If any act of ecclesiastical separation renders a church invalid, the United Methodist Church is in a world of trouble. While the 1844 schism creating the Methodist Episcopal Church South is frequently brought up in contemporary discussions of the denomination’s identity and future, the most important act of separation is rarely mentioned. The Methodist Episcopal Church was born in an act of separation from the Church of England. Separation is in our DNA.
Methodism came into existence as a renewal movement within the Church of England and remained so until the American Revolution. In 1784 John Wesley ordained two men (Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey) as clergy for Methodists in the newly free colonies. He also appointed Thomas Coke (an ordained Anglican priest) as “superintendent” or bishop. Upon arriving in Baltimore, Coke called the American Methodists to assemble. Together, they established the Methodist Episcopal Church, ordained twelve additional elders and one additional bishop, Francis Asbury. With these extraordinary acts of ordination, Methodism ceased to be a movement in the Anglican communion and became a separate institution and a new denomination of Christianity.
Wesley, of course, had no authority to perform such an act within the canons of the Church of England. His authority, he believed, came from God through the scriptures and the extraordinary work that God was doing within the Methodist movement. In Wesley’s reading of the Bible, elders and bishops were members of the same order and elders had the right to ordain. In his role as overseer of the Methodist societies, Wesley saw himself as a functional bishop, responsible for those being saved outside the ordinary channels of ecclesiastical authority.
John Wesley’s brother Charles was appalled at what John had done. Charles, the author of so many beautiful Christian hymns, put his criticism of John in verse.
So easily are bishops made
by man’s, or woman’s whim?
Wesley his hands on Coke hath laid,
but who laid hands on him?Hands on himself he laid,
and took An Apostolic Chair:
And then ordain’d his Creature Coke
His Heir and Successor.
Charles’ thoughts on Bishop Asbury were even less charitable.
A Roman emperor ’tis said
His favourite horse a consul made
But Coke brings greater things to pass
He makes a bishop of an ass.
Both John and Charles Wesley were priests in the Church of England. Charles saw John’s deed as a violation of their ordination vows and an act of separation from the church.
Defenders of the Methodist ordinations claim exigent circumstances. Ordination was an act of necessity. The collapse of the Church of England in the newly independent states made it impossible for Methodists to attend their parish churches to receive baptism for their children or communion for themselves. Desperate times do call for desperate measures. The ordinary structures of the church are to be respected in ordinary circumstances, but the situation in post-revolutionary America was extraordinary.
In practice, though, Wesley’s ordinations were not simply a temporary response to an emergent situation. Wesley was miffed that the bishops in England wouldn’t consecrate clergy for the Americas and decided to make a point by taking matters into his own hands. The bishops’ reluctance, though, was not simply a matter of theological snobbery. The law limited their actions; bishops were required to swear allegiance to the king. The English church could not legally ordain bishops for the Americas until Parliament passed the Consecration of Bishops Abroad Act in 1786.
Wesley understood that he was creating a permanently independent church, and he saw that in positive terms. American Methodists could build a better, more scriptural church, free from the control of Parliament and the opposition of English bishops.
It has indeed been proposed to desire the English bishops to ordain part of our preachers for America. But to this I object, 1. I desired the Bishop of London to ordain one only, but could not prevail; 2. If they consented, we know the slowness of their proceedings; but the matter admits of no delay; 3. If they would ordain them now they would likewise expect to govern them. And how grievously would this entangle us! 4. As our American brethren are now totally disentangled, both from the state and from the English hierarchy, we dare not entangle them again, either with the one or the other. They are now at full liberty simply to follow the Scriptures and the primitive Church. And we judge it best that they should stand fast in that liberty wherewith God has so strangely made them free.
Despite Wesley’s protestations to the contrary (he asked one bishop!), there were Anglican efforts on both sides of the Atlantic in 1784 to provide clergy support for American Methodists.
When Samuel Seabury was elected as an Anglican bishop in Connecticut, he came to England seeking episcopal consecration. Seabury eventually found bishops in Scotland who would consecrate him. In 1784, at the same time John Wesley was performing his irregular ordinations, Seabury met with Charles Wesley in London and the two developed a plan by which Seabury would ordain Methodist preachers when he returned to America. John’s actions put an end to that. (More here.)
In December of 1784, two Anglican priests met with Coke and Asbury in Baltimore before the start of Methodism’s founding conference, known in Methodist circles as the Christmas Conference. The Anglican clergymen proposed to put Coke forward for proper consecration as bishop in a consolidated church, but they showed little interest in Asbury. Asbury, likewise, had little interest in them. Shortly thereafter, American Methodism declared its independence. (More here).
Francis Asbury had no desire to keep Methodists under Anglican control or to bring them back into the Anglican fold once the split had occurred. Asbury rebuffed a second proposal for a reunion in 1791. For Asbury, the differences ran too deep. Methodists came from a different class of people than most Anglicans and their preachers lacked the formal education required of priests. Methodists rejected the Book of Common Prayer (even the version Wesley sent) and disliked the formality of Anglican worship. The Methodist movement was exploding on the frontier and the Church of England moved much too slowly to keep up. Most importantly, many Methodists looked upon most Episcopalian clergy as unconverted, at least in the Methodist sense of that word. Asbury had far more influence on American Methodism than Coke, and with Asbury at the helm, the two church bodies would permanently go their separate ways.
The Methodist schism of 1784 was not the last separation that would occur within its ranks.
The founding of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (1816) and African Methodist Episcopal Church Zion (1821) was a direct response to decades of racist abuse and segregationist limitations on African Americans in the early years of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Likewise, the Colored (now Christian) Methodist Episcopal Church (1870) was the outgrowth of ongoing racism and segregation in the Methodist Episcopal Church South after the Civil War.
The Methodist Episcopal Church and Methodist Episcopal Church South divided in 1844 over the issue of slavery. Previously, the Methodist Protestant Church (1828) and the Wesleyan Church (1843) split away. The Free Methodists left in 1860, the Nazarenes in 1895. In England, the Salvation Army departed in 1865. The Southern Methodist Church left the Methodist Episcopal Church South at the time of the 1939 Methodist merger. How many Holiness and Pentecostal groups have former Methodists in their founding ranks?
As you look at these groups, you can find things not to like within mainstream Methodism and/or within the churches that departed. You can also find things to admire. You can definitely see hints of God at work along the way. Most importantly, I don’t know many United Methodists who are going to describe the African Methodist Episcopal Church or the Salvation Army as fake churches.
So did Wesley and Asbury wrongfully divide the church? Was there a schism? The 1784 founding of the Methodist Episcopal Church flaunted church law, created two church bodies not in formal communion with each other and inflamed passions on both sides of the separation. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck – no matter what you call it.
Methodists have to believe, then, that institutional separations can be two things at one time.
Like divorce, schism is tragic and always regrettable. Schism unveils the sin and error that is so common in this age, even within the church. Many of schism’s underlying causes grieve the Holy Spirit. Both sides can’t be completely right or even mostly right. Both sides, however, can find 50 ways to be wrong (h/t to Paul Simon). We are too often blind to our own ignorance and biases. All we can do is examine ourselves as best we can, search the scriptures, study the church’s great tradition, and take responsibility for our own decisions.
Simultaneously, though, separations can achieve God’s purposes. Given our origin, United Methodists cannot believe otherwise. If God was not in our founding, the United Methodist Church is a fake church, and our Methodist Episcopal forebears were fake Episcopalians.
At the very least, separation gives both resulting bodies the freedom to pursue God’s call as they understand it. Over time, the separate bodies can even come to learn from each other.
Ironically, then, the United Methodist Church is considering a proposal to re-establish “full communion” with The Episcopal Church in the same year that its own unity is once again in jeopardy. One of the articles of the proposed agreement affirms that both churches have adopted valid forms of the historic episcopacy.
We affirm the ministry of bishops in The United Methodist Church and The Episcopal Church to be adaptations of the historic episcopate to the needs and concerns of the post-Revolutionary missional context. We recognize the ministries of our bishops as fully valid and authentic.
The Episcopalians also apologize for talking smack about our bishops.
We lament any ways, whether intentionally or unintentionally, explicitly or implicitly, that Episcopalians may have considered the ministerial orders of the United Methodist Church or its predecessor bodies to be lacking God’s grace.
A Gift to the World: Co-Laborers for the Healing of Brokenness
I can’t find any language in the document apologizing for the nasty things Methodists have said about Episcopalians over the years, starting with Dr. Coke at the Christmas Conference. In his inaugural sermon, Coke proclaimed the Church of England was “filled with the parasites and bottle companions of the rich and the great.” It was the church of drunkards and fornicators. On behalf of Dr. Coke, I apologize for his uncharitable language.
Mostly, I am amazed that the proposal for full communion between our two churches does not touch on our shared story, other than one line acknowledging John and Charles Wesley as common forebears. The proposal addresses none of the history that I have outlined above. It is as if two races of space creatures sat down to discuss what they had in common when they first encountered each other.
The measure still needs approval by both churches. The United Methodist Church will consider the matter at its General Conference in 2020. The Episcopal Church will take up the proposal in 2021. (For an Episcopalian “vote no” argument based on the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, see here.)
Maybe full communion between organically separate institutions still isn’t enough. For those who truly believe that church splits cannot produce valid ministries, the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church (Canon III.10) outlines the requirements for reception of clergy from other denominations. Maybe it’s time to go home. I know several United Methodist clergy who have made this journey. If the full communion agreement passes in both churches, that transition will become even easier.
Of course, the Church of England itself broke away from the Catholic Church in the 16th century. Maybe it’s time to go all the way home. Baptized Christians can be received into full communion with the Catholic Church after a period of preparation. The upcoming Easter Vigil is prime time for such an event.
As United Methodist pastor Drew McIntyre recently tweeted, “Any stringent argument against a UMC mitosis/division is implicitly an argument to return to Canterbury or Rome.” Otherwise, we continue to serve in a church that once intentionally separated itself from the Church of England, believing that God’s purposes were best served by that decision. That’s who we are.
Mitchell Lewis 