The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the A.M.E. Church, is a predominantly African American Methodist denomination 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 elected and consecrated its first bishop in 1816.
- African: The AME Church was organized by people of African descent. The church was not founded in Africa, nor is it only for persons of African descent. The church is open to people of all races.
- Methodist: The church's roots are in the Methodist church. Members of St. George's Methodist Church left the congregation when faced with racial discrimination, but continued with the Methodist doctrine and the order of worship.
- Episcopal: The AME Church operates under an episcopal form of church government.[1] The denomination leaders are bishops of the church.
"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.
A historical marker celebrating a religious-book-publishing concern of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
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 racial theology and praxis that have come to define this Wesleyan body. In an address to the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions, Bishop Benjamin 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 rights era, 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.[citation needed]
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.
1918 A.M.E. Church, Cairo, Illinois
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, and
- encouraging thrift and economic advancement.[3]
The African Methodist Episcopal Church has been one of the forerunners of education within the African-American community.
Former colleges & universities of the AME Church:
Senior colleges within the United States:
Junior colleges within the United States:
Theological seminaries within the United States:
Foreign colleges and universities:
The General Conference is the supreme body of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. It is composed of the Bishops, as ex-officio presidents, according to the rank of election, and an equal number of ministerial and lay delegates, elected by each of the Annual Conferences and the lay Electoral Colleges of the Annual Conferences. Other ex-officio members are: the General Officers, College Presidents, Deans of Theological Seminaries; Chaplains in the Regular Armed Forces of the U.S.A. The General Conference meets every four years, but may have extra sessions in certain emergencies.
The Council of Bishops is the Executive Branch of the Connectional Church. It has the general oversight of the Church during the interim between General Conferences. The Council of Bishops shall meet annually at such time and place as the majority of the Council shall determine and also at such other times as may be deemed necessary in the discharging its responsibility as the Executive Branch of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The Council of Bishops shall hold at least two public sessions at each annual meeting. At the first, complaints and petitions against a Bishop shall be heard, at the second, the decisions of the Council shall be made public. All decisions shall be in writing.
The Board of Incorporators, also known as the General Board of Trustees, has the supervision, in trust, of all connectional property of the Church and is vested with authority to act in behalf of the Connectional Church wherever necessary.
The General Board is in many respects the administrative body and comprises various departmental Commissions made up of the respective Secretary-Treasurer, the General Secretary of the AME, Church the General Treasurer and the members of the various Commissions and one Bishop as presiding officer with the other Bishops associating.
The Judicial Council is the highest judicatory body of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. It is an appellate court, elected by the General Conference and is amenable to it.
The Connectional Health Commission serves, among other tasks, to help the denomination understand health as an integral part of the faith of the Christian Church, to seek to make our denomination a healing faith community, and to promote the health concerns of its members. One of the initiatives of the commission is the establishment of an interactive website that will allow not only health directors, but the AMEC membership at-large to access health information, complete reports, request assistance. This website serves as a resource for members of the AMEC, and will be a the same for anyone who accesses the website. Additionally, as this will be an interactive site, it will allow health directors to enter a password protected chat room to discuss immediate needs and coordinate efforts for relief regionally, nationally and globally.
It is through this website that efforts to distribute information about resources and public health updates, and requests for services may be coordinated nationally. This will allow those who access the website to use one central location for all resource information needs.[4]
The World Council of Churches estimates the membership of the AME Church at around 2,500,000, 3817 pastors, 21 bishops and 7000 congregations.[5]
The AME Church is a member of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC), and the World Council of Churches.
The AME Church is not related to either the Union American Methodist Episcopal Church (which was founded in Delaware by Peter Spencer in 1813), or the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (which was founded in New York by Peter Williams).
(in order of current episcopal district)
- John Hurst Adams
- Richard Allen Hildebrand
- Frederick Hilborn Talbot
- Hamil Hartford Brookins
- Vinton Randolph Anderson
- Frederick Calhoun James
- Frank Curtis Cummings
- Philip Robert Cousin, Sr
- Henry Allen Belin, Jr.
- Richard Allen Chappelle, Sr
- Robert Vaughn Webster
- Zedekiah Lazett Grady
- Bishop Vinton Randolph Anderson (1927 - ) First African-American to be elected President of the World Council of Churches and served from Jan 1991 - Dec 1998); author of My Soul Shouts and subject of an edited work (Gayraud Wilmore & Louis Charles Harvey, editors, A Model of A Servant Bishop; first native Bermudian elected a bishop in any church/denomination
- Bishop Richard Harvey Cain - elected member of US House of Representatives from SC during Reconstruction
- Bishop Reverdy Cassius Ransom - creative founder of NAACP via The Niagra Movement concept
- Bishop William Heard (1850–1937), AME minister and educator. Appointed by the U.S. government as "Minister Resident/Consul General" to Liberia (1895–1898)[1]
- Bishop Daniel Payne (1811–1893), historian, educator and AME minister. First African-American president of an African-American university, Wilberforce University, in the U.S. [2]
- Dr. Jamye Coleman Williams (1918 -), educator, community leader. Former editor of the AME Church Review; recipient of the NAACP Presidential Award (1999).[3]
- Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie, first female AME bishop in church history, best-selling author.
- Bishop Carolyn Tyler Guidry (1937- ), second female AME bishop in church history. [4]
- Rev. Dr. Floyd H. Flake (1945- ), former U.S. Congressman from New York (1986–1998); senior pastor of the Greater Allen AME Cathedral in Jamaica,Queens, New York; Current President of Wilberforce University
- Rev. Lyman S. Parks (1917–2009), Mayor of Grand Rapids, Michigan (1971–1976); Pastor First Community AME Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.[6]
- Rev. Dr. Frank M. Reid III (1951-) Pastor of the Bethel A.M.E. Church in Baltimore link title. Rev. Reid started "The Bethel Outreach of Love" Broadcast was the first African Methodist Episcopal Church to have an international TV broadcast. He is a well noted author. Was selected as the 26th most influential person in Baltimore by Baltimore Magazine. His membership includes the mayor and city comptroller of Baltimore. He was also a consultant for the TV show Amen, and guest starred several times on the popular HBO series The Wire.
- Rev. Henry Aaron Joubert (1940–2004) leader par execellence of Cape Town South Africa, administrator builder and respected leader in the community in which he resided. Respected by all Bishops he served under and rendered untiring service in adverse situations in South Africa.
- Rev. King Solomon Dupont - AME clergy who was first African American to seek public office in northern Florida since re-construction in 1950s and VP of Tallahassee Civic Association which spearheaded a life threatening bus boycott simultaneous to the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955.
- D. Ormonde Walker, 66th bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and 10th president of Wilberforce University
- Rev. Dr. Jamal Harrison Bryant (1971- ) Dr. Bryant founded Empowerment Temple AME in 2000 with a congregation of 43 people. Today, with more than 7,500 members attending weekly services at Empowerment Temple in Baltimore, Maryland.
- George Washington Buckner, U.S. minister to Liberia, 1913-1915.
- Byron Cage
- James E. Clyburn US Representative (D-SC)
- LL Cool J
- Ernest Green - member of the Little Rock Nine who desegregated Central High School, in Little Rock, Arkansas
- Alcee Hastings, US House of Representatives (D-FL)
- Arsenio Hall
- Gwen Ifill
- Vernon Jordan, noted civil rights leader and author
- Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick US Representative (D-MI)
- John Legend
- Ray Lewis
- Delroy Lindo
- Dr. Susan McKinney Stewart
- Gregory Meeks, US Representative (D-NY)
- Rosa Parks
- P. B. S. Pinchback, first African-American Governor (R-LA)
- A. Philip Randolph
- Hiram Rhodes Revels, first African-American Senator (R-MS)
- Rodney Slater - Secretary of Transportation in Clinton Administration
- Cicely Tyson
- Billy Dee Williams
- Stephanie Diana Wilson
- Dave Winfield
- Roy Wilkins, civil rights leader & Executive Director of the NAACP
- ^ AME Church homepage describing its name
- ^ "Dr. Cone is an ordained minister in the (A.M.E.) church." (Union Theological Seminary's URL)
- ^ The Doctrine and Discipline of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. (2000). p. 13.
- ^ AMECHealth.org AME Connectional Health Commission
- ^ World Council of Churches - AME Church page
- ^ Harger, Jim. "Lyman Parks, first black mayor of Grand Rapids, dies at 92". Online Newspaper. Grand Rapids Press. http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2009/11/former_grand_rapids_mayor_lyma.html. Retrieved 9 July 2011.
- Encyclopedia of Religion in the South, Samuel S. Hill, editor
- The Doctrine and Discipline of the African Methodist Episcopal Church 2000
- The AMEC Book of Worship
- History of the AME Church: The Black Church in Action, Howard D. Gregg, Ph.D.
- See "God Our Father, Christ Our Redeemer, Man Our Brother: A Theological Interpretation of the AME Church." By Dr. James H. Cone, Ph.D. AME Church Review, Volume CVI, No. 341 (1991), page 25.
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