wfn.org | Ecumenical officer speaks with black church bishops

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Aug. 5, 1998	Contact: Linda Bloom*(212) 870-3803*New York
{463}

By United Methodist News Service

Bishops of the historically Black Methodist churches are both optimistic
and skeptical about United Methodist attempts at reconciliation,
according to a denominational ecumenical officer.

The Rev. Bruce Robbins, general secretary of the United Methodist
Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, met with
bishops of the Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church and African
Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in June, and bishops of the African
Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) Church in July.

The unusual invitations to those meetings came in May, after Robbins
spoke to the Commission on Union about his agency's work in developing
an "act of repentance and reconciliation" in response to the historical
racism of the Methodist Church against its black members.

The Commission on Union was authorized by all four denominations'
general conferences to submit a plan of union to the United Methodist,
AME and AMEZ churches in 2000 and the CME church in 2002. The general
conferences are the churches' top lawmaking bodies.

A Commission on Christian Unity task force has been working on the act
of repentance and reconciliation "as a way for us, as United Methodists,
to remember or learn the story about how the historic black churches
were founded," Robbins explained.

The black denominations were formed in direct response to discrimination
and outright hostility suffered by African Americans attending Methodist
churches.

In 1787, Richard Allen and Absolom Jones were removed from their knees
during prayer at St. George Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia.
They began worshipping elsewhere, and Allen officially formed the AME
Church in 1816.

The AMEZ Church was started in 1796 by James Varick, an African-American
licensed to preach by the Methodist Episcopal Church, who left John
Street Church in New York because of its segregated seating. The CME
Church was organized after the Civil War to give former slave members of
the Methodist Episcopal Church South their own denomination.

Time has been set aside at the United Methodist Church's 2000 General
Conference in Cleveland for the act of repentance. It also is a theme
for the March 1999 meeting of the Conference of Methodist Bishops,
Robbins said.

Now that his meetings with the bishops are concluded, Robbins plans to
relay to other United Methodists "some of the tensions and suspicions,
as well as the hope that the historic black churches have."

Those churches bear not the scars of racism "but deep wounds that have
not healed," he explained.

Tension exists around such areas as lack of cooperation and lack of
outreach at the local level. "At the same time, I saw such deep yearning
for the kinds of connections that are so easily possible among us,"
Robbins said.

Bishops from all three church bodies wanted to know "if we're going to
move beyond just talk" and take action, he said. Over and over, he
added, the bishops emphasized they were tired of words and wanted to see
some effect of reconciliation within local churches.

# # #

United Methodist News Service
(615)742-5470
Releases and photos also available at
http://www.umc.org/umns/