I just learned that a great leader of the United Methodist Church, a long-time faculty member at Wesley Theological Seminary, my academic adviser while there, and a good man has past away. The Rev. Dr. James Cecil Logan was E. Stanley Jones Professor Emeritus of Evangelism, after having been professor of Systematic Theology for a quarter century. Schooled in Florida, serving in Virginia, taught at Boston University by L. Harold DeWolfe and at Basel by Karl Barth, Dr. Logan was a student favorite not because he was a great teacher - all who had a class with him understood that - or a towering scholar - I only know of one book of his still in print, an edited collection of essays on Methodist history and evangelism - but because he really cared about us.
His first love, though, was the United Methodist Church. He served it faithfully and well, turning down offers of Episcopal office over and over again so he could stay where he was. Not uncritical, he embodied true Christian love for the Church, wanting it to live up to its promise and potential.
When I started at Wesley, in the fall semester of 1990, he was then serving on the general committee that was reviewing the Discipline statements on homosexuality and the Church. He told me once, in a meeting in his office, that he was being forced for health reasons to step down; he also told me he was glad. The committee was bitterly divided between ideologues with far more interest in forwarding an agenda than prayerfully and lovingly studying and considering alternatives. He predicted there would be two reports, mutually exclusive, that would not move the denomination forward. His prediction came true a year and a half later when the committee released its report prior to the 1992 General Conference.
Also prior to the 1992 General Conference, he was offered the opportunity to sign The Memphis Declaration, an attempt by some folks to turn the United Methodist Church in to a confessional denomination. Historically, the UM Church and its predecessors had not unique confession; rather, like John Wesley, we much preferred to concentrate on living a Christian life in faith through grace than figuring out whether or not this clause in this sentence accurately reflects "Truth" about God or anyone else. The confessions we read together in worship are collected in the back of the UM Hymnal, and include the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed (which is really the Constantinopolitan Creed, which reaffirmed the statement from the Council of Nicaea), the Creed of the United Church of Canada, and several others. Dr. Logan understood the two-fold attempt to distort what the Church is, and to move a small group of southeastern conservatives in to a position of authority within the denomination. He also pointed out, off hand, that several of the clauses of the declaration, were rooted in historical heresies, and being a former professor of theology, it would be bad form to sign on to a heretical document.
He was asked to perform our wedding, but had to decline due to back surgery after initially agreeing to do so. Anyone who knew his history of health problem should understand.
It is a sad day for those of us left behind, but I also think we should all celebrate his life, his work for the United Methodist Church, for Wesley Theological Seminary, and for all the students who passed through his classes. I know of no one who would ever speak ill of him, even as we poked fun at his drawling, occasionally stuttering style of lecturing ("Uh, uh, uh . . ."). He was loved quite simply because the grace that saved him, gave him the strength to teach hundreds, perhaps thousands, of students over the decades, and we all were the richer for it.
