Wesleyan Church

The Wesleyan Church in America (formerly Wesleyan Methodist) was officially formed in 1843 at an organizing conference in Utica, New York, as a group of ministers and laymen splitting from the Methodist Episcopal Church, primarily over the issue of slavery, though they had secondary issues as well. Rev. Orange Scott presided, as the meeting formed a federation of churches at first calling themselves the Wesleyan Methodist Connection, was formed. (The name was chosen to distinguish themselves from the British Wesleyan Methodists.) Other leaders at the founding of the church were LaRoy Sunderland, who had been tried and defrocked for his antislavery writings, Lucious C. Matlack, and Luther Lee, a minister who later operated an Underground Railroad station in Syracuse, New York.

In 1948 the denomination merged with the Alliance of Reformed Baptists of Canada and 1968 with the Pilgrim Holiness Church.

Today the denomination has about 3,600 member churches in the United States, Canada and 40 other nations, reports about 123,000 members in the US. The Wesleyan Advocate is the official publication of the Wesleyan Church.

Schools in the United States and Canada

• Houghton College (New York)
• Indiana Wesleyan University (Indiana)
• Southern Wesleyan College (South Carolina
• Bartlesville Wesleyan University (Oklahoma)
• Bethany Bible College (New Brunswick)