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History of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, Virginia Conference

by A. P. Funkhouser

CHAPTER XIV

MOVEMENTS TOWARD UNION WITH OTHER CHURCHES

The points of resemblance between the United Brethren and the Methodists have often been a subject of comment. In theological belief there is complete accord. Each body has a record as a revival church and has made much use of camp meetings. Each uses almost precisely the same terms throughout in designating the various features of its organization. Each has its conferences, its quarterly meetings, and its class meetings. Each has its bishops, presiding elders, local preachers, and exhorters. Each has its stations and circuits. Each has a well developed itinerant system.

But the resemblance is almost wholly a matter of coincidence. Neither church is an offshoot of the other. Identity in purpose and methods has led to a very close identity in organization.

The church of the United Brethren may very truly be said to begin in that sermon by Otterbein at Lancaster which marks the turning-point in the character of his ministry. We do not know the precise year, but 1755 is an approximate date. Boehm began to preach in 1758. At the memorable meeting in Long's barn, about 1768, the movement began to assume tangible form. The conferences of 1789, 1891, and 1800 were a recognition of a state of things already existing. The new church was in operation, even if there were not yet an official name or more than an informal organization.

The Wesleyan movement arose in England, and was introduced into American by Strawbridge, a local preacher who settled in the north of Maryland about 1765. The first Methodist class was formed in the city of New York by Philip Embury and Barbara Heck in 1766. Both these persons, by the way, were of German parentage. In 1773

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the first conference represented only six circuits and fewer than 1200 members. As an independent church, Method ism in America began on Christmas day, 1784, with about 15,000 members, nearly nine-tenths of them living in the South. Thus the area in which the two churches appeared was nearly the same, the Methodist territory being the more extensive.

Had Otterbein and Boehm used the English tongue exclusively, the founders of the United Brethren movement and the founders of American Methodism would have been drawn irresistibly together to work in a single organization. It was a Methodist bishop who said that if the message of Otterbein had been in English instead of German, he would have been the logical leader of the general evangelical movement in this country. But Otterbein, Boehm, and Geeting preached exclusively in German, and therefore to people of German birth or parentage. The early Methodists knew nothing of German, and preached in English to people who understood English, this class then including only a small proportion of the German element. There was consequently little overlapping of effort, and little ground for jealousy or rivalry. The difference between the two sects was little else than a difference in language, and incidentally in national origin. Each addressed the audience it was best fitted to address, and left to the sister organization the duty of looking after other people. That the United Brethren and the Methodist churches should spring up side by side was therefore the most natural thing in the world.

As there is a striking similarity between these two bodies, so is there a striking correspondence between William Otterbein and John Wesley. Each man was a thoroughly educated scholar. Each grew up in the communion of a strong ecclesiastical system, to which his attachment was strong. Nevertheless, the time came when Otterbein could no longer work within the Reformed Church nor Wesley within the Church of England. Like Otterbein, Wesley began preaching before he was an entirely con-

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verted man. The religious destiny of Otterbein was determined by the small evangelical society of the Pietists, just as that of Wesley was determined by the small evangelical sect of the Moravians. Each man discarded the exclusive use of churchly robes and a churchly pulpit, and went out to preach extemporaneously wherever he could gather an audience. The message of each was to the common people, and the common people heard them. Each was persecuted by churchmen as well as by the rabble, and each rose above these hindrances. Neither Otterbein nor Wesley had any desire to found a new church. Each tried to leaven the church in which he had been reared, and it was only when the opposition within that church could not be overcome that he gave his consent to the necessary measure of setting up a new one. Even then, Otterbein never formally or of his own accord withdrew from the Reformed Church, nor did Wesley sever his connection with the Church of England.

But though the broken English of the early United Brethren gave the early Methodists some trouble in carrying on a conversation, each band of Christians recognized from the first that the other was made up of fellow laborers in an identical cause. The difference in language in fact made for friendship by removing a ground for one sect to interfere with what the other was doing. In a period of denominational narrowness and prejudice, it is therefore pleasant to note the exceptionally cordial relations between the United Brethren and the Methodists during the formative period in the history of each.

Between Otterbein, the senior founder of the United Brethren, and Asbury, the pioneer Methodist bishop, there was an attachment that was intimate and affectionate. The latter considered the former to be the foremost theologian in America. Asbury was instrumental in causing Otterbein to go to Baltimore. Otterbein assisted in the ordination of Asbury, and at the special request of the latter. It was Asbury who preached the sermon at the funeral of Otterbein. And as we might suppose, Otterbein had a high

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opinion of Wesley and the Methodists.

A union of the two churches was thought of at an early day. But until the close of 1784, the Methodists were a society within the Church of England. To the fathers of the United Brethren this was an obstacle. Another objection was the adherence of the early Methodists to the doctrine of apostolic succession. They held that it was wrong for any preacher to presume to administer the sacraments unless he had been regularly ordained by a bishop of the established church, and the doctrine assumes that there has been an unbroken line of ordination ever since the days of the apostles. Both objections came to lose all their force in consequence of the great unlikeness which has developed between the Methodist Church and the Church of England.

A friendly correspondence looking toward union was begun by the Methodist conference of 1809, held in Harrisonburg. This is spoken of in our extracts from Newcomer's Journal. A close cooperation with the Methodists was given much attention in the United Brethren conferences of 1809 and 1810. By an agreement of 1812, any meeting-house of either church was open to the other when the church in possession was not using it. Members of either church were freely admitted to the class-meetings, prayer meetings, and love-feasts of the other. German converts usually went into the United Brethren Church and English-speaking converts into the Methodist. In 1813 an address signed by Asbury was received from the Methodist conference, and a reply was ordered so as "more and more to effect a union between the two churches." In 1814 a letter from the Baltimore Conference of the Methodists expressed its gratification at the friendly relations with the United Brethren, and hoped these relations might continue.

But organic union does not seem to have been strongly favored on either side. By the word "union" in the United Brethren letter of 1813 was meant no more than friendly cooperation. Asbury was a very efficient superintendent,

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but did not bring Methodism into direct touch with those inhabitants of America who did not speak English. America was not then a polyglot country. German was the only other tongue spoken by any considerable number of white Americans. Even in that day the stubbornness with which the German element clung to the German speech was deemed unreasonable and anti-American. And on the side of the United Brethren it may have been felt that in consequence of the temperamental and other differences between these two groups of Christians, it might be better if each were to retain its separate organization. But this failure to unite did not lead to a sundering of fraternal relations. Methodist ministers often visited the conferences of the United Brethren, and United Brethren ministers often visited the conferences of the Methodists. During the war for American Independence the Methodists began to grow rapidly, and it was then that Methodist preachers began to appear in the German settlements of Maryland and its neighboring states. These "English brethren," as they were styled, were gladly received. Even the wife of Bishop Boehm joined the Methodists and so did some of her sons.

Asbury died in 1816. A Methodist presiding elder, in an excess of denominational zeal suspended the working arrangement with the United Brethren, and insisted that Wesley's rules be strictly followed. One of these rules prescribed who should and who should not be admitted to social meetings. It had been necessary in England, because such meetings, if open, were subject to interruption by gangs of outlaws. In the America of 1816 no such caution was necessary and the rule soon became a dead letter. For a while, the social meetings of the Methodists were closed against the United Brethren. It is unfortunate that this reactionary policy arose, yet it has long since passed away.

In the matter of church government, there is a difference between the United Brethren and the Methodists. The former regard their system as the more democratic, and prefer it to the more centrally organized system of

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the other church. Their bishop is chosen for a term and not for life; their presiding elders are chosen annually; their congregations have more control over their local concerns. They regard Methodism as autocratic, and yet the general efficiency of this feature has contributed very largely to the phenomenal growth of the sister church.

The United Brethren have lost the characteristics that for several decades marked them out as one of the German sects of America. Their very origin as a German sect is now almost lost to view. But though the points of difference which once stood in the way of an organic union with the Methodists have been removed, no action looking toward a merger has since taken place. But in recognition of the fact that in spirit and polity the United Brethren are of the Methodist group of churches, they were invited to send delegates to the Methodist ecumenical conferences of 1881 and 1891. For a rather technical reason Bishop Glossbrenner saw fit to oppose an acceptance.

About the year 1800, the Albright Brethren, a German speaking body of Methodists, seceded from the parent denomination. In 1813 they had fifteen itinerants and about eight hundred members. In April of this year Bishop Newcomer visited the Albright conference and received a letter to be given the United Brethren conference of the same year. The latter assembly appointed a committee of four, which met an Albright committee of the same size at New Berlin, Pennsylvania. A discussion of several days did not reach any conclusion. The Albright General Conference of 1816 adopted the name of Evangelical Association for their sect, and discussed the proposed union. A committee of six persons from each church conferred in 1817 at the home of Henry Kumler, but failed to come to any understanding, and no further negotiations appear to have been attempted. The Evangelicals thought the working of the United Brethren itinerancy was too lose.

The proposed merging of the United Brethren with the Cumberland Presbyterians, the Methodist Protestants, and the Congregationalists, is a matter of very recent history.

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That a union with the last named body did not take place is very easy to understand. The two denominations have overlapped only in a very slight degree, and have been very little acquainted with one another. There is a wide temperamental difference in the membership of the two churches. Among the Congregationalists each local body is entirely independent of any other and in church government is strictly democratic. There is much more in common between the United Brethren and the two other denominations. That any merger failed even here is perhaps due to the denominational pride that makes any form or degree of church unity very difficult to achieve in practice, although in theory it may be warmly advocated.



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