DALLAS, Texas — A fifth Methodist body has joined an ongoing effort to foster cooperation among black and white Methodists.
The little-known Union American Methodist Episcopal Church joined the Commission on Pan-Methodist Cooperation and Union during the commission’s Nov. 19–21 meeting in Dallas, the United Methodist News Service reported.
“We were first known as the Church of Africans,” said Bishop Linwood Rideout, one of three bishops of the denomination. His 6,000-member church has congregations in New England, Jamaica and Liberia. It was founded in 1805 after lay preachers led blacks out of a predominantly white Methodist church in Wilmington, Del.
The other members of the commission are the African Methodist Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal Zion, Christian Methodist Episcopal and United Methodist churches. They are working on possible areas of cooperation related to social concerns, evangelism, publications and higher education.
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