United Methodist Church

United Methodist Church in the United States, religious body formed by the union in 1968 of the Evangelical United Brethren Church and the Methodist Church (see Methodism ). Emphasizing ecumenism, the newly united church, the second largest Protestant church in the United States, proposed further amalgamation with other Protestant groups. The church also attempted to broaden its social involvement, concentrating its efforts not only on spiritual, but on also material, aspects of the individual's well-being. In 1988, the General Conference broadened the basis of doctrine to include "the resources of tradition, experience, and reason." In 1996 it eliminated preparatory membership and granted full membership to those who had been baptized. Members confirming their faith at a later age are now professing members. The church has an inclusive membership of about 8.5 million (1997).

Methodist Church After the death of John Wesley in 1791 it rapidly became a distinct Church separate from the established Church of England and gaining particular support in Wales. Many splinter groups formed during the nineteenth century, including the Methodist New Connexion, the Primitive Methodist Church, and the Bible Christians in Britain. In 1907, the Methodist New Connexion, the Bible Christians, and the United Methodist Free Churches became the United Methodist Church, which itself reunited with the original, Wesleyan Methodist Church in 1932. Since then, the main Methodist body outside the Methodist Church in Great Britain consists of the Calvinistic Methodists in Wales. In the USA, two main Methodist churches had developed, one in the north and one in the south, which had split over the issue of slavery during the Civil War (1861–5). They were joined in 1868 by the Evangelical United Brethren to form the United Methodist Church. The American Methodist Conference has an episcopal structure with ‘bishops’ functioning as superintendants, whereas its British counterpart has a more presbyterian structure, i.e. with a leadership of elders all of equal rank. In 2002, there were around seventy million members of Methodist and related United Churches worldwide. These are linked through the World Methodist Council, founded in 1881.

http://www.worldmethodist.org

United Methodist Free Churches. One of the bodies which made up the United Methodist Church in 1907. It was an amalgamation of small communities which had broken away from Wesleyan Methodism for constitutional, not doctrinal, reasons. The Protestant Methodists were formed in 1827; the immediate cause of their secession was the erection of an organ at Brunswick Chapel, Leeds. The Wesleyan Methodist Association was formed in 1835 as the result of a dispute about the foundation of a Theological Institution for the training of ministers; it was joined by the Protestant Methodists in 1836. The Wesleyan Reformers came into being after three ministers had been expelled from the 1849 Conference when they refused to answer questions about some anonymous pamphlets known as Fly Sheets. The Wesleyan Methodist Association and the bulk of the Wesleyan Reformers joined in 1857 to form the United Methodist Free Churches.