Talk:Methodist Church (USA)

Old talk
"Its book of liturgy used for the reunited denomination was "The Book of Worship for Church and Home", editions of which were published in 1945 and later revised in 1965. They had two official hymnals, the first being "The Methodist Hymnal", published in 1935 and 1939 by the same three church bodies that later became The Methodist Church. It was replaced in 1966 by "The Book of Hymns"."

This isn't entirely correct.

The MEC and MECS had worked together for years to create several Hymnals; the last one was first published in 1932 (citation: the copyright page of the 1932 Hymnal). It was entitled "The Methodist Hymnal". The two churches, along with the Methodist Protestant Church, merged in 1936, creating The Methodist Church. They kept the brand-new hymnal, with the same name. They did publish an updated edition in 1939, but the cover and contents remained the same. Only the copyright page was changed. (citation: the copyright page of the 1939 Hymnal).

In 1964 a new hymnal was adopted by The Methodist Church. Confusingly, it was also entitled "The Methodist Hymnal". (I might add that pretty much every hymnal of the American Methodist churches has been entitled "The Methodist Hymnal". It gets confusing quickly, unless one knows the publication dates.)

In 1968, The Methodist Church merged with The Evangelical United Brethren (itself a merger between several Bethren denominations) to form The United Methodist Church. Like The Methodist Church had done in 1936, they voted to keep the new Methodist Hymnal, but updated the cover and name. Where the 1964 Methodist Hymnal had borne The Methodist Church's "M and Cross" symbol, the new edition bore the United Methodist Church's "Cross and Flame". They also changed the title from "The Methodist Hymnal" to "The Book of Hymns". Other than a few small typographical corrections, it remained exactly the same. This Hymnal remained the official hymnal until The United Methodist Hymnal was adopted in 1988 and finalized in 1989.

I don't want to edit this without at least mentioning it behind the scenes, given my newbie status. I'll wait to see what others say.

Barefoot friar (talk) 22:43, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Methodist Church (USA)
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Methodist Church (USA)'s orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "UMCofWB": From Methodism:  From United Methodist Church:  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 00:09, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

"Worldwide" Church
This Methodist Church was not only a Church in the USA but also in many other countries. I miss any information of this fact in the article. -- 79.194.227.80 (talk) 16:27, 24 May 2021 (UTC)