A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of dioceses. The role or office of the bishop is called episcopacy. Organizationally, several Christian denominations utilize ecclesiastical structures that call for the position of bishops, while other denominations have dispensed with this office, seeing it as a symbol of power. Bishops have also exercised political authority within their dioceses.
An episcopal polity is a hierarchical form of church governance in which the chief local authorities are called bishops. The word "bishop" here is derived via the British Latin and Vulgar Latin term *ebiscopus/*biscopus, from the Ancient Greek ἐπίσκοπος epískopos meaning "overseer". It is the structure used by many of the major Christian Churches and denominations, such as the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Church of the East, Anglican, Lutheran and Methodist churches or denominations, and other churches founded independently from these lineages.
The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant denomination based in the United States, and a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was a leader in evangelicalism. The present denomination was founded in 1968 in Dallas, Texas, by union of the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church. The UMC traces its roots back to the revival movement of John and Charles Wesley in England, as well as the Great Awakening in the United States. As such, the church's theological orientation is decidedly Wesleyan. It embraces liturgical worship, holiness, and evangelical elements.
Presbyterianpolity is a method of church governance typified by the rule of assemblies of presbyters, or elders. Each local church is governed by a body of elected elders usually called the session or consistory, though other terms, such as church board, may apply. Groups of local churches are governed by a higher assembly of elders known as the presbytery or classis; presbyteries can be grouped into a synod, and presbyteries and synods nationwide often join together in a general assembly. Responsibility for conduct of church services is reserved to an ordained minister or pastor known as a teaching elder, or a minister of the word and sacrament.
The Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) was the oldest and largest Methodist denomination in the United States from its founding in 1784 until 1939. It was also the first religious denomination in the US to organize itself nationally. In 1939, the MEC reunited with two breakaway Methodist denominations to form the Methodist Church. In 1968, the Methodist Church merged with the Evangelical United Brethren Church to form the United Methodist Church.
The Methodist Episcopal Church, South was the American Methodist denomination resulting from the 19th-century split over the issue of slavery in the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC). Disagreement on this issue had been increasing in strength for decades between churches of the Northern and Southern United States; in 1845 it resulted in a schism at the General Conference of the MEC held in Louisville, Kentucky.
The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the AME Church or AME, is a Methodist Black church. It adheres to Wesleyan-Arminian theology and has a connexional polity. The first independent Protestant denomination to be founded by Black people, AME welcomes and has members of all ethnicities.
The Confessing Movement is a largely lay-led theologically conservative Christian movement that opposes the influence of theological liberalism and theological progressivism currently within several mainline Protestant denominations and seeks to return them to its view of orthodox doctrine, or form a new denomination and disfellowship (excommunicate) them if the situation becomes untenable. Those who eventually deem dealing with theological liberalism and theological progressivism within their churches and denominations as not being tenable anymore would later join or start Confessional Churches and/or Evangelical Churches that continue with the traditions of their respective denominations and maintaining orthodox doctrine while being ecclesiastically separate from the Mainline Protestant denominations.
The Christian Methodist Episcopal (C.M.E.) Church is a historically black denomination that branched from earlier Methodist groups in the Southern United States after the Civil War. It is considered to be a mainline denomination.
The Evangelical Church or Evangelical Association, also known in the late 1700s as the New Methodist Conference and in the early 1800s as the Albright Brethren, was a "body of American Christians chiefly of German descent". It was Wesleyan–Arminian in doctrine and theology, as well as Methodist Episcopal in its form of church government.
Paul Elliott Martin was an American bishop of the Methodist Church and the United Methodist Church, elected in 1944. He also distinguished himself as a Methodist pastor and district superintendent, as well as by notable service to his denomination.
Ecclesiastical polity is the government of a church. There are local (congregational) forms of organization as well as denominational. A church's polity may describe its ministerial offices or an authority structure between churches. Polity relates closely to ecclesiology, the theological study of the church.
The Evangelical Methodist Church (EMC) is a Christian denomination in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. The denomination reported 399 churches in the United States, Mexico, Burma/Myanmar, Canada, Philippines and several European and African nations in 2018, and a total of 34,656 members worldwide.
An episcopal area in the United Methodist Church (UMC) is a basic unit of this denomination. It is a region presided over by a resident bishop that is similar to a diocese in other Christian denominations. Each annual conference in the UMC is within a single episcopal area; some episcopal areas include more than one annual conference. Episcopal areas are found in the United States as well as internationally. In some cases, such as the Western Jurisdiction of the US as well as some places internationally, an episcopal area covers a very large territory.
John Calvin Broomfield (1872–1950) was one of only two Bishops ever elected by the Methodist Protestant Church. This U.S. branch of Methodism did not elect Bishops but had Conference Presidents instead. However, in 1939 in preparation for reunion with the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, the M.P. delegates to the Uniting Conference in Kansas City were authorized to elect two Bishops as their contribution to the episcopacy of the new denomination, The Methodist Church. John Calvin Broomfield and James Henry Straughn were those elected.
The Philippines Central Conference of the United Methodist Church is a collection of annual conferences of the United Methodist Church in the Philippines that are organised much like jurisdictional conferences in the United States. The Philippines Central Conference is considered a member church of the World Methodist Council, and a "Central Conference" of the world-wide United Methodist Church. It is also a member of the Christian Conference of Asia and the National Council of Churches in the Philippines as The United Methodist Church in the Philippines, representing the denomination as its Philippine counterpart.
In Christianity, the ordination of women has been taking place in an increasing number of Protestant and Old Catholic churches, starting in the 20th century. Since ancient times, certain churches of the Orthodox tradition, such as the Coptic Orthodox Church, have raised women to the office of deaconess. While ordination of women has been approved in many denominations, it is still a very controversial and divisive topic.
Ancel Henry Bassett was a Methodist minister, author, editor, and historian who left the Methodist Episcopal Church to join the Methodist Protestant Church soon after its founding in 1830. He became an influential leader of that denomination, editing one of its primary periodicals, the Western Recorder. In 1875, the General Conference of the Methodist Protestant Church requested that he write and publish a denominational history, which was published in 1877.
The history of Methodism in the United States dates back to the mid-18th century with the ministries of early Methodist preachers such as Laurence Coughlan and Robert Strawbridge. Following the American Revolution most of the Anglican clergy who had been in America came back to England. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, sent Thomas Coke to America where he and Francis Asbury founded the Methodist Episcopal Church, which was to later establish itself as the largest denomination in America during the 19th century.
The Global Methodist Church is a Methodist denomination within Protestant Christianity subscribing to views consistent with the conservative Confessing Movement. The denomination is headquartered in the United States and has a presence internationally. The Global Methodist Church was created as a result of a schism with the United Methodist Church, after members departed to erect a denomination seeking to uphold "theological and ethical Christian orthodoxy." Congregations that left the UMC to form the Global Methodist Church opposed recognition of same-sex marriage and the ordination of non-celibate gay clergy. Its doctrines, which are aligned with Wesleyan-Arminian theology, are contained in the Transitional Book of Doctrines and Discipline, its Book of Discipline, and in The Catechism of the Global Methodist Church. As of 2024, the church says it is composed of nearly 4,500 congregations and a similar number of pastors.
