Check out Methodist Review

A new online journal featuring articles on Wesleyan theology and Methodist history is just out. Its title is Methodist Review. And I think its presence in the world of Methodism is really important.

This journal just went online a few weeks ago - check it out here - but it already promises to occupy a very important place in the space between the halls of academia and the pews of the church. Methodist Review (or what I'll call MR) is the successor to a journal called Quarterly Review, which ran in print format from 1980-2005. Quarterly Review (or QR) was published by the UMC, and you can access its archives free of charge at this site.

My understanding of the passing of QR and the birth of MR is from conversations I've had with people over the past few years, so I may not be right on every detail. But I think QR was shuttered due to the combination of cost (i.e., printing and distribution) and declining readership. Its demise was seen as a real loss by the groups that read and wrote for QR: clergy with a more academic bent and scholars with a commitment to the church. The search soon began for a way to provide the kind of church-oriented theological reflection that QR offered but in a way that could be sustained over the long term. The result - a few years later - is MR, which will exist entirely in an online format.

Why am I telling you this? For two reasons.

First, the mission of Methodist Review is important. We need a journal that prints articles aiming at scholarly quality (e.g., MR is "peer reviewed," which is an important criterion for academic respect), while still orienting its content at issues that matter to the church. The description on MR's website says it will be publishing "scholarly articles in all areas and eras of Wesleyan and Methodist studies." That may mean that it will lean more toward the academy than the church (as opposed to QR, which often did the opposite). But the articles in its first issue are all about the church - specifically, a number of retrospective views of the first 40 years of UMC history and a critical conversation about the nature of Wesleyan theology. This kind of content occupies a crucial and much-needed space for scholars, pastors, and laity in the Wesleyan tradition.

Second, Methodist Review is online and free. That means that the Methoblogosphere can tap into it with the ease of a mouse click. All you have to do is register and you can have access to pdf's of any article from any issue. With the exception of professors and graduate students, we'll probably never get church folks to subscribe to expensive printed & bound journals again. But if we can direct them to a website, then we can continue the important work of Wesleyan theological reflection as a whole church.

Handing out the kudos: The support for MR comes from the Perkins School of Theology (SMU), the Candler School of Theology (Emory Univ.), and the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry (UMC). Its editors are Prof. Russell Richey and Prof. Rex Matthews of Candler, and Prof. Ted Campbell of Perkins. I imagine that it took a lot of work to get this new venture off the ground, and the people & institutions that have made it possible should be recognized for the service they are doing for both academy and church.

I'm going to add a link to MR in my right-hand sidebar. I hope you'll consider becoming a regular reader (and maybe a contributor, too!).