While more than 90 percent of The United Methodist Church’s more than 8 million U.S. members are white, the racial/ethnic presence and influence in the denomination is significant. That presence extends back to the birth of American Methodism more than two centuries ago, when black and white adherents flocked to worship services and organized Wesleyan membership classes and eventually the first churches.
The first Methodist converts in the New World in the mid-1700s were two slaves on the Caribbean island of Antigua. There were also early efforts to preach and evangelize to Native Americans, even by John and Charles Wesley prior to their establishment of Methodism back in England. Missionary outreach to Asia, the Pacific Islands and Latin America in the 1800s eventually brought growing populations of immigrants from those regions into the U.S. church.
As Methodism’s racial/ethnic membership grew, so did the concerns they faced inside the church: the need for new churches, trained clergy and appointment of racial/ethnic pastors to supervise racial/ethnic churches; fair compensation for racial/ethnic clergy; the goal of racial integration into the mainstream of the church; and so on.
Outside the church, they wrestled, alongside white allies, with concerns that were often of life-or-death severity, including: slavery, segregation and lynching of African Americans; eviction of Native Americans from their tribal lands; and anti-immigrant laws and violence, especially against those from Asia and Pacific islands.
While much has changed in a more open, less segregated church and society, the vestiges of racial bigotry and discrimination remain. Today’s social challenges include rejection and mistreatment of undocumented immigrants, unfair and often lethal law enforcement tactics that target African Americans, and the continuing disrespect shown in Native American sports-team names and mascots.
Inside the church, the push continues for more multiracial leadership and influence, support for racial/ethnic congregations and attention to their missional needs and their contributions to the denomination.
The General Commission on Religion and Race addresses these and other critical racial/ethnic concerns, in our church and in society, through its advocacy efforts. Those efforts involve collaboration with racial/ethnic caucuses and racial/ethnic ministry plans of the church, as well as the Inter-Ethnic Strategy Development Group and other allies in the struggle against racism and the quest for racial justice and inclusiveness.
