Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

John G. McEllhenney, Cornwall Manor, Bradley Hall 104, 1 Boyd Street, Cornwall, PA 17016-0125

Charles Yrigoyen, Jr., a retired clergy member of the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference has been a local church pastor, college teacher and chaplain, and for twenty-four years the General Secretary of the General Commission on Archives and history. He has taught at five theological seminaries and has written or edited eight books and numerous articles. (rtf photo available)

Kenneth E. Rowe, a retired clergy member of the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, the premier bibliographer of American United Methodism, was for 31 years Methodist Librarian and Professor of Church History at Drew University, as well as Professor of Church History in the Theological and Graduate Schools. He is also Emeritus Professor of Church History and Methodist Archives Librarian at Drew University Theological School in Madison, New Jersey.

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United Methodism at Forty

Abingdon Press

Chapter One

The United Methodist Church was created in 1968 by a union of the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church. Both uniting denominations were mergers of former churches. In 1939 a Methodist union brought together the Methodist Episcopal Church; the Methodist Protestant Church; and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The Evangelical United Brethren Church was formed in 1946 when the Evangelical Church and the Church of the United Brethren in Christ constituted a new denomination. What follows is a brief historical overview of the origins and development of the two churches that formed United Methodism, including points of contact between their predecessors over the years. It places the denominational union into a wider historical context.

Methodism is deeply rooted in the eighteenth-century evangelical revival in England and in the ministry of John Wesley (1703–91) and his younger brother Charles (1707–88). Born and raised in Epworth, England, by their father, Samuel, a Church of England clergyman, and their devout mother, Susanna, the brothers were classically educated at Oxford University, ordained into the priesthood of the Church of England, together were short-term missionaries to the American colony of Georgia, and had transforming religious experiences in May 1738. In the years following, thousands were influenced by their gospel preaching. Those who desired to follow the Wesleyan pattern of discipleship were organized into Methodist societies each of which was composed of smaller groups for worship, fellowship, nurture, and ministry.

At its beginning the Wesleyan brand of Methodism was intended not to be a church, but a renewal movement within the Church of England under the leadership of the Wesley brothers. John was the movement's principal theological leader, writer, preacher, and organizer. Charles, also an effective preacher, was its poet, much of his work surviving today in the hymn books of almost every Christian church.

Major emphasis in the Wesleys' understanding of the Christian faith was placed on the transforming grace of God and free human response to it in holiness of heart and life—loving God with all one is and has, and loving neighbor, which included everyone, as oneself. The holiness that the Wesleys proclaimed in word and song was nurtured by Bible study, prayer, the Lord's Supper, worship, and Christian fellowship. Holy living, the result of a life transformed and sustained by God's grace, was both personal and social. It was demonstrated in works of ministry such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, welcoming the homeless, and visiting the sick and imprisoned (Matthew 25:31-46). John Wesley established a pattern of social engagement by establishing free medical clinics at his chapels, giving generously to the poor, visiting prisons, opposing slavery, founding a school, and providing shelter for widows and orphaned children.

Methodism was organized in America in the 1760s by laypeople, immigrants from Ireland and England. As the movement took hold in the colonies, John Wesley dispatched lay missionary-preachers to supervise its growth. One of these missionary-preachers was Francis Asbury (1745–1816), who with Thomas Coke (1747–1814) became American Methodism's primary leaders. In 1784 Wesley assented to the request of the American Methodists to form a church, which they organized in Baltimore, Maryland, at what is known as the Christmas Conference. The new body was named the Methodist Episcopal Church and grew significantly during its earlier decades. Matters of governance and race, however, caused divisions, two of which were the Methodist Protestant Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. These three—the Methodist Episcopal Church; the Methodist Protestant Church; and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South—were rejoined in 1939 as the Methodist Church.

Predecessors of the Evangelical United Brethren Church were the Church of the United Brethren in Christ and the Evangelical Church. Both were born in the evangelical experiences of their founders and a desire to minister to the spiritual needs of the German-speaking inhabitants after the United States became a nation.

Philip William Otterbein (1726–1813) and Martin Boehm (1725–1812) founded the United Brethren tradition. Otterbein, university educated at Herborn, a Pietist school in Germany that emphasized a personal experience of God's grace, was ordained in the German Reformed Church; commissioned as a missionary to America, arriving in 1752; and began a pastorate in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. While serving there his ministry was permanently changed by a fresh experience of God's redemptive love. Later, in a revival meeting at Isaac Long's barn near Lancaster in 1767, Otterbein heard the preaching of Martin Boehm, a Mennonite. Profoundly moved by Boehm's sermon, he approached the Anabaptist preacher, embraced him, and declared, "Wir sind brüder!" ("We are brethren!"). This encounter marks the beginning of their important partnership and is considered a key event in United Brethren history. Otterbein's ministry culminated in a forty-year pastorate to a German Reformed congregation in Baltimore, Maryland, which began in 1774. There his program for church renewal blossomed and he became the leader of an evangelical movement among German preachers.

Martin Boehm was born of Mennonite parents in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. For a time he was a Mennonite bishop. Sometime before his meeting with Otterbein in 1767, Boehm experienced a personal assurance of God's presence and power, which led him to preach with new confidence and enthusiasm.

After their 1767 meeting at Long's barn both Otterbein and Boehm proclaimed a message of God's love in Christ and gradually gathered people into groups whose desire was to worship and serve with others of a similar mind. A few were convinced of God's call to preach and desired to unite under the direction of Otterbein and Boehm. In 1800, thirteen preachers, including Otterbein and Boehm, met in a private home in Frederick, Maryland; constituted themselves a church; and agreed to meet annually. Otterbein and Boehm were chosen to superintend the ministry of the new church. A Book of Discipline was adopted in 1815, and following the deaths of the two leaders the influence of the church matured and expanded under the direction of Christian Newcomer (1749–1830).

The Church of the United Brethren in Christ was divided in 1889 over a modification of its constitution and the church's position on secret societies, especially membership in the Freemasons. Those who wished to retain the present constitution and prohibit membership to those who were members of secret societies separated to form the Church of the United Brethren in Christ (Old Constitution). Bishop Milton Wright, father of Orville and Wilbur, was a leader of the seceding group.

Jacob Albright (1759–1808), who had been raised Lutheran in eastern Pennsylvania, was the founder of the Evangelical Church. A farmer, tile-maker, and Revolutionary War veteran, Albright had a conversion experience in 1791 and afterward was nurtured by Methodists in one of their small group meetings. Albright's deep concern for the spiritual condition of the churchless German-speaking led him...