Founding
The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the A.M.E. Church, is a predominantly African-American Methodistdenomination based in the United States. It was founded by the Rev. Richard Allen in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1816 from several black Methodist congregations in the mid-Atlantic area that wanted independence from white Methodists. Allen was consecrated its first bishop in 1816.
Motto
"God Our Father, Christ Our Redeemer, the Holy Spirit Our Comforter, Humankind Our Family"
Derived from Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne's original motto "God our Father, Christ our Redeemer, Man our Brother", which served as the AME Church motto until the 2008 General Conference, when the current motto was officially adopted.
Beliefs
The AME motto, "God Our Father, Christ Our Redeemer, Holy Spirit Our Comforter, Humankind Our Family", reflects the basic beliefs of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
The basic foundations of the beliefs of the church can be summarized in the Apostles' Creed, and The Twenty Five Articles of Religion, held in common with other Methodist Episcopal congregations. The church also observes the official bylaws of the AME Church. The "Doctrine and Discipline of the African Methodist Episcopal Church" is revised at every General Conference and published every five years.
Church mission
The Mission of the African Methodist Episcopal Church is to minister to the spiritual, intellectual, physical, emotional, and environmental needs of all people by spreading Christ's liberating gospel through word and deed. At every level of the Connection and in every local church, the African Methodist Episcopal Church shall engage in carrying out the spirit of the original Free African Society, out of which the AME Church evolved: that is, to seek out and save the lost, and serve the needy through a continuing program of
preaching the gospel,
feeding the hungry,
clothing the naked,
housing the homeless,
cheering the fallen,
providing jobs for the jobless,
administering to the needs of those in prisons, hospitals, nursing homes, asylums and mental institutions, senior citizens' homes; caring for the sick, the shut-in, the mentally and socially disturbed,
encouraging thrift and economic advancement.,[3] and
bringing people back into church.
Current Bishops
Gregory Gerald McKinley Ingram
William Phillips DeVeaux Sr.
McKinley Young
John Richard Bryant
Theodore Larry Kirkland
Preston Warren Williams II
Richard Franklin Norris
Julius Harrison McAllister
James Levert Davis
Vashti Murphy McKenzie
Adam Jefferson Richardson Jr.
Samuel Lawrence Green Sr.
Jeffrey Nathaniel Leath
Clement W. Fugh
David Rwhynica Daniels Jr.
Sarah Frances Davis
Wilfred Jacobus Messiah
John Franklin White
Paul J. M. Kawimbe
Reginald T. Jackson & The Office of Ecumenical Affairs
EXCERPT FROM BISHOP ALLEN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY:
"I was born in the year of our Lord 1760, on February 14th, a slave to Benjamin Chew, of Philadelphia. My mother and father and four children of us were sold into Delaware State, near Dover, and I was a child and lived with him until I was upwards of twenty years of age, during which time I was awakened and brought to see myself poor, wretched and undone, and without the mercy of God must be lost...I went with my head bowed down for many days. My sins were a heavy burden. I was tempted to believe there was no mercy for me. I cried to the Lord both night and day. One night I thought hell would be my portion. I cried unto Him who delighteth to hear the prayers of a poor sinner; and all of a sudden my dungeon shook, my chains flew off, and glory to God, I cried. My soul was filled. I cried, enough for me--the Saviour died." Excerpt from Bishop Richard Allen’s autobiography.
Richard Allen
History
The AME Church grew out of the Free African Society (FAS), which Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, and other free blacks established in Philadelphia in 1787. They left St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church because of discrimination. Although Allen and Jones were both accepted as preachers, they were limited to black congregations. In addition, the blacks were made to sit in a separate gallery built in the church when their portion of the congregation increased. These former members of St. George’s made plans to transform their mutual aid society into an African congregation. Although the group was originally non-denominational, eventually members wanted to affiliate with existing denominations.
Allen led a small group who resolved to remain Methodist. They formed the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1793. In general, they adopted the doctrines and form of government of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1794 Bethel AME was dedicated with Allen as pastor. To establish Bethel’s independence, Allen successfully sued in the Pennsylvania courts in 1807 and 1815 for the right of his congregation to exist as an institution independent of white Methodist congregations. Because black Methodists in other middle Atlantic communities also encountered racism and desired religious autonomy, Allen called them to meet in Philadelphia in 1816 to form a new Wesleyan denomination, the "African Methodist Episcopal Church" (AME Church).
The African Methodist Episcopal Church has a unique history as it is the first major religious denomination in the western world that developed because of sociological rather than theological differences. It was the first African-American denomination organized and incorporated in the United States. The church was born in protest against racial discrimination and slavery. This was in keeping with the Methodist Church's philosophy, whose founder John Wesley had once called the slave-trade "that execrable sum of all villainies." In the 19th century, the AME Church of Ohio collaborated with the Methodist Episcopal Church, a predominantly white denomination, in sponsoring the second independent historically black college (HBCU), Wilberforce University in Ohio. Among Wilberforce University's early founders was Salmon P. Chase, then-governor of Ohio and the future Secretary of Treasury under President Abraham Lincoln.
Other members of the FAS wanted to affiliate with the Protestant Episcopal Church and followed Absalom Jones in doing that. In 1792, they founded the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, the first Episcopal church in the United States with a founding black congregation. In 1804, Jones was ordained as the first black priest in the Episcopal Church.
While the AME is doctrinally Methodist, clergy, scholars, and lay persons have written works that demonstrate the distinctive racialtheology and praxis that have come to define this Wesleyan body. In an address to the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions, BishopBenjamin W. Arnett reminded the audience of blacks' influence in the formation of Christianity. Bishop Benjamin T. Tanner wrote in 1895 in The Color of Solomon – What? that biblical scholars wrongly portrayed the son of David as a white man. In the post-civil rightsera, theologians James Cone,[2] Cecil W. Cone, and Jacqueline Grant, who came from the AME tradition, critiqued Euro-centric Christianity and African-American churches for their shortcomings in resolving the plight of those oppressed by racism, sexism, and economic disadvantage.
Mother Bethel AME
Mother Bethel African Methodist episcopal (AMe) Church traces its origins to the journey of Richard Allen, who was born into slavery in 1760 and first held in bondage by Pennsylvania judge Benjamin Chew. After he was sold to a farmer in Dover, Delaware, Allen was converted to the Methodist faith by an itinerant preacher in 1777. Allen traveled, preached to many, and converted some before he was able to buy his freedom in Delaware at age twenty. Allen’s preaching brought him to the attention of white Methodist elders, who brought him to Philadelphia in 1786 to preach to the black members of St. George’s Methodist Church, whose congregation was segregated. But hostility grew between the white and black parishioners. When black worshippers, including Absalom Jones, were forcibly removed one day during prayer, Allen and Jones and their congregation withdrew from the church. Allen went on to preach in common areas in black neighborhoods, gathering a significant following.
Thus an important organization was established in 1787 under the leadership of Jones and Allen: the Free African Society, the first mutual aid society formed in America by blacks, for blacks. Allen left the Society a few years later due to religious differences, but continued working with Jones and the community. With growing support he purchased a building and founded the new Bethel Methodist Church, which officially opened in 1794. The congregation worked to abolish slavery, assist freed slaves, end the colonization movement by which free blacks would be resettled in Africa, and improve education for African American children and adults. By the early 1800s Bethel was Philadelphia’s largest black church, and in 1816, it was declared legally independent from St. George’s Methodist Church, which had sought to control it from the beginning. Allen promptly called a meeting of black churches, which led to the establishment of the African Methodist episcopal Church, the first African American denomination. This gave black Christians a strong institutional voice and a clear sense of identity and community.
In the early nineteenth century, Philadelphia had the largest and most prosperous black population in the north. The neighborhood of Washington Square was a stronghold for this thriving black community. From the churches, the community developed to include schools, newspapers, insurance companies, Masonic lodges, literary societies, libraries, women’s groups, and dancing societies. But from the 1830s until the Civil War, Philadelphia became increasingly segregated, and the racial, economic, and religious unrest led to riots and violence, mainly targeting blacks. Even after Allen’s death in 1831, Mother Bethel and other black institutions helped the community endure.
As its congregation grew, Mother Bethel continued its social service efforts. During the Civil War era, its basement became a stop on the underground Railroad. Notable abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, spoke from its pulpit. After the Civil War, a new (and current) church, designed by Hazelhurst & Huckel in a Romanesque Revival style, was built in 1889 on the site. in the 1900s, thousands of southern blacks came to Philadelphia in search of a better life and joined the Mother Bethel community. In the 20th century, the congregation continued to expand in size and influence, as the denomination grew rapidly on an international scale. Mother Bethel continues to maintain its presence on a piece of land that is the longest continuously held by African Americans. Until recently, the congregation still included descendants of escaped enslaved Africans who had been assisted by the church. The community is presently vibrant, remaining connected to its history through the Historical Commission and the Historical Society of Mother Bethel Church, which provides academic services, guided tours of its own on-site Richard Allen Museum, and care for its holdings.
