Underlying all the changing forms of worship was the assumption that those who worshiped God were more American than those who did not, because America was a nation "under God."
This attitude supported the anti-Communism of the McCarthy Era, which spilled over into Methodism and inundated the Methodist Federation for Social Service (now the Methodist Federation for Social Action). The Federation had been Methodism's social conscience since its founding in 1907, insistently urging Methodists to seek the Christian way of life in organized society as well as in personal behavior. This program led the Federation during the Great Depression to advocate "the necessity of replacing the struggle for profit with the mutual cooperation of social economic planning." Enemies of the Federation called this proposal "Communism," and Harry F. Ward, the Federation's prophetic voice throughout the first half of the twentieth century, played into their hands by refusing, even after the revelations of Stalin's atrocities, to admit any flaws in Russian Communism. Therefore, the Methodist General Conference of 1952 made clear that the Federation was unofficial and handed the denomination's social conscience over to the newly created Board of Social and Economic Relations.
Four years later the women of Methodism achieved a long-sought goal when this sentence was added to their church's statute book: "Both men and women are included in all provisions of the Discipline which refer to the ministry." Ordination of women at last! And perhaps unity too, for the late 1950s witnessed a wave of ecumenical enthusiasm. The Methodist and Evangelical United Brethren churches were active in founding the World Council of Churches in 1948 and the National Council of Churches in 1950. So they were ready to ride the wave of interest in Christian unity that crested in 1960 in the Consultation on Church Union--talks aimed at bringing together a number of major American denominations.
With so many Christians talking about worshiping together, especially with so many Christians worshiping God in a nation "under God," how could anything be wrong? Yet something was wrong. Between 1950 and 1960, while the United States population was increasing by 18.5 percent, the combined membership of the Methodist and Evangelical United Brethren churches grew by only 9.36 percent. In the next decade the rate of membership increase fell to 0.22 percent and church officials sensed they were under siege.