“Winning” the Methodists the Last Major Battleground to Enlist the Religious Community’s Support for the Boycott

Abstract

One of the major components of INFACT’s strategy to mobilize public opinion against Nestle was to enlist the support of the organized religious community. INFACT had strong ties with ICCR and, through it, with the National Council of Churches (NCC). By 1980, INFACT could claim “hundreds of church groups” among those who supported its boycott. Nevertheless, INFACT lacked the official support of one of the largest mainline Protestant denominations, the United Methodist Church (UMC), although it had already received formal endorsement of more than 30 annual conferences (state and regional bodies) of UMC, and two of its primary program agencies involved in Third World and poverty-related issues, General Board of Church and Society (GBC&S) and General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM). Therefore, INFACT and its supporters decided to get this endorsement at the UMC’s General Conference in 1980. Held once every four years, this general conference acts as the principal legislative body of the church. The activists had, as yet, not succeeded in one of their foremost objective — bringing Nestle to the negotiating table to deal directly with