as students. Mainly using personal letters, we learn that a comparison of these two young students goes further than their theological and biblical interests. Both had encyclopedic academic interests which carried over into a fascinating interdisciplinary way of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section provides information on several microfilm collections available as of September 2004. The collection Pacific Island Culture & Society: The Papers of the Reverend George Brown (1835-1917), Methodist Missionary From the State Library of New South Wales will be of great interest to those concerned with the study of Polynesian culture, Pacific studies and the relationship between the West and the indigenous peoples of Oceania. The Dutch Political Conflict With the Republic of Indonesia, 1945-1949: Documents From the Secret Archives of the General Secretariat of the Netherlands Indies Government and the Cabinet of the Governor General, National Archives of the Netherlands, The Hague, is a collection that forms the first part of a new series of micro-publications on the end of Dutch colonialism in Asia being planned in cooperation with the National Archives in The Hague. Meanwhile, the collection entitled Native America, Series 2: The Association on American Indian Affairs Archives, General and Tribal Files, 1851-1983, documents the role of the Association on American Indian Affairs. It includes materials dating from 1851 to 1983, making it the one of the most comprehensive research collections on the struggles of Native Americans.

There has not been a great deal of archaeological work on yeoman farmsteads in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. Excavations at the Westmoreland-Snow Farmstead have contributed to this field by broadening the understanding of how the Piedmont region of North Carolina compares to that of South Carolina. Additionally, work at site 31FY1053 has provided insight into the relation between Moravians and non-Moravians in the nineteenth century and how that may or may not be reflected in the archaeological record. The Westmoreland and Snow families are both Moravian and Methodist, but their farmstead is analogous with non-Moravian farmsteads from the same period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports that the Russian United Methodist Church received papers' declaring it a registered centralized religious organization under the 1997 law on church-state relations. Russians invited by the Methodists to be involved in the organization; When the Russian government invited the Methodists back into Russia.