Ame and Ame Zion Churches in African American History Essay

There are many questions that come to mind when looking at the significant roles denominationalism affects the Christian faith. We see this growing trend of doctrinal beliefs that cause for many of our African American Churches to worship separately on a weekly bases for Sunday Morning Worship Services and Mid-Week Bible Studies. Through the incorporation of doctrinal beliefs that govern our churches making for divisions within the Christian faith, we also find division and difference within that denomination also. I ask myself this question, how and why there are so many denominations founded and why are there so many sub-cultures or denominational split within them if we are the Body of Christ and one church? Through this paper I will take a look at two churches, the A.M.E. and A.M.E.Z. church to understand what makes them different while exploring the doctrinal beliefs that divide them. The Methodist Church was formed by a few students in England at Oxford University. Known as the Oxford Methodist, they were ridiculed for their beliefs in 1729. They were dubbed â€Å"Bible Bigots,† â€Å"Bible Moths,† and the â€Å"Holy Club.† Three major names are cited as influential members of this group; John and Charles Wesley and Greg Whitefield and where were methodically religious. This group felt that it was necessary to be justified before one could be sanction and that they should give close attention to live a life of holiness. The Methodist movement made its way to the American Colonies after being it was not able to remain within the Church of England. After an evangelistic team made up of many un-churched believers from within the Church of England, under the direction of Wesley, submitted a declaration. This document was penned by John Wesley as early as 1739, outlined general rules of governance with Bible rules and conduct that is still held today by the modern Methodist Church. In 1784 a Deed of Declaration was submitted, giving its ‘legal status’ to the yearly Methodist conference. In this brief historical overview of the Methodist Church as a whole, we see how small divisions within any church organization can form. In this case it was out of a team of evangelist who were not welcomed by the Church of England. The winds of change continued to blow within the Methodist Church movement. The emergence of the African Americans willing to worship the Methodist banner more trials ensued as we see a difference of human rights and equality raising its head. After the formation of the Methodist Church in the United States we see a set of worshipers from within the vast population of slaves in the south. The First Great Awakening in the 1740s led by John Wesley, records in his journal that be baptized two Black converts on November 29, 1758. This Methodist society organized in Maryland in 1764 then later in New York in 1776, both charters included African Americans in great number on their church rosters. As American history notes, the horrible experience of slavery and unjust treatment servant worker who were owned by Whites made for great indifference in this country and likewise within the walls of the Methodist Church. There was a Second Great Awakening that came at the turn of the century in 1800. The Methodist church had a strong following by both freed and not yet freed slaves. They church spoken in opposition to slavery, then late somewhat retreated as a force of the opposition to slavery. As the Slave Rebellions grew constant Gabriel Prosser was constrained to admonish his fellowship to â€Å"spare the Methodist and the Quakers.† Out of this we see the Methodist movement take actions in Virginia where Richard Allen felt the need to withdraw from fellowship with the white Methodists of Philadelphia. Richard Allen and the A.M.E. Church, (African Methodist Church) in 1787 led other black worshipers’ withdrawal from St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia after being pulled from their knees is worship in an area that they did not know way off limited to black worshipers. This event led to protest and according to Allan, â€Å"†¦All went out of the church in a body.† â€Å"†¦and they were more plagued with [us] in the church.†