Wesleyan Methodist Church (United States)

The Wesleyan Methodist Church was a Methodist denomination in the United States organized on May 13, 1841. It was composed of ministers and laypeople who withdrew from the Methodist Episcopal Church because of disagreements regarding slavery, church government, and the doctrine of holiness according to the Discipline of the Wesleyan Methodist Connection (1841), although later editions of the Discipline cite only the first two reasons. The first secessions in 1841 took place in Michigan although the new church group was formalized in Utica, New York. In November 1842, Orange Scott, La Roy Sunderland and J. Horton seceded from the M. E. Church for reasons given in their publication of the True Wesleyan. The following month Luther Lee and Lucius C. Matlack followed. The first general conference was held in Utica, NY, in October 1844.

The Wesleyan Methodist Church merged with the Pilgrim Holiness Church in 1968, and became known as The Wesleyan Church. Several conferences in both merging denominations refused to be a part of the merged church over differences about modesty and worldliness (some of the conferences did not permit their members to have television sets, and required the women to have uncut hair). One of the largest conferences which refused to join the merger was the Allegheny Conference with over 100 churches. It became the Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Connection of Churches, and most of the churches are still known as Wesleyan Methodist. Other Wesleyan Methodists who dissented with the merger organized into the Bible Methodist Connection of Churches and the Bible Methodist Connection of Tennessee.

See also 
List of Methodist denominations
Wesleyan Methodist Church (Allegheny Conference)
Bible Methodist Connection of Churches
Primitive Methodist Church
United Christian Wesleyan Methodist Diocese of South Florida

References 

Category:Methodist denominations
Category:Methodist denominations in North America
Category:Holiness denominations
Category:History of Methodism in the United States
Category:Former Methodist denominations
Category:Religious organizations established in 1841
Category:1841 establishments in the United States