Methodist Episcopal Church

For individual churches named Methodist Episcopal Church, see Methodist Episcopal Church (disambiguation).

Methodist Episcopal Church
Classification	Protestant
Orientation	Methodism
Polity	Connectionalism (Modified episcopal polity)
Origin	December 1784 Baltimore, Maryland, United States
Separated from	Church of England
Separations	Republican Methodist Church (1792)

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The Methodist Episcopal Church was the first Methodist denomination founded in the United States. In the early 19th century, it was the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. The Methodist Episcopal Church existed from 1784 until 1939, when it merged with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South and the Methodist Protestant Church to form the Methodist Church. In 1968, the Methodist Church merged with the Evangelical United Brethren Church to form the present-day United Methodist Church.

History

Further information: History of Methodism in the United States

Background (1766–1783)

Philip Embury preaching during the first Methodist meeting in New York City

The Methodist Episcopal Church originated from the spread of Methodism outside of England to the Thirteen Colonies in the 1760s. Methodism grew out of the ministry of John Wesley, a priest in the Church of England (also known as the Anglican Church) who preached an evangelical message centered on justification by faith, repentance, the possibility of having assurance of salvation, and the doctrine of Christian perfection.

Wesley was loyal to the Anglican Church, and he organized his followers into parachurch societies and classes with the goal of promoting spiritual revival within the Church of England. While Wesley recruited lay preachers for itinerant ministry, members of Methodist societies were expected to attend and receive Holy Communion in their local parish church.

Around fifteen or twenty societies formed a circuit. Anywhere from two to four itinerant or traveling preachers would be assigned to a circuit on a yearly basis to preach and supervise the societies within their circuit. One itinerant preacher in each circuit would be made the "assistant" (because he was an assistant to Wesley), and he would direct the activities of the other itinerant preachers in the circuit, who were called "helpers". Wesley gave out preaching assignments at an annual conference.

In 1769, Wesley sent itinerants Robert Williams, Richard Boardman, and Joseph Pilmore to oversee Methodists in America after learning that societies had already been organized there as early as 1766 by Philip Embury, Robert Strawbridge, and Thomas Webb. In 1773, Wesley appointed Thomas Rankin general assistant, placing him in charge of all the Methodist preachers and societies in America. On July 4, 1773, Rankin presided over the first annual conference on American soil at Philadelphia. At that time there were 1,160 Methodists in America led by ten lay preachers. Itinerant Methodist preachers would become known as circuit riders.

Methodist societies in America also operated within the Church of England. There were several Anglican priests who supported the work of the Methodists, attending Methodist meetings and administering the sacraments to Methodists. These included Charles Pettigrew of North Carolina, Samuel Magaw of Dover and then Philadelphia, and Uzel Ogden of New Jersey. Anglican clergyman Devereux Jarratt (1733–1801) was a particularly active supporter, founding Methodist societies in Virginia and North Carolina.

Establishment (1784)

Lovely Lane Church in Baltimore. The current structure was built in 1884.

The American Revolution severed ties to England and left America's Anglican Church in disarray. Due to the scarcity of Anglican ministers, Methodists in the United States were unable to receive the sacraments of baptism and Holy Communion. On September 1, 1784, Wesley responded to this situation by personally ordaining two Methodists as elders for America, with the right to administer the sacraments, and also ordained Thomas Coke (who was already an Anglican priest) as a superintendent with authority to ordain other Methodist clergy.

Because Wesley was not a bishop, his ordination of Coke and the others was not recognized by the Church of England, and, consequently, this marked American Methodism's separation from the Anglican Church. Wesley's actions were based in his belief that the order of bishop and priest were one and the same, so that both possess the power to ordain others.

The founding conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, known commonly as the Christmas Conference, was held December 1784 at Lovely Lane Chapel in Baltimore, Maryland. At this founding conference, Coke ordained Francis Asbury, as co–superintendent according to Wesley's wishes. Asbury had been serving as general assistant since Rankin returned to England.

The conference adopted Articles of Religion prepared by Wesley (and adapted from the Church of England's Thirty-nine Articles) as a doctrinal statement for the new church, and it also received an abridged version of the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer provided by Wesley, titled The Sunday Service of the Methodists in North America. It also adopted an organization consisting of superintendents, elders, deacons, traveling preachers, and local preachers (preachers were not ordained and could not administer sacraments). In the year of its founding, the church claimed 14,986 members and 83 preachers.

Early characteristics

Early Methodists were drawn from the ranks of slaves, poor whites, and "middling people"—artisans, shopkeepers, petty merchants and small planters. These social classes were attracted to Methodism's condemnation of the worldliness of the gentry. Slaves and free blacks were especially attracted to the Methodist Episcopal Church's condemnation of slavery. Prominent Methodists such as Coke, Asbury, and Freeborn Garrettson preached an antislavery message, and the Christmas Conference mandated that all Methodist laity and preachers emancipate their slaves. While African Americans were not yet ordained and classes were segregated by race, important African–American leaders did emerge, such as Harry Hosier who was an associate of Asbury and Coke.

Because of Methodism's conscious repudiation of upper class values and lifestyles, elite women who converted took on a revolutionary character. While women were not granted formal leadership roles (though some were class leaders occasionally), they played important roles in evangelization through class relations, family networks, correspondence, and in the home. It was common for both women and slaves to publicly deliver exhortations—testimonials and personal conversion narratives distinguishable from sermons because exhorters did not "take a text" from the Bible.

Meetings and services were often characterized by extremely emotional and demonstrative styles of worship. As part of the conversion experience, people often trembled, groaned, screamed, or fell motionless to the ground as if dead. These bodily experiences as well as Methodist ascetic practices and claims of receiving direct communication from the Holy Spirit inspired its opponents to accuse Methodism of being a form of religious enthusiasm that caused insanity. Because of its Arminian doctrines, the evangelistic work of the Methodist Episcopal Church was often opposed by Calvinists.

Growth, the first General Conference, and the O'Kelly Schism (1785–1792)

Year	Membership
1784	14,986
1785	18,000
1786	20,681
1787	25,842
1788	37,354
1789	43,262
1790	57,631
1791	63,269
1792	65,980
1793	67,643
1794	66,608
1795	60,291
1796	56,664
1797	58,663
1798	60,169
1799	61,351
1925	4,516,806
1929	4,589,664
1931	4,135,775
1933	4,140,152
1935	4,345,108
1937	4,364,342

Coke had returned to Britain in 1785 but arrived back in the United States in 1787 with written instructions from Wesley. Wesley ordered the holding of a conference and that Richard Whatcoat be appointed a superintendent. At the conference, James O'Kelly and Jesse Lee led opposition to Coke and to Wesley’s authority. Many preachers were offended that Coke and Wesley seemed to be taking decision making out of the hands of the American church. They also feared that Whatcoat's appointment would lead to the recall of Asbury, and this led the conference to reject Whatcoat's appointment (Whatcoat would later be elected bishop in 1800). In 1788, the title of superintendent was changed to bishop.

Coke's reputation among American Methodists furthered suffered when his secret negotiations for a union with the Episcopal Church (as American Anglicans now styled themselves) were discovered. Coke had written and met with William White, the first Episcopal presiding bishop, discussing the possible lowering of Episcopal ministerial standards, the reordination of Methodist preachers, and the reconsecration of Coke and Asbury as Episcopal bishops. When Asbury learned of the negotiations, he blocked the merger plan from being considered.

Despite controversies over authority, the Methodist Episcopal Church continued to enjoy growth. By 1788, there were 37,354 members, of which 6,545 were African American. The number of circuits had grown to 85 and the number of annual conferences had grown to six. A year later, the number of annual conferences had increased to eleven. The church's reach also began to significantly expand beyond the Appalachian and Allegheny Mountain ranges. In 1791, a circuit was established in Upper Canada by William Losee. It was during this time that the first Methodist college in America was established, the short–lived Cokesbury College in Maryland.

The growth of the church revealed problems with the church's decision-making process. Each annual conference had to agree on legislation before it was enacted, but this became unwieldy when the number of conferences grew to eleven. The need for a centralized policy-making body led to the creation of a council of bishops and presiding elders (who supervised multi-circuit districts) in 1789, but this body was soon abolished after meeting only twice.

After the failure of the council, a General Conference was held in November 1792 at Baltimore. This first General Conference gave itself legislative power over the church, determined to meet every four years, and decided membership for general and annual conferences would include all elders, deacons, and traveling preachers. Laity and local preachers were denied voting rights.

At the General Conference, a dispute emerged over the power of bishops to assign preachers to circuits. O'Kelly and his supporters wanted the right to appeal assignments to the conference, but this proposal was defeated. In response, they left to form the Republican Methodist Church, initiating the first schism in American Methodism. As reflected in their name, Republican Methodists desired a more egalitarian church and objected to the centralized governance and episcopal polity of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The Methodist Episcopal Church lost one-fifth of its members and would not begin to experience growth again until 1800. In 1801, the Republican Methodists rejected the Methodist label and later merged with other groups to become the Christian Connection. This group was a predecessor body to the United Church of Christ.

Organizational development, African Methodists and the camp meeting (1793–1812)

Built in 1769, St. George's Church in Philadelphia is the oldest Methodist church in continuous use in the United States.

The second General Conference was held at Baltimore in October 1796. It reduced the number of annual conferences to six and, for the first time, gave them geographical boundaries. With the drawing of definite borders, it would become understood that preachers belonged to a specific annual conference. The General Conference also required that local church property be held in trust for the Methodist Episcopal Church. Local preachers were made eligible for ordination as deacons after four years of service.

Another bishop was found necessary to aid Asbury due to Coke's frequent trips to Britain; Coke was regarded as a leading figure in Britain's Wesleyan Methodist Church, which itself split from the Anglican Church after Wesley's death in 1791. At the third General Conference held in May 1800, Richard Whatcoat was finally elected and consecrated the third bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. For the first time, bishops were authorized to ordain African-American men as local deacons.

Richard Allen of Philadelphia was the first to be ordained under this rule. Earlier in 1794, Allen had led other African-American members to withdraw from St. George's Church in response to racial discrimination by white church members. Under Allen's leadership, they founded Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church with Asbury's blessing and remained a member congregation of the Methodist Episcopal Church until 1816.

Since the annual conferences were given geographical boundaries in 1796, they increasingly acted like states, demanding proportional representation in General Conference. Because General Conference met frequently in Baltimore, it was often dominated by the conferences closest to that city, the Philadelphia and Baltimore conferences. At the 1804 General Conference, these two conferences together had 70 preachers present, while the other five conferences combined had only 42 preachers present. To solve this problem, delegated representation for General Conference was introduced in 1808. Each annual conference was entitled to send one representative for every five conference members. The "Restrictive Regulations" were also adopted at this time. These rules, which were regarded as the church's constitution, prohibited the General Conference from modifying the church's doctrinal standards and episcopal government. William McKendree was elected the fourth bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the first American-born bishop to replace the deceased Whatcoat.

The Presbyterian-led Cane Ridge Revival of 1801 birthed the first definitive camp meeting in American history, and this multi-day revivalistic event would be enthusiastically adopted by the Methodist Episcopal Church. For Methodists, these meetings were important evangelistic tools, but they were often criticized for the emotionalism and enthusiasm displayed, such as crying, shouting, jerking and falling. Methodist leaders such as Asbury expected order to be maintained, but they were not opposed to the emotional effects often seen in these meetings. Other Methodists, such as John Fanning Watson, disagreed. In his book Methodist Error; or, Friendly, Christian Advice: To Those Methodists Who Indulge in Extravagant Religious Emotions and Bodily Exercises, published anonymously in 1814, Watson argued that such emotional displays were not appropriate on the part of converted Christians in public worship but should be restricted to the time of conversion or, for those already converted, to private devotion at home.

While historians have emphasized the importance of camp meetings on the American frontier, camp meetings were vibrant parts of Methodist community life in the more settled areas along the East Coast as well. For example, some of the most significant meetings at the start of the 19th century occurred on the Delmarva Peninsula, a place that became known as the "Garden of Methodism". Camp meetings were often held simultaneously with Methodist quarterly meetings (circuit business meetings held four times each year). In America, quarterly meetings had already evolved into two-day religious festivals, so it became standard practice for quarterly conferences to make one of their warm-weather sessions a camp meeting. By 1811, Methodists held 400 to 500 camp meetings annually, and historian Nathan Hatch estimates that these events drew in over one million people annually.

An 1819 engraving of a Methodist camp meeting

North and South split

The church split over the question of slavery in 1844 with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South being formed in southern states.

Germans

In the late 1840s, separate Conferences were formed for German-speaking members of the Methodist Episcopal Church who were not members of the Evangelical Association or the United Brethren in Christ (later merged to form the Evangelical United Brethren (EUB)). Among these was the St. Louis German Conference, which in 1925 was assimilated into the surrounding English-speaking conferences, including the Illinois Conference.

Civil War and Reconstruction

Many Northerners had only recently become religious (thanks to the Second Great Awakening) and religion was a powerful force in their lives. No denomination was more active in supporting the Union than the Methodist Episcopal Church. Carwardine argues that for many Methodists, the victory of Lincoln in 1860 heralded the arrival of the kingdom of God in America. They were moved into action by a vision of freedom for slaves, freedom from the terror unleashed on godly abolitionists, release from the Slave Power's evil grip on the state, and a new direction for the Union. Methodists formed a major element of the popular support for the Radical Republicans with their hard line toward the white South. Dissident Methodists left the church.

The denominations all sent missionaries, teachers and activists to the South to help the Freedmen. Only the Methodists made many converts, however. Activists sponsored by Northern Methodist Church played a major role in the Freedmen's Bureau, notably in such key educational roles as the Bureau's state superintendent or assistant superintendent of education for Virginia, Florida, Alabama and South Carolina.

During Reconstruction the Methodists moved into a dozen Southern cities to seize control, with Army help, of churches and other buildings that had belonged to the southern branch of the church. In a highly controversial move, the Northern Methodists used the Army to seize control of Methodist churches in large cities, over the vehement protests of the Southern Methodists. Historian Ralph Morrow reports:

A War Department order of November, 1863, applicable to the Southwestern states of the Confederacy, authorized the Northern Methodists to occupy "all houses of worship belonging to the Methodist Episcopal Church South in which a loyal minister, appointed by a loyal bishop of said church, does not officiate."

Across the North the Methodists were strong supporters of Radical policies. The Methodist family magazine Ladies' Repository promoted Christian family activism. Its articles provided moral uplift to women and children. It portrayed the War as a great moral crusade against a decadent Southern civilization corrupted by slavery. It recommended activities that family members could perform in order to aid the Union cause. The focus on social problems paved the way for the Social Gospel movement a few years later. Matthew Simpson, a famous Bishop, played a leading role in mobilizing the Northern Methodists for the cause. His biographer calls him the "High Priest of the Radical Republicans." The Methodist Ministers Association of Boston, meeting two weeks after Lincoln's assassination, called for a hard line against the Confederate leadership:

Resolved, That no terms should be made with traitors, no compromise with rebels.... That we hold the National authority bound by the most solemn obligation to God and man to bring all the civil and military leaders of the rebellion to trial by due course of law, and when they are clearly convicted, to execute them.

Holiness movement

Main article: Holiness movement

In 1895, during the 19th century Holiness movement, Methodist Episcopal minister Phineas F. Bresee founded the Church of the Nazarene in Los Angeles with the help of Joseph Pomeroy Widney. The Church of the Nazarene separated over a perceived need to minister further to the urban poor, the origins of its Nazarene name. Several other churches, roughly 15 holiness denominations that had also split from the Methodist Episcopal Church, joined the Church of the Nazarene in 1907 and 1908, and it became international soon thereafter. The new Church of the Nazarene retained the Methodist Episcopal tradition of education and now operates 56 educational institutions around the world, including eight liberal arts colleges in the United States, each tied to an "educational region".

Divisions and mergers

The following list notes divisions and mergers that occurred in Methodist Episcopal Church history.

1767: The Rev. Philip William Otterbein, (1726-1813) of Baltimore and Martin Boehm started Methodist evangelism among German-speaking immigrants to form the United Brethren in Christ. This development had to do only with language. Methodist Episcopal Bishop Francis Asbury later preached at Otterbein's 1813 funeral. In 1968 it merged to form the United Methodist Church.

1784: Historic "Christmas Conference" held at Lovely Lane Chapel in waterfront Baltimore (at Lovely Lane, off German (now Redwood) Street between South Calvert Street and South Street)and convened to organize the future Methodist Episcopal Church and also several ministers ordain Francis Asbury as bishop.

1793: The first recognized split from the Methodist Episcopal Church was led by a preacher named James O'Kelly who wanted clergy to be free to refuse to serve where the bishop appointed them. He organized the "Republican Methodists," later called simply the Christian Church or Christian Connection, that through its successors and mergers eventually became part of the future United Church of Christ in 1957.

1800: The Evangelical Association was organized by Jacob Albright to serve German-speaking Methodists.

1816: The African Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in Philadelphia by Richard Allen for Wesley followers/African-Americans. Bishop Francis Asbury had ordained him earlier in 1799.

1820: The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was organized in New York.

1828: The Canadians formed their own Methodist Church.

1828: The Methodist Protestant Church split off under Nicholas Snethen, who had earlier argued against the O'Kelly split, along with Asa Shinn. The issue was the role of laity in governance of the church. In 1939, it merged.

1843: The Wesleyan Methodist Church was organized. In 1968, the Wesleyan Methodist and Pilgrim Holiness denominations merged to form the Wesleyan Church.

1844: The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, split off because of the slavery controversy. Briefly, during the American Civil War, 1861-1865, it adopted the title of "The Methodist Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America". In 1939, it merged into The Methodist Church, (which endures until 1968 and a subsequent merger with the Evangelical United Brethren Church forming the current U.M.C.).

1860: The Free Methodist Church was organized by B. T. Roberts and others. The differences centered around a traditional/rural vs. modern/urban ethos.

1870: The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church was organized from the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, to serve African-American Methodists. Later changed its name to Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.

1895: The Church of the Nazarene was organized by Phineas F. Bresee.

1895: Fire Baptized Holiness Church

1897: Pentecostal Holiness Church of North Carolina. Merged with the Fire Baptized Holiness Church in 1911 and formed what is now known as the International Pentecostal Holiness Church.

1897: The Pilgrim Holiness Church was organized.

1939: The Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and the Methodist Protestant Church merged to form The Methodist Church.

1946: The Evangelical Church (Albright's Evangelical Association) and Otterbein's heritage in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ merged to form the Evangelical United Brethren Church.

1968: The Evangelical United Brethren Church and The Methodist Church merged to form The United Methodist Church.

See also

• Wesleyanism

Bibliography

• Allen, Philip J. (July 1962). "Growth of Strata in Early Organizational Development". American Journal of Sociology 68 (1): 34–46. JSTOR 2774178. 
• Bangs, Nathan (1839). A History of the Methodist Episcopal Church 1 (3rd ed.). New York City: T. Mason and G. Lane. 
• Bangs, Nathan (1860). A History of the Methodist Episcopal Church 2 (6th ed.). New York City: Carlton and Porter. 
• Georgian, Elizabeth A. (2012). "'That Unhappy Division': Reconsidering the Causes and Significance of the O'Kelly Schism in the Methodist Episcopal Church". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 120 (3): 210–235. JSTOR 41636705. 
• Noll, Mark A. (2004). The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield and the Wesleys. Inter–Varsity. ISBN 1-84474-001-3. 
• Richey, Russell E.; Rowe, Kenneth E.; Schmidt, Jean Miller (2010). American Methodism: A Compact History. Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press. ISBN 978-1-4267-4227-9. 
• Taves, Ann (1999). Fits, Trances, and Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691010243. 
• Vickers, Jason E., ed. (2013). The Cambridge Companion to American Methodism. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-40105-1. 
• Wainwright, Geoffrey (1999). "Methodism". In McGrath, Alister E. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought. Blackwell Publishers. 
• Wigger, John H. (1998). Taking Heaven by Storm: Methodism and the Rise of Popular Christianity in America. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0252069943. 
• Woolverton, John Frederick (1984). Colonial Anglicanism in North America. Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University Press. ISBN 9780814317556. 

Further reading

• Cameron, Richard M. (ed.) (1961) Methodism and Society in Historical Perspective, 4 vol., New York: Abingdon Press
• Hatch, Nathan O. The Democratization of American Christianity (1989) credits the Methodists and Baptists for making Americans more equalitarian
• Lyerly, Cynthia Lynn Methodism and the Southern Mind, 1770-1810, (1998)
• Mathews, Donald G. Slavery and Methodism: A Chapter in American Morality, 1780-1845 (1965)
• Mathews-Gardner, A. Lanethea. "From Ladies Aid to NGO: Transformations in Methodist Women's Organizing in Postwar America," in Laughlin, Kathleen A., and Jacqueline L. Castledine, eds., Breaking the Wave: Women, Their Organizations, and Feminism, 1945-1985 (2011) pp. 99–112
• McDowell, John Patrick. The Social Gospel in the South: The Woman's Home Mission Movement in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 1886-1939 (1982)
• Meyer, Donald The Protestant Search for Political Realism, 1919-1941, (1988) ISBN 0-8195-5203-8
• Norwood, John Nelson. The Schism in the Methodist Episcopal Church 1844: A Study of Slavery and Ecclesiastical Politics (Porcupine Press, 1976)
• Richey, Russell E. Early American Methodism (1991)
• Richey, Russell E. and Kenneth E. Rowe, eds. Rethinking Methodist History: A Bicentennial Historical Consultation (1985), historiographical essays by scholars
• Schmidt, Jean Miller Grace Sufficient: A History of Women in American Methodism, 1760-1939, (1999)
• Schneider, A. Gregory. The Way of the Cross Leads Home: The Domestication of American Methodism (1993)
• Stevens, Abel. History of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States of America (1884) online
• Sweet, William Warren Methodism in American History, (1954) 472pp.
• Teasdale, Mark R. Methodist Evangelism, American Salvation: The Home Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1860-1920 (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2014)
• Tucker, Karen B. Westerfield. American Methodist Worship (2001)
• Wigger, John H. and Nathan O. Hatch, eds. Methodism and the Shaping of American Culture (2001)
• Yrigoyen Jr, Charles, and Susan E. Warrick. Historical dictionary of Methodism (Scarecrow Press, 2013)

Primary sources

• Norwood, Fredrick A., ed. Sourcebook of American Methodism (1982)
• Richey, Russell E., Rowe, Kenneth E. and Schmidt, Jean Miller (eds.) The Methodist Experience in America: a sourcebook, (2000) ISBN 978-0-687-24673-1. 756 p. of original documents
• Sweet, William Warren (ed.) Religion on the American Frontier: Vol. 4, The Methodists,1783-1840: A Collection of Source Materials, (1946) 800 p. of documents regarding the American frontier
• Wesleyan Methodist (1819). Methodist Error; or, Friendly, Christian Advice: To Those Methodists Who Indulge in Extravagant Religious Emotions and Bodily Exercises. Trenton, New Jersey: D. and E. Fenton. 

External links

• The Sunday Service of the Methodists in North America : With other Occasional Services — the first Methodist Episcopal liturgical book