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Palm Sunday starts off Holy Week, setting the tone for the greatest time of the Christian year: the death and resurrection of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. Learn more about Palm Sunday in this video.

Chuck Knows Church: The Original Series aims to interpret the objects, symbols, and terms we often hear in church. Each video features “Chuck” who helps us learn more about our church while inviting us to have deeper conversation with our pastor.

January 31, 2019 / By UNY Communications 

Editor’s Note: The following statement was released on January 31, 2019, by New York Area Resident Bishop, Thomas J. Bickerton, and Upper New York Area Resident Bishop, Mark J. Webb, about the Reproductive Health Act that was signed into New York State law in January.

Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus Christ!

The conversation about abortion has dominated the media over the last few days. In January, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law the Reproductive Health Act, one of the most sweeping expansions of abortion rights since abortion was legalized in New York State in 1970. Some commend this action as a significant step toward securing women’s rights and health. Others fear the less restrictive provisions of the new law will lead to an increase in abortions and especially late-term abortions.

Although the number of abortions in New York State has declined in recent years (a trend mirrored across the country), New York has twice the number of abortions as any other state according to the Guttmacher Institute, a nonpartisan research organization. 

The new law now permits abortion after the 24th week of pregnancy in cases where a woman’s life or health are threatened or when an unborn child is deemed not viable and unable to survive outside its mother’s womb. It also allows health care providers to determine what constitutes a health threat to a pregnant woman and expands authorized health care providers to include not only physicians, but licensed nurse practitioners, physician assistants and licensed midwives.

As United Methodists, we are clear about several things related to abortion. Our Social Principles state, “The beginning of human life and ending of life are the God-given boundaries of human existence. While individuals have always had some degree of control over when they would die, they now have the awesome power to determine when and even whether new individuals will be born.”Our Social Principles also state that, “We are equally bound to respect the sacredness of the life and well-being of the mother and the unborn child. We recognize tragic conflicts of life with life that may justify abortion under proper medical procedures by certified medical providers . . . We cannot affirm abortion as an acceptable means of birth control, and we unconditionally reject it as a means of gender selection or eugenics. We oppose the use of late term abortion known as dilation and extraction (partial-birth abortion) and call for the end of this practice except when the physical life of the mother is in danger and no other medical procedure is available, or in the case of severe fetal anomalies incompatible with life.” (Social Principles, ¶161K)

Our Social Principles challenge us to work for the “diminishment of high abortion rates” by “encourage[ing] ministries to reduce unintended pregnancies such as comprehensive, age-appropriate sexuality education, advocacy in regard to contraception, and support for initiatives that enhance the quality of life for all women and girls around the globe.”  We urge you to talk with other leaders about how your church might engage in these kinds of ministries.

We are supportive of our church’s current stance on abortion as expressed in our denomination’s Social Principles and encourage you to use these principles as a basis of education and conversation on this sensitive issue in particular.

We know passions run high on all sides of the abortion debate and in the midst of those conversations we know God calls us to a future where the value of every human life – including every woman and every unborn child - is honored and protected. The way to that future will not be found through finger pointing, legislating, or even church programs, but only by walking the path of Jesus with one another. 

Grace and Peace,

The survey, in detail

The decision to meet

When Thomas Coke bumped into Francis Asbury after a worship service at Barratt’s Chapel in Frederica, Delaware, he shared important news. John Wesley had sent him to ordain Asbury and appoint him superintendent of a new, Methodist church in the United States.

The Christmas Conference at Lovely Lane Chapel in Baltimore, Maryland, began on Christmas Eve 1784. Image courtesy United Methodist General Commission on Archives and History.

This had been a long time in coming. Church of England priests serving in America returned to England during the American Revolutionary War, leaving no one to administer the sacraments to the Methodists. Lay preachers kept the societies going with meetings and love feasts, but they needed ordained clergy.

When the Church of England continued to refuse Wesley’s requests to ordain some of his Methodist preachers and send them across the Atlantic, he took matters into his own hands. Wesley ordained two Methodist lay preachers to serve in the U.S., and appointed Coke a general superintendent.

After worship at Barratt’s Chapel on that November Sunday, Asbury and Coke decided to call a special conference for all the Methodist preachers in the United States. They would meet at Lovely Lane Chapel beginning December 24, 1784, to found and organize a new church. The 10 days they spent together would later become known as the Christmas Conference.

With the conference beginning in just 40 days, they needed to get the word out immediately. Freeborn Garrettson, leader of the society at Barratt’s Chapel, mounted a horse and set out. The Paul Revere of Methodism would later write in his journal, “My dear Master enabled me to ride about twelve hundred miles in about six weeks.”

Freeborn Garrettson is sometimes called "the Paul Revere of Methodism." Image courtesyUnited Methodist General Commission on Archives and History.

The Conference

Garrettson was effective with this monumental task. According to Coke, 81 people met at Lovely Lane. “Nearly 60 of them” were “American Preachers,” he notes, “most of them young.”

As the conference to found the Methodist Episcopal Church began, only Coke, Richard Whatcoat, and Thomas Vasey—the two Wesley had ordained in England a few weeks earlier—were clergy. All other members of the Christmas Conference, including Asbury, were lay preachers. Coke would soon rectify that.

Beginning on Christmas Day, Francis Asbury was ordained a deacon, ordained an elder, and consecrated as a general superintendent on three consecutive days—a record that will never be broken.

Asbury, who had served as the de facto leader of the Methodists in America for years, refused to accept the role of superintendent solely by Wesley’s appointment. He insisted the preachers elect him to serve in that capacity.

Soon after the Christmas Conference, Methodists began to refer to Coke and Asbury as bishops, despite Wesley’s objections to the term. The United Methodist Church still elects our bishops today.

Asbury’s ordination contained another bit of foreshadowing. Philip Otterbein, a pastor in the German Reformed Church, participated in Asbury’s ordination. Otterbein would later help found the United Brethren, another predecessor denomination of The United Methodist Church.

Philip Otterbein (2nd from left) participated in the ordination of Francis Asbury. Image courtesyUnited Methodist General Commission on Archives and History.

No minutes of the Christmas Conference survive, but based on the journals of those present and the Discipline they produced, historians can piece together much of what happened. Twelve lay preachers were elected and ordained as elders (clergy). The Sunday Service John Wesley sent with Coke was approved for use in the new church—a forerunner of today’s Book of Worship. The conference also talked about forming Cokesbury College, and made a host of other decisions necessary for the formation of the new denomination.

When the conference was concluded and the church born, Asbury journaled about all this activity in his typically understated way. “We spent the whole week in conference, debating freely, and determining all things by a majority of votes,” he explained. “We were in great haste, and did much business in a little time” (The Journal and Letters of Francis Asbury, December 18, 1784, p 939).

That is not the way many of us would choose to spend our Christmas vacation, but as descendants of these forebears in the faith, we’re sure glad they did.

*Joe Iovino works for UMC.org at United Methodist Communications. Contact him by email or at 615-312-3733.

This story was published December 12, 2017.