Barneyisfat

"For me, the Social Principles of the Methodist Church have been as much a description of our history, as a prod for my future actions. We can find direction, if we look to the church's call to strengthen families and renew our schools and encourage policies that enable each child to have a chance to fulfill his or her God-given potential.
Now, it is not easy to do that. I don't think it ever has been. I believe if one looks back, not only into the Bible, but certainly since then, and reads the stories of John and Charles Wesley and looks to other church leaders in the last century, we know that acting on our faith is never easy. And it is often a test of our own resolve as much as anything else. I think of the stories that I heard even as a child of John Wesley preaching to people who did not want to hear him. There was that one memorable story of where they were throwing whiskey bottles at him. And I think to myself, how many of us, myself included, would even go into places now where we were likely to be the object of thrown whiskey bottles? Not many of us. And in part what we have to confront is our own willingness to take the blessings we have and take them into a world that is complex, often turns away, and may even be hostile.
But just look at the tradition we come from. We continue in this church to answer John Wesley's call to provide for the educational health and spiritual needs of children. We can be proud that our church has been a leader in the fight to improve the quality of education, promote parental responsibility, curb smoking among young people, expand comprehensive health care, strengthen marriages, and help people of all kinds of backgrounds. I'm heartened by the work I see being done in the communities of Shalom Initiative, where individual churches and churches in union are looking to transform just four city blocks in some instance.
But taking that responsibility on, being there one-on-one with people unlike ourselves, often. Letting people hear the message of the gospel as well as the example of our works. We'll do more to change lives than any program that could passed by any legislative body." 

- Hillary Rodham Clinton, addressing the 1996 General Conference of the United Methodist Church.