Legacy of Two Giants Teeters on Decisions in St. Louis

by

Views from a Ridge

Two giants of The United Methodist Church died this week, both at age 97 full of years and honor. I was privileged to know them both in their prime, and now I wonder who will succeed them in whatever remains of the UMC after the special called General Conference that begins Saturday in St. Louis, Mo.

The Rev. Bruce Weaver and Philip Susag came from different parts of the United States. Bruce was a Texan through and through, steeped in the missional, evangelical Methodism of his Southern Methodist heritage. Phil was born and bred in Minnesota and eventually settled in Connecticut, imbibing along the way the social justice-oriented faith of the northern Methodist Episcopal tradition.

Both of them served their local churches and traveled the world. Though they moved in different orbits, Bruce and Phil together were the epitome of ordained and lay ministry among United Methodists.

Bruce Weaver

Bruce was a community leader in Wichita Falls, Texas, when on April 10, 1979, one of the worst tornadoes in U.S. history tore through the north Texas town. As pastor of Wichita Falls’ First United Methodist Church, he helped organize Interfaith Disaster Services to meet relief and recovery needs, his son Keith Weaver told United Methodist News Service. Bruce’s work in Wichita Falls brought him into a close working relationship with the United Methodist Committee on Relief, part of the General Board of Global Ministries then based in New York City.

As UMCOR staff, Bruce visited disaster areas around the United States and across the world to assess needs and recommend what forms the denomination’s outreach should take. He also helped supervise the recruiting and training of disaster relief and recovery volunteers, one of the hallmarks today of UMCOR’s ministry to communities ravaged by catastrophes. His skills in these areas led to Bruce serving as UMCOR interim director in 1991-92, commuting home to Texas from New York on weekends.

Bruce Weaver’s most inspiring and enduring legacy, however, was to revive, almost single-handedly at the start, the United Methodist Church in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union.

His efforts started as a relief mission. The Soviet Union's disintegration left the country’s economy in tatters. People everywhere were starving, especially the elderly and infirm who had relied upon the state social system for their provenance. At Bruce’s instigation, United Methodist congregations contributed toward the creation of food boxes and to the cost of shipping them to Russia via UMCOR.

My United Methodist Reporter colleague Stephen Swecker was assigned to accompany Bruce on one of the first trips to Moscow to deliver the food boxes. Stephen took the now-famous photo of Bruce hugging a grateful Russia woman that came to epitomize the compassion and commitment Bruce showed in revitalizing Russian Methodism.

But the roots of Methodism in Russia, though deep, were tenuous at the time. Not only did Methodism’s revival face the Russian Orthodox Church’s antagonism, the fledgling Russian Republic was preparing to enact a law to keep out “foreign” faiths in the wake of undisciplined proselytizing by independent American evangelical groups. To this day I remember how excited Bruce was when he came by our Reporter office with the news that documentation had been found for a Methodist congregation in St. Petersburg, Russia, that dated before the Russian Revolution of 1917.

That proof was all the documentation Bruce needed to go full-bore into a new mission: making sure that Russian United Methodists could stand and grow on their own. The Russia Initiative, with Bruce as its founding director, took off. The next Easter, my family and I flew to Shreveport, La., so I could report on United Methodist worship from Russia via a telecast beamed to one of its supporting congregations, Broadway UMC.

The Rev. Sergei Nikolaev, president of UMC-related Moscow Theological Seminary, told United Methodist News Service that Bruce was “the single crucial reason” for the rekindling of Methodism in Russia. Today there’s a seminary in Moscow preparing Eurasians to serve in some 100 congregations in the region, all because of Bruce's diligence.

Phil Susag

Phil Susag’s service to Methodism may have seemed less world-shaking than Bruce Weaver’s, but it differed only in location and renown. Phil could rightly have been called “Mr. Methodism” during his prime in the Northeastern Jurisdiction. Above all, he represented the kind of deep unwavering devotion to the institutional church that is rarely seen today, and may not be seen in the future unless something changes soon.

I always thought of Phil as “elfin.” He wasn’t a tall man physically, but his spirit was enormous; it shined out through the toothy grin that split his beard. His voice could be raspy, as it was on the August day he called and asked me, two months after I’d left the Reporter, “You want a job?”

Phil’s career was as wide-ranging as Bruce Weaver’s. After graduating from the University of Minnesota with a bachelor’s degree in engineering, Phil embarked on a 38-year career with Pratt and Whitney Aircraft as an engineer and engineering supervisor. He worked on assignments in Seattle, Los Angeles, and Fort Worth, and overseas in France and in England in collaboration with Rolls Royce. His engineering skills and his work in multiple cultures fed into his true love: making his community better in response to Jesus’ instruction to love God and neighbor.

Consider this list of accomplishments from Phil’s obituary:

“His public service included a term on the Manchester Board of Education, Chairman of a long-term planning project known as Agenda for Tomorrow for Manchester, and as a member and president of the Manchester Community Services Council. He was also involved in Manchester Community Interfaith Services. His commitment to his local church, the New England Conference of the United Methodist Church, and the greater United Methodist Church was far-reaching.

“A 73-year member of South United Methodist Church, he served as property manager for several years, and participated and led in many other capacities. He was engaged with Preachers’ Aid Society of New England, United Methodist Foundation of New England, [General] Board of Global Ministries, the United Methodist Development Fund, and the [General] Board of Pensions. He was a corporator of Hartford Seminary, and a past president of the Connecticut Council of Churches. He and [his wife] Joanne traveled to World Methodist Conferences in Nairobi, Singapore, and Brighton [England].

“He also served as a long-time delegate to the General, [Jurisdictional] and Annual Conferences of the Methodist Church. He was a founder of Aldersbridge Communities (formerly United Methodist ElderCare), a retirement community in East Providence, RI. In 2000, he was elected Vice President of the Boston Wesleyan Association. In that role, he helped revive and publish Zion’s Herald (later renamed The Progressive Christian Magazine), an award-winning national journal for people of faith seeking the common good through reflection, dialogue and responsible action.”

I’d known Phil from several General Conferences he’d attended as a delegate, but I really got to know him after taking the associate editor job he offered me in 2005. Phil was serving as Zion’s Herald’s publisher then, and Stephen Swecker was editor. Although he was careful not to overstep his administrative bounds, Phil did more than sign my paycheck. He respected me as a journalist and as a person. When we held planning sessions with a consultant, Phil encouraged me to contribute, even though as a junior editor I had little standing. No Christmas since 2005 has passed without a card, first from Phil and his beloved Joanne, and then from Phil alone, up through 2018.

Not until the sad 2011 demise of our magazine, which by then had been renamed The Progressive Christian to avoid unsavory association with the word “Zionist,” did I learn that Phil had personally guaranteed a $50,000 loan to keep the magazine going after the Boston Wesleyan Association spent all its reserves. Not being privy to the association’s financials, I don’t know if that loan was ever repaid. Maybe that didn’t matter so much to Phil in the end; he put his treasure where his heart was, as Jesus counseled. Perhaps that was enough.

I don’t know what Bruce Weaver’s beliefs on LGBTQ acceptance were. I know that Phil was a staunch LGBTQ ally and worked hard to get the UMC’s LGBTQ prohibitions removed from the Book of Discipline. What I know unequivocally is this: both men gave their lives to The United Methodist Church because they believed it to be a faithful expression of God’s love through Jesus Christ. I pray that their legacies, and those of countless other servants of God, will be remembered over these next tumultuous days in St. Louis when the UMC's unity and justice will be decided.

Well done, Bruce and Phil. Enter into the joy of your Master.

Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor and Founder of United Methodist Insight. She was the first woman to be named Editor of the United Methodist Reporter in its 168-year history, and the second woman to be named Editor of Zion’s Herald (The Progressive Christian) in its 176-year history. Information from a United Methodist News Service report on Bruce Weaver was used in this article.