One Consequence of Methodism's Pilgrimage to Respectability

Did Divisions Result in a More Well to Do Denomination?

Why Divisions Happen

United Methodism has had its share of divisions since its beginning in the United States as the Methodist Episcopal Church. No division has a single cause even if there is a prominent presenting issue. Often conventional wisdom associates one or more theological or social issues with the controversy and departure of some. The chart above gives some examples from selected divisions.

It is noteworthy to compare the issues associated with divisions with other issues that at one time were extremely contentious, at least for a significant portion of the denomination. We also notice from the chart below how some issues that are controversial in one era cease to be in later times.

A Somewhat Different Interpretation

Dr. Albert C. Outler, an important teacher and mentor for me from seminary days until his death, understood and appreciated the conventional reasons given as causes for divisions over the years. However, he saw something else going on across these breakups. He found that most schisms in American Methodism were rooted primarily in matters of “ethos,” and “social, ethnic, and structural issues.” Historian Nathan Hatch takes this assessment further in saying that even in the division of the northern and southern churches in 1844, “fault lines of class, education, and social status within a single denomination may have been more significant than sectional tension, even between northern and southern churches.”

While theological and social issues were obviously factors, it is useful to consider the extent of class in historical divisions. It appears that Methodism began what Hatch has appropriately called its “pilgrimage to respectability” by the 1840s, when the Methodist Episcopal Church had become the largest denomination in the country.

Every Division Left a Per Capita More Well to Do Denomination

The prevalence of race as a factor in divisions within American Methodism is obvious from the previous charts. We know how embedded the stain of racism has been in virtually every institution of the nation from its earliest days. It continues as an unresolved issue today. We talk more about racial diversity today than in the past, but it is significant and humbling to remember that when Bishop Francis Asbury died in 1816, one quarter of all Methodists were African American. Perhaps here is where race and class come together. While race has been such an obvious factor in past struggles, it could be that race is also a dimension of a larger failure to see how social status and class prejudice may have extended beyond race, though never with the public racist rhetoric whites felt free to use against the full inclusion of people of color.

In An Aura of Hope: United Methodism’s Next Chapter in the United States, I include only five sentences to claim that every split in American Methodism has resulted in those leaving being poorer on average than those staying. I am careful to preface those remarks with the phrase, “insofar as I have been able to learn.” Many others have studied these historical occasions far more than I have. I suppose I am writing this newsletter essay to test further my observation.

For a long time now, Methodists have had an awkward relationship with the poor of all races and ethnicities. We see it in those who stayed and those who left when controversies rocked the church. Those who on average were less well off economically were more represented in those leaving than those staying. It was true for all divisions based on race. It was also the case with the Methodist Protestant Church; the Free Methodists; the Wesleyan Church; the Methodist Episcopal Church, South; and the Church of the Nazarene. In all these cases, while there were well-to-do people who left, the average income of those leaving was always less than those who stayed. Thus, the remaining church was wealthier per capita after the divisions.

What about the 2019-2023 Disaffiliations

Between 2019 and 2023 one quarter of United Methodist churches disaffiliated from the denomination using provisions approved by a special session of the General Conference held in 2019 to consider different options for addressing the church’s stance on homosexuality and related issues. As happened in 1844 over the controversy related to slavery, churches were permitted to leave the denomination with their property if they met certain criteria for approval of the action and paid some financial obligations. The reason for disaffiliation could only be for matters of conscience related to sexuality issues, though it quickly became obvious that a range of motivations led to many of the disaffiliations.

So, how can we assess whether these disaffiliations fit the pattern I am suggesting has been a common characteristic of those leaving and those staying in previous divisions? We can’t know exactly, so we have to use some tool that may give at least a semblance of the economic status of those staying and leaving. What I have done is to group the churches staying and leaving by the counties in which they are located. Then the counties were sorted by the median household income (MHI) of those counties and grouped into quintiles. Disaffiliating churches were placed in their respective quintiles based on their county MHI so they could be compared with the location of all United Methodist churches at the beginning of disaffiliation in 2019. This chart shows the results.

You will notice that disaffiliating churches came in greater numbers, proportionately, from counties in the three lowest quintiles of median household income (lowest 60 percent) and in lower numbers from the two highest quintiles of median household income (highest 40 percent) compared to churches that remained United Methodist. This comparison shows churches and not members, but it is likely that the results would be similar for membership or attendance. The reason for that assumption is that the sizes of churches that stayed and left were virtually identical. The median average worship attendance was exactly the same. And when churches are grouped into seven attendance cohorts from largest (1,000 or more attendance) to smallest (25 or fewer attendance), the proportion of those leaving and staying are similar.

Why This Matters

The significance of all of this has little to do with economic calculations and comparisons. The importance of these observations, if correct, show a disturbing trend that fits into a larger story of what is going on in denominations and the larger culture today in the United States. As the middle class has shrunk since the 1970s, after sharp growth in the previous decades since the end of World War II, the influence of what might be called the upper middle class or the lower upper class has become far more dominant in the economy and other institutions, including denominations.

If my observations about the economic makeup of United Methodist constituencies before and after divisions are correct, then our denomination has inadvertently become more well to do with every division. In doing so, we have created a greater gap between our branch of the Wesleyan witness and the less well to do among us. It is thus no wonder that our constituency is more associated with the upper 40 percent of median household incomes than with lower income categories and, probably, to a greater extent than in any other time in history.

The current class dilemma for churches will be explored in future newsletters. For now, my invitation is for us to consider ways in which this dilemma has been with us for a long time. Without discounting the challenges faced by so many of our church members today, it is my hope that we still will be motivated by these historical trends to serve also those in our communities whose life circumstances may be even more challenging than those we now serve.

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References

matters of “ethos,” and “social, ethnic… Albert C. Outler, “Methodism in the World Christian Community,” in The Wesleyan Theological Heritage: Essays of Albert C. Outler, ed. Thomas C. Oden and Leicester R. Longden (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1991), 247.

“fault lines of class, education… Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), 205.

“pilgrimage to respectability… Ibid., 93. See also Daniel F. Flores, Respectable Methodism: Nathan Bangs and Respectability in Nineteenth-Century American Methodism (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2023).

In Aura of Hope… Lovett H. Weems, Jr., An Aura of Hope: United Methodism Next Chapter in the United States (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2026), 61.

For More Information

A Lewis Center Report Disaffiliating United Methodist Churches, 2019-2023: Final Report, January 16, 2024.

To purchase An Aura of Hope: United Methodism’s Next Chapter in the United States