American methodism began in Maryland under Robert Strawbridge. When the Methodist Episcopal Church organized in Baltimore during Christmas 1784, missionary Francis Asbury became bishop. The African Methodist Episcopal Church organized in 1816. The Methodist Protestant Church was initiated in Baltimore by Wesleyan Reformers in 1830, with mergers in 1939 and 1968 creating the United Methodist Church. Methodist churches are connectional, not congregational, linked globally in governance. Methodist church denominations in Maryland include United Methodist (UMC), African Methodist Episcopal (AME), African Methodist Episcopal, Zion (AMEZ), Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME), Wesleyan, and Free Methodist.
Origins
John and Charles Wesley began Methodism in England 1739. It entered America about 1762, when local Irish preacher Robert Strawbridge organized classes in Frederick and Baltimore Counties and erected meetinghouses near New Windsor and Aberdeen. Francis Asbury came to Maryland in 1772, enlarging Methodist societies during the Revolutionary War. By 1773, Maryland membership was at 500, growing to 13,046, or 8 percent of the Maryland population, by 1800. However, congregations were split by race with 6,549 white and 6,497 black.
Doctrine and Polity
The leading doctrines of Methodism include repentance, conversion, Christian assurance, and perfection. The sacraments are Holy Communion and baptism by way of any mode. Members are received by profession of faith or confirmation. The churches are linked in Annual Conferences and governed under the Book of Discipline, which is updated quadrennially by the General Conference. Preachers are usually appointed by bishops rather than called and most Methodist bodies cooperate in World, National, and local church councils, freely transferring members and clergy among them.
Disunity and Merger over Social Issues
Secessionists organized Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in1815. The "Mutual Rights" controversy of 1824-30 resulted in the Methodist Protestant Church in 1830. The slavery question caused a Methodist Church division from 1844-45, with a Maryland slavery rift in 1861 producing rival Baltimore Methodist Episcopal and Methodist Episcopal Church, South Conferences until 1939. The union of these and Methodist Protestants ultimately formed The Methodist Church. In 1968, a merger with Evangelical United Brethren Church created United Methodist Church and added 72 churches to its fold. Segregation ended during 1964-65 with the integration of African-American Washington and Delaware Conference churches into the Baltimore and Peninsula Conferences.
Methodists opposed slavery and encouraged manumission. Yet, division over slavery little affected Maryland until 1861. Temperance, Sabbath observance, and holiness were special concerns in the church during this time. The Social Creed adopted at Baltimore in 1908 sought economic justice, and child labor abolition and was widely endorsed. World peace was a 1920s cause; later, civil rights claimed the attention of Methodism beyond black churches.
Education
Throughout the years, several Methodist educational institutions were established in Maryland as follows. Cokesbury, a boy's college, opened in Abingdon, Maryland in 1787 and burned down in 1795. Reorganized as Baltimore Academy in 1796, it, too, was soon lost to fire. Baltimore City Station opened the Male Free School in 1801 and also owned Asbury College (1816-21). Methodist Protestants fostered coed Western Maryland College (now McDaniel College) in 1867 and began Westminster Theological School (now Wesley) in 1886.
The Centenary Biblical Institute (est.1867, now Morgan State University), was acquired by the State of Maryland in 1939. The Princess Anne branch of the Centenary Biblical Institute is now the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore (UMES); Baltimore Female College Methodist flourished from 1849 to the1880s. In 1889, the Baltimore Conference established the Woman's College of Baltimore (which is now Goucher College). J. F. Goucher (president, 1890-1908) pioneered women's science and government courses. Although a 1913 church campaign saved Goucher, religious control ended in 1924. Western Maryland College abandoned church affiliation circa 1975.
Notable Congregations
Some well-known Methodist congregations in Baltimore include the following: Lovely Lane, known as the "Mother Church of American Methodism"; Old Otterbein, “Mother Church of the United Brethren in Christ”; Ebenezer AME; Pennsylvania Avenue AMEZ; and Bethel AME (with the largest membership at 11,000).
Church Buildings
Early log or frame structures of Methodist churches had pulpits and altar rails but lacked bells, steeples, or stoves. Later, Sunday School space, pianos, and organs became reputable additions. Many simple Gothic style edifices were erected from design-book plans.
Some of the oldest church edifices include Old Otterbein and Centennial-Caroline St. Taylor's Chapel, both in Baltimore; Stone Chapel and Bethel, both in New Windsor; Watters and Gunpowder Meetinghouses, both in Aberdeen; and Dudley's Chapel and Bridgetown (est. 1773 and the oldest Methodist church in Maryland), both on the Eastern Shore. Some of the finest architecture of Methodist churches in the city includes Mt. Vernon Place, St. Marks, Sharp St., Metropolitan, and Lovely Lane United Methodist Church.
Clergy
In the early 1900s, college or seminary training started to replace apprenticeship and home study. Early on, extemporaneous preaching was central, while worship was informal and without choirs, vestments, candles, or crosses. Later, smaller circuits with parsonages replaced incessant circuit riding. Women clergy qualified in1956. Now there are over 200 pastors in Maryland, a second career for most new clergy, with a majority being women. In 2002, United Methodism had 699 clergy serving 973 churches with 233,548 Maryland members at the Baltimore-Washington and Peninsula-Delaware Conferences.
Membership
An overview of membership records shows some interesting long-term trends. Maryland Methodists congregants rose from 500 in 1773 to 13,000 in 1800, or 8 percent of the state population. Overall membership continued to rise with 51,000 in 1850; 113,000 (79,000 white, 34,000 black) in 1900, or 9.7 percent of the state population; 198,000 (162,000 white, 35,000 black) in 1950, or 8 percent; and (in UMC only) 239,000, or 4.7 percent of the state population in 2000. The AME Church has 119 Maryland congregations; Free Methodists have 11 churches. The Methodist church continues its connections with various institutions ranging from child care and senior citizen care to Goodwill Industries.
—Edwin Schell
United Methodist Historical Society
Further Reading
_____. Two Hundred Years: Bicentennial History AME Church. Washington, D.C.: Second Episcopal District, 1987.
Andrews, Dee E. The Methodists and Revolutionary America, 1760-1800: The Shaping of an Evangelical Culture. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.
Armstrong, James E. History of the Old Baltimore Conference. Baltimore: King Bros., Printers, 1907.
Asbury, Francis. Journal and Letters. 3 Vol. N.Y., 1958.
Baker, Gordon, ed. Those Incredible Methodists. Baltimore: Commission on Archives and History, The Baltimore Conference, 1972.
Bilhartz, Terry D. Urban Religion and the Second Great Awakening. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1986.
Clarke, Nina H. History of the 19th Century Black Churches in Maryland and Washington, D.C. N.Y., 1983.
Hannon, Nolan B., ed. Encyclopedia of World Methodism. 2 Vol. N.Y., 1972. Hallman, E. C. The Garden of Methodism. N.p., n.d. (c. 1948).
Jopling, Carol F. Churches of Somerset County Maryland: Evolving Church Architecture in the Changing landscape of Somerset County, Maryland, 1660-1993. Annapolis, 2000.
Graham, Leroy. Baltimore: 19th Century Black Capital. Lanham: University Press of America, 1982
