Methodist Episcopal Church, South - Definition and Overview

The Methodist Episcopal Church, South was the so-called "Southern Methodist Church" resulting from the split in the Methodist Episcopal Church which had been brewing over several years until it came out into the open at a conference held in Louisville, Kentucky in 1845. This body maintained its own polity until it merged with the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Protestant Church to form the Methodist Church in 1939, which in turn later (1968) merged with the Evangelical United Brethren to form the United Methodist Church. Conservative Southern congregations dissenting from the merger formed the Southern Methodist Church in 1940.

During the mid-19th century (1830s-1840s), the Methodist Episcopal Church of the South began preaching sermons supporting and even encouraged the acts of slavery. The church used the stories of Ham and Cain from the Bible to enforce the message that people of color where inferior to white males. This promoted belief encouraged white males to own slaves in order to control the sinful people of color and have dominion over Africans.