Racism and the UMC

Someone asked me to provide a brief background of race and racism in the Methodist Church, and why there are separate African-American Methodist denominations, and so this last Wednesday of Black History Month seems like a good time to do that.

We should start with the fact that John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, was the first theologian of any stature or significance to come out in opposition to slavery. More importantly he did so on theological not economic grounds, saying that what he witnessed in slavery in America did not match his understanding of who God was or of God’s love. The last letter we have from Wesley was to William Wilberforce advocating him to continue in his fight to end slavery.

That anti-slavery position, among other things, led Methodism to have huge success in African-American communities, both freed and slaved, in the early days of the church. That included ordaining black preachers at the founding of the church in America in 1784, including Richard Allen.

Rev. Allen was involved in St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. After a renovation of the sanctuary, the black members of the congregation were told they were no longer welcome to sit on the ground floor, but would have to sit in the balcony. Because they had helped pay for the renovations, and because this was a change from what had happened before, they led a walkout and formed their own church. St. George’s claimed ownership of the black church, since they were still technically members of St. George’s, a claim that went to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, who ruled in favor of Richard Allen.

With that victory, now Bishop Allen formed the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME). Francis Asbury, one of the first bishops in America had been supportive of Allen, and was present at the dedication of their first church. Similar events led to the founding of other black Methodist denominations including the AME-Zion and the African Union Church.

Even though the Methodist church in America was founded in opposition to slavery, that quickly began to change as the movement spread through the mid-Atlantic and other southern slave holding states, leading to arguments, especially when we began to have slave-holding bishops. That led to a proposal at the 1844 General Conference to split, forming the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) and the Methodist Episcopal Church South (MECS), roughly along slave-holding lines although the boundaries were not as clean as everyone hoped. They were proceeded in this split by the Presbyterians, and the Baptist church split north and south shortly after the MEC.

Because the MECS did not want to have any blacks in their church, and especially not any black preachers, they formed the Colored MEC, which is now the Christian MEC. The AME and AME-Zion both tried to incorporate the Colored MEC churches into their denominations without much success.

Jumping forward into the 20^th century, in 1916 the MEC and MECS began conversations about reunification, but the question of what to do with the African-American members, preachers and soon bishops in the northern church became a point of contention. Several plans were proposed and rejected, until in 1935 a plan breaking the nation up into 6 administrative units, five by geography and one by race, was proposed. While that plan was adopted and the churches merged in 1939, the plan was rejected by all African-American delegates to the General Conference.

What the plan did was to combine all black churches and black congregations into the central conference so that no white church would ever be served by either a black minister or black bishop. It legislated segregation into the church both south and north. This plan was officially abolished when the United Methodist Church was formed in 1968, although it still continued to exist in reality through 1972. Our current Bishop was a member of the central conference where his father was a preacher.

Now obviously there is a lot more history there and we continue fighting some of these same struggles. I know that there are churches that refuse to accept African-American ministers or abuse the ones they do get. Just as there are still churches that fight against female clergy appointments. There are also churches that object to being led by African-American bishops. And those churches are both north and south. No one held or holds a monopoly on racism.

But, while we should recognize where we have fallen short, we should also note where the church fought racism and discrimination. Boston University, which was a Methodist school, was the first predominantly white school to hire a black dean of the chapel, which is the reason that Martin Luther King, Jr. went there to earn his Ph.D. and where he learned about non-violent protests.  A Methodist camp in Mississippi was the only place in the US where African-Americans had access to a beach on the Gulf of Mexico. To name just a few.

In 2000, the General Conference participated in a service of repentance for the church’s racism, and in 2004 they recognized those churches who stayed in spite of the racism that was directed at them. We have also begun doing acts of repentance for the role the church has played in racism towards indigenous tribes, which is not even covered here. We are making progress and we still have a long way to go, but, with God’s help, we will become the church that God has called us to be.