The Doctrines and Discipline of the African Methodist Episcopal Church
The first book of order of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, printed the year after its founding. Its preface, signed by Richard Allen, Daniel Coker and James Champion, tells the church’s history from 1787 to the conference of 1816.
The book sets out the articles of religion, the rules of the societies and the government of the new church, following the Methodist pattern. It opens with an address “To the Members of the African Methodist Episcopal Church”, a brief statement of the church’s rise and progress, which dates the first meeting of the Black Methodists of Philadelphia to November 1787 and records that on 11 April 1816 Allen was set apart for the episcopal office. Its section on slavery provides that no slaveholder shall be received as a member.
The preface was written within a year of the founding by the men who led it, thirty years after the earliest events it describes. It is cited in Richard Allen and the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Cited in
- 1787 to 1816, estimated date