United Methodist Church

History

By Buddy Muhler

The[1] Methodist Church has, what I would call, a good size history.It dates back to 1784 when the Methodist Episcopal Church started in America.The Methodist Church, however, actually started in England.A man named John Wesley and his brother, Charles Wesley, founded the Methodist Church in England.They and several others were ridiculed in college.They were called Methodists for their methodical way of praying and reading the Bible.They[2] soon left England to come to America in hopes of witnessing to people there.In 1769, people in England wanted to send missionaries to America to witness to the local people.They ended up starting a Methodist Church.

Methodism[3] in America began as a lay movement.Some of the early leaders were Robert Strawbridge, Philip Embury, Barbara Heck, and Captain Thomas Webb.Strawbridge was an immigrant farmer who organized a church in Maryland and Virginia.Embury and his cousin Barbara Heck started work on a church in New York.The[4] church in New York was started in 1766.Thomas[5] Webb started work on a church in Philadelphia.

In 1771, a man named Francis Asbury came to America along with Richard Wright.They were lay preachers sent over by John Wesley.They were sent to under grid the growing American Methodist societies.Asbury shaped American Methodism through energetic devotion to the principles of Wesleyan theology, ministry, and organization.Asbury would become the most important figure in American Methodism.

There were two other churches that began in America soon after the Methodist church.The first was the United Brethren in Christ church.Philip William Otterbein and Martin Boehm founded this church.Otterbein was a German Reformed pastor and Boehm was a Mennonite.The two preached an evangelical message and experience similar to the Methodists.They formed a church in 1800.The second church was The Evangelical Association.Jacob Albright founded this church.He was a Lutheran farmer and tile maker in eastern Pennsylvania.This church formed in 1803.

The second Great Awakening was the dominant religious development for Protestants in America.Through revivals and camp meetings, sinners were brought to an experience of conversion.Lay pastors and circuit riding preachers wove them into a connection.Methodists, United Brethrens, and Evangelicals agreed with this style of Christian faith and discipline.Membership increased greatly during this period as well as the number of preachers.

They expected lay members and preachers to be seriously committed to their faith.The preachers were not only to possess divine calling and a sound conversation but were to demonstrate gifts and skills needed for an effective ministry.Their work was demanding and urgent, not to mention that the financial benefits were meager.However they often reminded each other, there was no work more important than theirs.

The spread of the Sunday school movement marked the early years of the nineteenth century.Sunday schools were encouraged everywhere they could be started and maintained by 1835.Sunday school became a principle source of prospective members for the church.

The churches’ became interested in education and established secondary schools and colleges.Methodists, Evangelicals, and United Brethrens instituted courses of study for their preachers by 1845.This was to ensure that they had a basic knowledge of the Bible, theology, and pastoral ministry.By 1841, each of the churches had started denominational missionary societies to provide funds for work in the U.S. and abroad and develop strategies.

The period of founding did not go without serious problems. A man named Richard Allen, an emphatic slave and Methodist preacher, organized The African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1816.He left the main body because he was mistreated due to his race.The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was started in 1821.That group left for similar reasons as Allen.Then, in 1830, about 5,000 preachers and laypeople left because the church would not grant representation to the laity or permit the election of presiding elders.This group called themselves The Methodist Protestant Church.

John Wesley and many leaders of early American Methodism had a deep hatred for slavery.As the nineteenth century went on, it was clear that tensions were mounting over the question of slavery.Because the Methodist Churches’ membership was not limited to region, class, or race, it reflected a national ethos.Eventually it would tear the church into a northern section and a southern section.

There[6] was not much of a problem on the slavery issue until the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions clashed in 1844.The[7] most serious problem was when James O. Andrew, one of the church’s five bishops acquired slaves through marriage.After a long debate, the General Conference decided to suspend Bishop Andrew from his Episcopal office as long as he would not free his slaves.A few days after this occurred; a plan of Separation was drafted.This would permit the annual conferences in slave holding states to separate from The Methodist Episcopal Church.This plan was adopted and the creation of The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, began.

On May of 1845, delegates from the southern states met in Louisville, Kentucky.Their first General Conference was held in Petersburg, Virginia.Here, a discipline and hymnbook was adopted.Through the years of Abraham Lincoln’s election in1860 and through the Civil War, the bitterness between the two churches intensified.Both churches claimed divine sanction for its region and prayed for God’s will to be accomplished in victory for its side.

During the Civil War, the membership of The Methodist Episcopal Church, South dropped to two-thirds its pre-war number.Many of its churches were either destroyed or ruined and a number of clergy were killed or wounded in the war.Yet over the following fifty years, the membership grew fourfold to over two million.The African American membership of The Methodist Episcopal Church, South had declined significantly before and during the war.In 1870, their General Conference voted to transfer all remaining African Americans to a new church.Then it was called The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, now it is called The Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.It was during this that Alejo Hernandez became the first ordained Hispanic preacher in Methodism.

Again the churches, both North and South, suffered splits.In 1897, a group broke off The Methodist Episcopal Church, South.It was called the Pilgrim Holiness Church.In 1860, a group split off the north section of the Methodist Episcopal Church. They were called the Free Methodist Church.Then in 1908, another group split off the Northern section of the Methodist Episcopal Church.They called themselves the Church of the Nazarene.

In 1916, representatives from The Methodist Protestant Church, The Methodist Episcopal Church, and The Methodist Episcopal Church, South met to discuss the possibility of merging into one church.By the 1930s, their plan contained splitting the United Church into six administrative units called jurisdictions.Many Methodist Protestants favored the union even though it meant accepting Episcopal government, which they hadn’t had since 1830.The[8] three churches officially united in April of 1939.They were now called The Methodist Church and had a membership of 7.7 million people.

After twenty years of negotiation, [9]The Evangelical Church and The United Brethren Church united to form one church.This church was now called The Evangelical United Brethren Church.This merger occurred on November 16, 1946.The [10]new church included 700,000 members.

The issue of clergy rights for women was greatly debated, especially in The Evangelical United Brethren Church.Before the merger, the Evangelical Church had never ordained women, however the United Brethren Church had since 1889.When the two merged, the United Brethrens accepted the Evangelicals way and took women’s right to be in the clergy away.The Methodists granted it in 1956.

In 1968, The Methodist Church and The Evangelical United Brethren Church united to form The United Methodist Church.Women were fully accepted in the clergy of The United Methodist Church.After the two churches merged, it had about eleven million members.This made it one of the largest Protestant churches in the world.

Since the merger in 1968, The United Methodist Church has expanded to Africa, Asia, and Europe.Even though membership has declined significantly in the U.S. and Europe, it has grown significantly in Africa and Asia.

In 1989, the church published a new hymnal, which included a new Psalter as well as revised liturgies for baptism, the Lord’s Supper, weddings, and funerals.In1996, a Spanish hymnal was published.It is called Mil Voces Para Celebrar.

Three forms of Christian practice have come together to make up what is known today as The United Methodist Church.The three forms are Methodism, the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, and The Evangelical Association.The joining of these three churches has made The United Methodist Church one that is global and strong in number.Therefore, the ministry touches the lives of many different cultures and races.
 
 
 
 

Bibliography

Davey, Cyril. John Wesley And The Methodists. Marshall Morgan and Scott/Abingdon

Press, 1985.

Evangelical United Brethren Church. (Online) Availablehttp://www.encyclopedia.com/articles/04287.html, 1994

Master, Frederick E. The Dramatic Story Of Early American Methodism. Abingdon

Press, 1965.

Porter, Rev. James. A Compendium Of Methodism. Nelson and Phillips, 1851.

United Methodist Communications. UMC History. (Online) Available

http://www.umc.org/abouttheumc/history/