“Church renewal” is widely discussed across Methodism today, and yet such renewal will not happen apart from serious engagement with and from the margins of society. In The People Called Metodista, Dean Edgardo Colón-Emeric looks to the experiences of Methodists in Latin American pueblos and Hispanic barrios to open new scholarly conversations about doctrine, worship, and mission for the sake of social renewal.
Through a series of essays, the book explores Hispanic voices from the margins for insights into the entire Methodist movement. Ken Carter, resident bishop of the Florida Conference and Western North Carolina Conference of The United Methodist Church, says of the book, "If Methodism is a renewal movement, voices speaking to us from the margins will lead us to new insight and to holy living."
The flames of renewal do not confine themselves to Methodism. But from the people called metodista they can spread, sharing in the Wesleyan movement’s fundamental calling to revitalize the church universal in its mission to the world.
Edgardo Colón-Emeric is dean of Duke Divinity School and the Irene and William McCutchen Associate Professor of Reconciliation and Theology, director of the Duke Center for Reconciliation, and senior strategist for the Hispanic House of Studies.