I vaguely remember people talking about the war between the Methodists and the Presbyterians. The AG may appear monolithic to outsiders but in reality it was created by the amalgamation of persons of various denominational backgrounds, including both Methodists and Presbyterians among various others, all united by the theme of the shared Pentecostal experience. Some time ago, perhaps 20 years ago, there was some sort of war between various factions within the AG. This is problematic because often we do not know who belongs to what faction. It is not apparent from the skin color or outward appearances or even associations of the various persons. I was somehow told that I would be discarded as a Methodist witch woman even though I have no Methodist background or associations and have no clue what they are talking about. The only Methodist link that I can think of is that my Dad's cousin Suzanne attended the University of Southern California, which is of Methodist origin, at some time back in the 1960s even though we were never Methodists. It was just her choice of college. I don't know anything about that. I barely knew the San Diego relatives and saw them only a handful of times in my lifetime.
Interestingly, in recent research we now learn of the existence of Ray Earl Gardner, whose parents were actually of Presbyterian background and were missionaries in Foochow, China, later living in Claremont where exists a Methodist seminary of which there is no evidence that Gardner ever attended, and serving under the auspices of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions which is Congregational, which as far as I can tell is neither Methodist nor Presbyterian but somewhat interdenominational in its recruitment of teachers.
Interestingly, there was a Darrell Gardner who was a famous trumpet player and alumni of my college, Southern California College, which is AG, not Methodist or Presbyterian that I know of. I have no idea whether the trumpet player was in any way related to the Gardner family from China. It is not like I ever knew him personally. I only saw him maybe once when he came to the college to speak to students.
I also seem to remember a girl at SCC whose name was maybe Dara Gardner or something like that. She was a favorite of the Cederblom boys who invited her to go with them to churches and sing and give her testimony when they did their personal ministry and trumpet playing not in connection to the school. I don't know anything about that. I only remember Tim Cederblom explaining that they invited her to go with them because she has a testimony (the details of which I don't recall). I vaguely remember him introducing her to me and I said hello. That is about all I remember about that. I vaguely recall that Tim seemed a little perturbed that more conversation was not forthcoming from me in regards to Ms. Gardner but I really have nothing else to say about that. It is not like my future is in any way dependent on the Cederblom's opinion of anything. They don't know me anyway. It is not like we ever really talked.
