Methodist Episcopal Church, South and South and was criticized for holding slaves. The 1844 General Conference voted to suspend Bishop Andrew from exercising his episcopal office until he gave up the slaves. Southern delegates to the conference disputed the authority of a General Conference to discipline bishops. The cultural differences that had divided the nation during the mid-19th century were also dividing the Methodist Episcopal Church. The 1844 dispute led Methodists in the South to break off and form a separate denomination, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MEC,S). The statistics for 1859 showed the MEC,S had as enrolled members some 511,601 whites and 197,000
Biblical authority Rogers and McKim, constituted a 19th-century innovation. Woodbridge challenged this thesis in his 1982 book "Biblical Authority: A Critique of the Rogers/McKim Proposal", arguing that for each of those categories, God's Word has authority and is without error. Moreover, Woodbridge asserted that this particular view of biblical authority had been the normative, orthodox position throughout the history of Christianity. Biblical authority The term biblical authority refers to the extent to which commandments and doctrines within the Old and New Testament scriptures are authoritative over humans' belief and conduct, as well as the extent to which Biblical propositions are accurate in