This week in Christian history: Virginia bishop dies, Cardinal Richelieu born

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, September 03, 2023

Prominent Methodist Church bishop dies – Sept. 6, 1944

Methodist Bishop James Cannon (1864-1944), a controversial temperance reformer and progressive political activist. | Wikimedia Commons

This week marks the anniversary of when Virginia Bishop James Cannon, a prohibition advocate and polarizing leader in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, died from a heart attack.

The editor of multiple Christian publications who was elected bishop in 1918, Cannon was known for his staunch advocacy for prohibition and openly opposing the presidential campaign of Democrat Al Smith in 1928.

Cannon also helped oversee the construction of the Methodist retreat center at Lake Junaluska in North Carolina, advocated for the unification of the northern and southern wings of the denomination, and personally supervised mission work in Africa and Latin America.

“In private Cannon could be congenial and engaging, but his public persona was harsh and forbidding,” explained the Dictionary of Virginia Biography.

“Intense and confrontational by nature, he was a ruthless and resourceful political combatant, with a keen mind, an encyclopedic command of detail, and extraordinary self-control.”