The ashgate research companion to world methodism william gibson, peter fprsaith, martin wellings, routledge, 2013 scan

In this period Methodism functioned primarily as a religious movement and not as a separate church or denomination, though by 1784 John Wesley had authorised the formation of a Methodist

THE ASHGATE RESEARCH COMPANION TO

WORLD METHODISM

The Ashgate Research Companions are designed to offer scholars and graduate

students a comprehensive and authoritative state-of-the-art review of current research in a particular area The companions’ editors bring together a team of respected and experienced experts to write chapters on the key issues in their speciality, providing a comprehensive reference to the field

Ashgate Methodist Studies Series

Editorial Board

Dr Ted Campbell, Associate Professor, Perkins School of Theology, Southern

Methodist University, Texas, USA

Professor William Gibson, Director of the Oxford Centre for Methodism and

Church History, Oxford Brookes University, UK

Professor David Hempton, Dean, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University, USA

Dr Jason Vickers, Associate Professor of Theology and Wesleyan Studies; Director of the Center for Evangelical United Brethren Heritage at the

United Theological Seminary, Dayton, Ohio, USA

Dr Martin Wellings, Superintendent Minister of Oxford Methodist Circuit and

Past President of the World Methodist Historical Society

Methodism remains one of the largest denominations in the USA and is growing in South America, Africa and Asia (especially in Korea and China) This series spans Methodist history and theology, exploring its success as a movement historically and in its global expansion Books in the series will look particularly at features within Methodism which attract wide interest, including: the unique position of the Wesleys; the prominent role of women and minorities in Methodism; the interaction between Methodism and politics; the ‘Methodist conscience’ and its motivation for temperance and pacifist movements; the wide range of Pentecostal, holiness and evangelical movements, and the interaction of Methodism with different cultures

Companion to World Methodism

William Gibson, Peter Forsaith and Martin Wellings have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

The Ashgate Research Companion on World Methodism – (Ashgate Methodist Studies Series)

1 Methodism 2 Methodism – History 3 Methodist Church 4 Methodist Church – History i Series ii World Methodism iii Gibson, William, 1959- iV Forsaith, Peter S.

V Wellings, Martin

287–dc23

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The Ashgate Research Companion to World Methodism / edited by William Gibson, Peter Forsaith and Martin Wellings.

pages cm – (Ashgate Methodist Studies Series)

includes bibliographical references and index.

1 Methodism i Gibson, William, 1959– editor of compilation ii Forsaith, Peter S., editor of compilation iii Wellings, Martin, editor of compilation

Notices

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright © William Gibson, Peter Forsaith, Martin Wellings and the contributors 2013

PART II: HISTORICAL CONTEXT

PART III: WORLD METHODISM

9 Holiness and Pentecostal Movements Within Methodism 141

PART IV: BELIEF AND PRACTICE

Peter Phillips

J R Watson

Russell E Richey

Karen B Westerfield Tucker

Ian M Randall

Martin Wellings

John Munsey Turner

PART V: CULTURE AND SOCIETY

Stephen J Plant

Jennifer L Woodruff Tait

22 Material and Cultural Aspects of Methodism: Architecture,

6.1 Divergencies in British Methodist statistics of members: EMC

6.4 Average percentage and numerical growth rates in global Methodist

24.1 Occupational composition of UK Methodist lay leaders,

24.2 Methodist adult affiliations among business leaders in Britain in the DBB

A.1 Methodists among British business leaders, nineteenth

A.2 Methodists among American business leaders, nineteenth

Brian Beck is a Past President and former Secretary of the British Methodist

Conference in the UK

Ted A Campbell is Associate Professor of Church History in the Perkins School of

Theology at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas

David M Chapman is Co-leader of the Central Sussex United Area of the Methodist

Church and the United Reformed Church, UK

Laura Davies is Research Fellow at the Centre for Christianity and Culture,

Regent’s Park College University of Oxford, UK

Morris L Davis is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, and Associate Professor

of the History of Christianity and Wesleyan Methodist Studies, Drew University, New Jersey

Peter Forsaith is Research Fellow in the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church

History, Oxford Brookes University, UK

William Gibson is Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Director of the Oxford

Centre for Methodism and Church History, Oxford Brookes University, UK

David J Jeremy is Emeritus Professor of Business History, Manchester Metropolitan

University, UK

Margaret Jones is a Supernumerary Minister and former Team Leader in the

Formation in Ministry Office in the Methodist Church of Great Britain

Peter Phillips is Director, Centre for Biblical Literacy and Communication at St

John’s College, University of Durham, UK

Stephen J Plant is Dean of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, UK.

Priscilla Pope-Levison is Professor of Theology at Seattle Pacific University,

Washington

Ian M Randall is Senior Research Fellow of Spurgeon’s College, London, UK.

Russell E Richey is Dean Emeritus of the Candler School of Theology, Emory

University, Atlanta, Georgia

Joerg Rieger is Wendland-Cook Professor of Constructive Theology at the Perkins

School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas

Keith Robbins is former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wales Lampeter, UK Jonathan Rodell teaches in the Institute of Continuing Education at the University

of Cambridge, UK

John T Smith is Senior Lecturer in Education, University of Hull, UK.

John Munsey Turner is a Supernumerary Minister and former Tutor at the Queen’s

College, Birmingham, UK

Jason E Vickers is Associate Professor of Theology and Wesleyan Studies and

Director of the Center for Evangelical United Brethren Heritage at the United Theological Seminary, Dayton, Ohio

J R Watson is Professor in the Department of English and Fellow of St Chad’s

College, University of Durham, UK

Kevin Watson was Director of Englesea Brook Chapel and Museum and currently

works at the University of Chester, UK

Martin Wellings is Superintendent Minister of the Oxford Circuit, UK and Past

President of the World Methodist Historical Society

Karen B Westerfield Tucker is Professor of Worship at Boston University School

of Theology, Massachusetts.

Jennifer L Woodruff Tait is Managing Editor of Christian History Magazine and

Affiliate Professor of Church History at Asbury Theological Seminary, Kentucky

Introduction

Introduction

William Gibson

The Complexity of Methodism

The publication of a research companion to world Methodism invites some explanation This collection of essays seeks to capture some of the complexity of the phenomenon of Methodism, and does so by harnessing the talents of scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds Historians, theologians, liturgists, scholars of business, material culture, literature and music provide insights into the character and development of world Methodism The complex interdisciplinary picture that emerges from these essays is entirely appropriate, for Methodism, like many other churches and denominations, is itself complicated and multi-layered, and suffers from the reductionist urge to simplify and uncomplicate Accounts of Methodism could

be supplied which concentrate solely on its narrative history from a society within the Church of England in Oxford in the 1730s to a worldwide church with millions

of adherents in 2011 Its theology could be reduced to a version of the Bebbington

‘quadrilateral’ – though perhaps in the case of Methodism that quadrilateral would consist of a present-centred Wesleyan rhombus of calling, conversion, conscience and cross Methodist popular culture could be condensed into the hagiography of John Wesley and an emphasis on souvenirs and commemorative crockery Local studies, biographies, sociology and the plethora of fashionable disciplinary ‘studies’ can all lend a hand in reducing Methodism to a two-dimensional form of religion But this is not what this volume seeks to provide

It is important at the outset to be clear about what is meant here by ‘Methodism’ and, equally, what is not In at least what is now regarded as the movement’s first half century, dating its genesis from around 1730, ‘Methodist’ was a term of mild ridicule used of those whose religious behaviour, usually termed ‘enthusiasm’, seemed excessive If this was a popular usage, it had specific reference to individuals and groups linked to a number of leading personalities, most notably George Whitefield, the Countess of Huntingdon and the brothers John and Charles Wesley Moreover, during this time the Methodists were essentially (although not universally) part of the national Church of England and any sense of forming separate denominations was generally denied It should also be recognised that

‘Methodist’ was a term coined and applied by others, which was only reluctantly accepted by participants.

The Calvinistic Methodism of Whitefield, Howell Harris (in Wales) and Lady Huntingdon did not develop the sort of social and theological adaptability that David

despite its strongly evangelical roots, did it sustain a sense of missionary urgency

in the way Wesleyan Methodism did Its identity remained closely focused on the communities in which it had thrived in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and in which it saw revivals and revivalism as a continuous process rather than as

a prelude to global evangelism The separateness of Calvinistic Methodism from Wesleyanism should not be surprising given that its roots lay more firmly in the soil of Reformed theological traditions than the Arminian principles of the Wesleys The editors therefore have seen Calvinistic Methodism as much more akin to the Reformed tradition and best considered as such

The Methodism which concerns this volume, then, is that which traces its roots back to the activities of the Wesleys in what has also become known as the evangelical movement, but which through the nineteenth century developed into

a global phenomenon From the start Methodism was untidy and ambiguous It sought to exist within an established church which had settled parish boundaries, episcopal authority and a range of legal and doctrinal constraints For such an emotive, enthusiastic and earnest endeavour Anglican constraints were unlikely to

do other than chafe and snap They did in the 1780s and 1790s, leaving Methodism to complete the process of forming itself into a discrete church Methodism in varying degrees sought lay involvement in its organisation and worship which elevated

‘heart religion’ above articles of faith and a settled liturgy Consequently it carried untidiness and ambiguity into the world of independence from Anglicanism Was it radical or conservative in its political as well as its social and spiritual gospel? Was

it ecumenical in outlook or competitive and antagonistic towards other churches? Was it a force for the freeing of women, slaves, ethnic and other minorities from the shackles that society had made for them? Was it emotionally indulgent or demanding? Was it a force for godly discipline or spiritual excess? Did it promote

‘respectable’ values of hard work and aspiration or was it sympathetic to those who lacked such values? These, and many other questions, have concerned scholars of Methodism But for the most part there is no single answer to such questions and Methodism and its scholars have had to accommodate a ‘both/and’ response to them, rather than ‘either/or’ This makes for complexity, but it also gives world Methodism a rich interior which defies reduction to simplicities and platitudes The expansion of Methodism was not a matter of physics; it did not result in spiritual entropy – rather the opposite As Methodism expanded to North America and then to Asia, Latin America, Africa and beyond, it became more variegated and diverse This is perhaps a feature of religious expansion which Methodism shares with Catholicism, Anglicanism and other churches Yet a founding feature of

1 D Hempton, Methodism: Empire of the Spirit (New Haven, CT and London: Yale

University Press, 2005).

Methodism, its syncretic spiritual and ecclesiological inflection, was a particularly attractive quality While Methodism had central truths, they were comprehensive

in character and allowed Methodism to accommodate the different cultural settings into which it expanded The same features that made Methodism accessible in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in the industrial towns in the North

of England, and later in the expanding states of America, made it equally so in the plains of Asia and the plateaus of Africa Of course as a human endeavour

it employed and exploited opportunism and determination as much as, if not more than, other churches, but it did so from a fortified position of conviction and certainty which fuelled its missionary enterprise This evangelicalism was at the heart of Methodism and a key element in Methodist identity And it determined the character of much Methodist activity; there were few, if any, Methodist meetings which did not – in good times and adversity – set themselves the goal of spreading the word of God beyond the confines of its immediate society and country The experience of conversion felt by so many Methodists, as well as the intensity of the emotional pull of its worship, were feelings that had to be shared alongside the spiritual call of its teachings about God, Christ and salvation

A factor in the success of Methodism has been the forms and movements in which it has popularly spread across the developing world, particularly holiness and pentecostalism The rudimentary class distinction identified by some scholars that middle classes were attracted to ‘traditional’ Methodism and working classes

to holiness and pentecostalism resulted in an enormous growth of the latter

in the developing world Pentecostalism became a religious form for the poor

In contrast, in Europe, and perhaps North America, Methodism has become a religiously normative institution which increasingly resembles other Christian denominations, and it has shared in the decline that has affected such groups In the developing world it has retained its freshness and emotional intensity through the incorporation of holiness and pentecostalism In these places John Wesley’s experience in Aldersgate provides a potent model for inner spirituality and Methodist hymns give a harmonious setting The processes of urbanisation and industrialisation in the developing world emulate those in Britain and America

in which Methodism achieved its greatest successes, and it is unsurprising that the same population shifts and transformations see a similar desire to lay down spiritual roots But the multivalent character of Methodism has given fresh impetus from the adoption of holiness and pentecostalism into indigenous forms

of Methodism The fragmentation of Methodism has happened in Latin America and elsewhere as much as it did in early nineteenth century Britain There are more than fifteen separate denominations in Brazil which are Wesleyan in origin

2 L E Wethington, ‘The Impact of Orbas de Wesley in the Hispanic World’, in C Yrigoyen (ed.), The Global Impact of the Wesleyan Traditions and Their Related Movements

(Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2002), 275–84

The Primacy of John Wesley

The hold of John Wesley over the organisation he founded is a remarkable feature of world Methodism The desire to read Wesley’s words has meant that his works are available in – among other languages – Spanish and Chinese, and the Aldersgate renewal conferences, which grew up in the USA, have found as much success in Manila as in Michigan Wesley was taken to the developing world by missionaries who used the ‘twice-told tales’ of Wesley’s conversion and extraordinary work in the eighteenth century – and of course this happened before the emergence of

of the developing world and that of Britain -and increasingly North America- have diverged In Britain and North America the John Wesley of scholarly history has become different from the John Wesley of faith The forensic attention to which John Wesley has been subjected has meant that the hagiographic treatment of him can no longer prevail in scholarly circles But this revisionism has not spread much beyond scholarly circles and remains surprising to many in the USA as well as in the developing world In the same way that Horace Walpole told William Mason

in 1781 that he did not want to unlearn all the myths of his youth about the Whig heroes of the Glorious Revolution, many Methodists do not want to unlearn the

is a theme of some of the essays in this volume which try to understand how the Wesley of history and the Wesley of faith can coexist

Consequently world Methodism accommodates an uncomfortable dual view

of John Wesley as human, flawed and problematic as well as Wesley as a model of spiritual values, authentic conversion, evangelical zeal and passion to achieve the salvation of others Thomas Carlyle might have been right that, in another church, Wesley would have been made a saint for founding a unique preaching order But

in Methodism his beatification is a source of division and controversy Nevertheless the ingredients of Wesley’s success, stripped of negative features, have been a vital force in the formation of Methodist identity across the world and are features that all Methodisms can claim in common When Methodist missionaries were struggling

to make headway in Latin America their cry was ‘what we need is Wesley himself

of the throne of Peter for Catholicism and that of Augustine for Anglicanism And in the same way, the idealisation of Wesley has developed a character independent of

3 See in particular Jason Vickers’s essay in this volume.

4 W S Lewis (ed.), Horace Walpole’s Correspondence (New Haven, CT: Yale University

Press, 1935–1982), 42 vols, XXIX: 135.

5 Wethington, ‘The Impact of Orbas de Wesley’, 280 At the conference launching the

translation of Wesley into Spanish, Bishop Mortimer Arias of Bolivia said that ‘we can hope that for the next century Wesley may become a fertile source of inspiration, doctrinal formation and pastoral orientation for pastors, lay leaders, students, teachers and academic researchers

of the always expanding Wesleyan family.’ M Arias, ‘Wesley, Our Heritage and the Global Holiness Movement’, Methodist World Council meeting, Rio De Janeiro, August 1996.

the historical reality The question is, should this be troubling and problematic? In

the sense that the idealised Wesley has become a historical reality in the way in which

he has been adopted and embraced by Methodism across the world this may not be troubling In this respect Methodism is no different from other denominations and religions which idealise their saints and heroes Such idealised figures can express the truths of religion and can establish and communicate the identity of a church However the idealisation of Wesley is perturbing when his work is stripped of its eighteenth century context and twenty first century assumptions and values are

Wesley in Latin America, L E Wethington wrote:

One of the greatest challenges of introducing Wesley himself is how

It is a serious problem when the words people want Wesley to have said are put into his mouth and thoughts he did not express are credited to him When the Wesley of faith trumps the Wesley of history both are damaged and diminished

So the treatment of Wesley as a model of sociological concern for the poor and as a

liberation theologian – in the modern sense of that term – are unlikely to contribute

to the health and vitality of world Methodism; indeed they are more likely over time to sap it It is no wonder therefore that one of the authors in this volume asks

The centrality of John Wesley in the minds of many Methodists presents two related problems First it has the tendency to exclude, or at least marginalise, the role of other key leaders in Methodism Among his contemporaries the wattage of the spotlight on John Wesley impairs our view of Charles Wesley, John Fletcher and

of the tradition is significant and under-represented both in scholarship and in popular Methodisms The second problem is that John Wesley’s voice drowns out those of the non-Wesleyan Methodist traditions and those groups which split from

6 A model of the ways in which a leading scholar has appropriately contextualised Wesley’s attitude to property and poverty without anachronism is John Walsh’s outstanding

article ‘John Wesley and the Community of Goods’, in K Robbins (ed.), Protestant

Evangelicalism: Britain, Ireland, Germany and America c 1750–c 1950: Essays in Honour of W R Ward (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990).

7 Wethington, ‘The Impact of Orbas de Wesley’, 281.

8 See T A Campbell’s essay in this volume.

9 Fletcher has at last obtained greater recognition in the light of the recent collection,

G Hammond and P S Forsaith (eds), Religion, Gender and Industry: Exploring Methodism in a

Local Setting (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2011).

Wesleyan Methodism In these categories lie Calvinistic Methodism, Primitive Methodism, Bible Christians and various Free Methodist groups Such groups and churches are responsible for some of the vigour and power of the radical agenda

of Methodism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries They were often in the forefront of championing the role of women in worship and they also contributed

non-Wesleyan traditions that the working class leadership of Methodism was most

the missions which spread Methodism across the world Moreover the interaction between Wesleyan and non-Wesleyan strands can be distorted if the distinctive

the debt owed by Methodists to non-Wesleyan influences be fully acknowledged and understood if there is no room in Methodism for such strands? An elegant call for such recognition was made in Martin Wellings’s Fernley Hartley Lecture, 2003,

by the Wesley brothers or assimilated into their ‘connexion’ were part of a much wider movement including the Moravians and Calvinistic evangelicals inside and

Methodist emphasis on John Wesley can help to define the character and identity

of Methodism but it can also prevent Methodism from appreciating some of the wider and more diverse influences and inspirations which moulded the tradition

10 B Holland, The Doctrine of Infant Baptism in Non-Wesleyan Methodism (Wesley

Historical Society, 1970).

11 D Hempton, ‘Wesleyan Methodism and Educational Politics in Early

Nineteenth-Century England’ History of Education, 8:3 (1979)

12 Non-Wesleyan pentecostal scholars acknowledge the Wesleyan influence upon the early development of the Pentecostal movement: E L Blumhofer, ‘Purity and Preparation’,

in S M Burgess (ed.), Reaching Beyond: Chapters in the History of Perfectionism (Peabody, MA:

Hendrickson, 1986), 275 and W M Menzies, ‘The Non-Wesleyan Origins of the Pentecostal

Movement’, in V Synan (ed.), Aspects of Pentecostal Charismatic Origins (Plainfield, NJ: Logos,

1975), 97.

13 M Wellings, ‘Evangelicals in Methodism: Mainstream, Marginal or Misunderstood?’, Fernley Hartley Lecture, 2003 at www.methodist.org.uk/index.cfm?fuseaction=opentogod content&cmid=693 (accessed 10 December 2011).

14 See for example the themed volume of Word and Deed: A Journal of Salvation Army

Theology and Ministry for May 2004 (vol 6, no 2) on the connections and distinctions between

Wesleyan and Salvationist theology.

Many Methodisms

In the eighteenth century ‘Methodist’ might apply to a considerable range of people, from Church of England clergy to political radicals It had a looseness we might today recognise in terms such as ‘extremist’ or ‘fundamentalist’; its use served to mock those it described Wesley’s 1780 hymnbook ‘for the use of the people called Methodists’, was mainly, albeit not exclusively, aimed at those ‘in connexion’ with himself Only towards the end of that century did the groupings become clearly demarcated and start to form denominations In eighteenth century Britain many ‘Methodist’ clergy remained as evangelical Anglicans, Whitefield’s societies largely became ‘Independent’ congregations, while the Countess of Huntingdon’s and John Wesley’s followers became denominations – in America this was only applicable to the Whitefieldites and Wesleyans

From its earliest days there was a bifurcation between those who adhered to

a Reformed, Calvinistic understanding of doctrine and those who embraced an

‘Arminian’ framework Yet this was not a clear divide, and there was a general consensus to ‘agree to disagree’ since the spread of an evangelistic message had greater priority It was only after Whitefield’s death in 1770 that this fault-line became contested, but for many the message and the mission still mattered more than destructive dogmatics The Calvinists were probably in the majority – certainly from the 1770s the Wesleys found themselves under siege; a position which probably strengthened a distinctive identity and in turn an organisational coherence which led to denominational resilience

The landscape of nineteenth century Methodism was in significant contrast to that of its bedrock The cause of religious liberty was strengthened by the impact

of the American and French revolutions; other factors fostered the development of organisational identity Religious choice became a matter of right, and the Methodist movement started to fragment into a bewildering variety of groups large and small, each with its own structure and emphases There were many Methodisms

of the Wesleyan tradition – some of which forswore allegiance to their founding figure If the nineteenth century was generally characterised by fissiparousness, the agenda of the twentieth was that of reunification The first Methodist Oecumenical Conference took place in 1881, although its aim was not initially towards any kind

of organic reconfiguration

This throws into relief the question, what constitutes Methodism? From the perspective of the eighteenth century the answer would probably be framed in terms of conversion, connexionalism, Anglicanism and Arminianism From the nineteenth century viewpoint the character of its conscience and spirituality, giving rise to social and political movements, and also traditions of holiness and Pentecostalism might be uppermost In the twentieth century Methodist ecumenism, theological pluralism and innovation in worship and liturgy could represent an answer Such responses suggest that Methodist identity is not – and perhaps never was – tightly knit Methodism is a ship whose planks and rigging have enough pliability and ‘give’ to enable its back not to be broken in the storms and swells that

it has encountered in becoming a global denomination Underpinning Methodism,

in all its forms, are perhaps three features: its Bible-centred teaching, its sense of belonging to a Wesleyan tradition, and its shared history and heritage.

The authors in this volume develop and explore key issues of the identity of Methodism as a global denomination The structure of the volume seeks to enable the reader to consider Methodism from various different perspectives The essays

on ‘Historical Context’ show how the germ of Methodism developed and spread across Britain and North America and especially how, despite the fragmentation

of the Wesleyan movement, its essence was able to survive and flourish in periods

of inner and external turbulence The section on ‘World Methodism’ adopts the perspective of those aspects of Methodism which have influenced its emergence

as a global denomination These essays particularly examine the phenomenon of Methodism’s transformation and metamorphosis despite, and perhaps because of, its Wesleyan heritage The essays on ‘Belief and Practice’ consider those aspects of global Methodism which are broadly shared across its many forms and expressions: preaching, scripture, hymnody, worship, spirituality and evangelism The final section on ‘Culture and Society’ considers some aspects of Methodism that can

be overlooked if it is considered solely as a religious organisation and examines its essential human ingredients Many of these ingredients are culturally specific but nevertheless stand as examples of the diversity and breadth of the Methodist experience and culture

Historical Context

91 refer to specific events in the life of John Wesley: his initial engagement with

an Oxford religious society between 1729 and 1730, and his death in 1791 In this period Methodism functioned primarily as a religious movement and not as a separate church or denomination, though by 1784 John Wesley had authorised the formation of a Methodist church in the United States and he had taken measures

in the British Isles that, as Frank Baker explained it, had separated the Methodist

Because of the huge range of scholarship on early Methodism, this chapter follows a historiographical and topical structure rather than the chronological framework that other chapters follow Readers who want a chronological survey are encouraged to utilise the biographical studies of John Wesley and his role in early Methodism by Henry D Rack and Richard P Heitzenrater referred to below

1 This is the argument of Frank Baker’s John Wesley and the Church of England (Nashville,

TN: Abingdon Press, 1970) Baker details, chapter by chapter, the series of events that led Methodist groups under John Wesley’s leadership farther and farther from the Church of England, culminating in his ordinations and other actions of 1784.

Background: The Church of England in the Eighteenth

Century and Pietistic Movements of the Age

In the first place, we have to take account of important developments in the understanding of two intersecting contexts of the early Methodist movement, namely the Church of England in the eighteenth century and Protestant pietistic movements in the same period How one represents these contexts deeply affects how one tells the narrative of Methodism in this period

The last three decades have witnessed a transformation of our understanding of the Church of England in the age of John and Charles Wesley, and this transformed understanding of the eighteenth-century Church has critical implications for understanding the Methodist movement in that era Conventional accounts of the origins of Methodism consistently claimed that the immediate context out of which the Methodist movement emerged was the dysfunctional state of the eighteenth-century Church Despite John and Charles Wesley’s own reticence to criticise the Established Church publicly, Methodist literature as early as Thomas Coke’s

and Henry Moore’s Life of the Rev John Wesley, A.M (1793) offered a decidedly

negative image of eighteenth-century Anglicanism that became a standard trope in Methodist literature Coke and Moore represented the state of the British nation as well as the Church as being thoroughly corrupted by ‘practical atheism’, ‘looseness

of morals’ and a failure on the part of clergy to preach ‘the great leading truths of the Gospel’, namely justification by faith alone, communion with God (the quest

This image of the Church in the Wesleys’ time evolved in the nineteenth century into an appalling image of the Establishment complete with fox-hunting, port-drinking vicars neglecting their pastoral duties to spend their days in pursuit

of lucrative benefices The bizarre truth is that Anglicans themselves largely accepted this account of their own history, especially after the time of the Oxford

or Tractarian movement of the nineteenth century, whose advocates utilised the image of a corrupt church establishment in the prior age as a foil to their own vision of reform

One of the earliest signs of changing attitudes towards eighteenth-century Anglicanism came in the work of J C D Clark Reacting against the Whig interpretation of history and especially the Marxist historiography that grew out

of it, Clark refuted the notion that English society in the period after the Glorious Revolution had become thoroughly capitalist with respect to its economic basis and internally atheistic or at least deistic with respect to its religious views Clark

likewise rejected the concomitant idea that the ancien régime was a mere shell in this

period, and this obliged Clark to argue that the Church of England was a vibrant institution in the eighteenth century He seemed almost surprised to find strong

2 [Thomas] Coke and [Henry] Moore, The Life of the Rev John Wesley, A.M.: Including an

Account of the Great Revival of Religion, in Europe and America, of which He was the First and Chief Instrument (London: G Paramore, 1793), 1–8, quotations on p 7

evidence of this in his study of English Society, 1688–1832 (1985, significantly revised

and expanded in 2000) Church leaders, he pointed out, responded vigorously to such challenges as that of Unitarianism, and they revised their political theology

in a way that accommodated the mutations of monarchy and divine right that had

Methodism and the growth of Dissenting Protestantism, Clark argued, showed the

The trajectory initiated by Clark continued in a collection of essays edited by John Walsh, Colin Haydon and Stephen Taylor Like Clark’s work, this volume

entitled The Church of England, c 1689– c 1833 (1993) examined ‘the long eighteenth

century’, that is, the period extending from the Glorious Revolution (1688) and the Act of Toleration (1689) through the first stirrings of the Oxford or Tractarian Movement in the early 1830s An introductory essay by John Walsh and Stephen Taylor gave an account of the earlier dysfunctional view of the eighteenth-century Church and offered correctives in a number of areas explored in subsequent chapters

of the book Countering the conventional view of Anglican clergy, for example, they found evidence of vigorous pastoral activity throughout the eighteenth-century Church Countering the conventional claim of low attendance at Anglican services, they pointed out that the earlier figures were based on numbers of communicants, noting that abstention from communion was a common practice and could be a sign of piety in that age They found evidence, moreover, of consistent efforts at reform in the Church, in efforts for the reform of public morality, in missionary

These changing perceptions of eighteenth-century Anglicanism have been followed by a trajectory of scholarship as yet unfolding, including works by

evidence – as there would be in any age – of ecclesial corruption and dysfunction, but this trajectory of recent scholarship has fundamentally changed the way in which scholars think about the eighteenth-century context in which Methodism arose It suggests that eighteenth-century Methodism should be seen as one of a number of responses on the part of Anglicans and Protestants more broadly to the crises of that age

An intersecting element of the cultural background to the rise of Methodism was the rise of Pietism and other religious movements for affective piety beginning

3 J C D Clark, English Society, 1688–1832 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1985), 216–35

4 Ibid., 235–47

5 J Walsh, C Haydon and S Taylor (eds), The Church of England, c 1689–c 1833

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) The introductory essay by Walsh and Taylor is on 1–64

6 W Gibson, The Church of England, 1688–1832: Unity and Accord (London: Routledge,

2001) emphasises the strong cohesion of the national Church in the eighteenth century and

its consistently Protestant identity J Gregory, Restoration, Reformation, and Reform, 1660–1828:

The Archbishops of Canterbury and Their Diocese (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) points

to evidence of ecclesial vitality in the diocese of Canterbury in the long eighteenth century

in the seventeenth century and continuing into the eighteenth century My study

of The Religion of the Heart (1991) examined a variety of parallel European religious

movements that emphasised affective piety as the centre of religious life, including the Jansenist and Quietist movements in seventeenth-century French and Spanish Catholicism, Precisianism and Pietism in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century

Reformed and Lutheran churches and in the renewed Moravian Unitas Fratrum

in the eighteenth century I suggested that the Wesleyan movement and the Evangelical Revival more broadly could be seen as an Anglican expression of

of The Protestant Evangelical Awakening (1992), written almost simultaneously with

my book, focused specifically on the Evangelical Revival in English-speaking contexts, but also pointed to Continental cultural ties, in particular, with European Protestant pietistic movements Ward also tied the early emergence of the Methodist

One can locate the Wesleyan revival of the eighteenth century at the intersection

of eighteenth-century Anglicanism and the crosscurrents of affective Christian piety originating in European pietistic movements One study that examines this intersection in the era just prior to the Wesleyan movement is Scott Thomas Kisker’s

Foundation for Revival: Anthony Horneck, the Religious Societies, and the Construction

of an Anglican Pietism (2008) Kisker examined the career of Anthony (Anton)

Horneck (1641–97), a Rhineland Lutheran pastor who emigrated to Britain around

1661 and became an influential Anglican clergyman from the 1670s, producing a voluminous bibliography of works cultivating heartfelt piety, and also organising

‘religious societies’ in which believers could pursue such a vision of Christian piety

formative period in Oxford and would later include a selection from Horneck in

7 T A Campbell, The Religion of the Heart: A Study of European Religious Life in the

Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press,

1991), and specifically 115–28 on connections between earlier expressions of affective piety and the Wesleyan movement

8 W R Ward, The Protestant Evangelical Awakening (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1992), cf 339–52

9 S T Kisker, Foundation for Revival: Anthony Horneck, the Religious Societies, and the

Construction of an Anglican Pietism (Pietist and Wesley Studies series; Lanham, MD: Scarecrow

Press, 2008)

10 R P Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley and the Oxford Methodists, 1725–1735’ (PhD dissertation, Duke University, 1972; reprint edition, Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International, 1973), 270–71 and 508

by Wesley and by Methodist churches is more or less bound to offer a conventional image of John and Charles Wesley along the lines begun by Coke and Moore and continued through Methodist interpreters in the nineteenth century.

The late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century witnessed the publication of four series of works – one of poetry by John and Charles Wesley, and three of the works of John Wesley – and these series offered readers a small number of sources beyond those authorised by the Wesleys or later Methodist churches In the 1860s the Wesleyan Conference Office in London published

George Osborn’s edition of The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, including

of the Reverend John Wesley (eight volumes, 1909–16) included the published Journal

and some interpretations of material coded and in shorthand from John Wesley’s

(two volumes, 1920) offered only the 53 authorised ‘standard’ sermons, although

edition of The Letters of the Reverend John Wesley (eight volumes, 1931) offered

more than 2,600 letters in contrast to the 900 letters that had appeared in Thomas

These editions have been superseded in recent decades by a comprehensive and critical edition of the works of John Wesley that began publication in 1976 as

‘The Oxford Edition of the Works of John Wesley’ and has continued since 1984 as

‘The Bicentennial Edition of the Works of John Wesley’, published by the United Methodist Publishing House in the USA These include the complete range of

11 G Osborn (ed.), The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley (13 vols; London:

Wesleyan Conference Office, 1868)

12 N Curnock (ed.), The Journal of the Rev John Wesley, A.M., Sometime Fellow of Lincoln

College, Oxford (‘Standard Edition’ of the Works of John Wesley; 8 vols; London: Epworth

Press, 1909–16)

13 E H Sugden (ed.), Wesley’s Standard Sermons (‘Standard Edition’ of the Works of

John Wesley; 2 vols; London: Epworth Press, 3rd edition, 1951)

14 J Telford (ed.), Letters of the Rev John Wesley, A.M (‘Standard Edition’ of the Works

of John Wesley; 8 vols; London: Epworth Press, 1931)

15 The Oxford/Bicentennial volumes include A C Outler (ed.), Sermons (vols 1–4; Nash-ville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1984–87); F Hildebrandt and O O Beckerlegge (eds), A

volume will give an interpretation of the Oxford diaries, for which there are no

corresponding Journal entries Scholars also need to be aware of the fact, though,

that there is a 41 year period (1742–83) for which the diaries are entirely missing

and were probably destroyed For this long period, one can only rely on the Journal

The Bicentennial Edition also includes the full range of John Wesley’s sermons (151

of them), and a number of other critical works It will eventually include more

of these as well as seven or eight volumes of letters, though only two volumes of letters (for the period 1721–55) are currently available

In addition to the works of John Wesley in progress, editions have also been appearing of works by persons associated with eighteenth-century Methodism The Charles Wesley Society, organised in 1990, has sponsored a number of facsimile publications of Charles Wesley’s works, and has also sponsored contemporary

editions of many of Charles Wesley’s works, including The Manuscript Journal of the

Reverend Charles Wesley, M.A (2 vols, 2007–8),16 The Sermons of Charles Wesley (2001)17

texts by eighteenth-century Methodist leaders include Susanna Wesley: The Complete

Writings (1997),19 Diary of an Oxford Methodist: Benjamin Ingham, 1733–1734 (1985)20

Biographical Surveys

Although a number of biographical studies of John and Charles Wesley have appeared in recent decades, three stand out as highly influential, critical historical

studies that make extensive use of manuscript sources Henry D Rack’s Reasonable

Enthusiast: John Wesley and the Rise of Methodism (1989) is a well-written biographical

Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists (vol 7; Nashville, TN: Abingdon

Press, 1983); R Davies (ed.), The Methodist Societies: History, Nature, and Design (vol 9; Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1989); H D Rack (ed.), The Methodist Societies: The Minutes

of the Conference (vol 10; Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2011); G R Cragg (ed.), The Appeals to Men of Reason and Religion and Certain Related Open Letters (vol 11; Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1975); W R Ward and R P Heitzenrater (eds), Journal and Diaries (vols 18–24; Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1988–2003); F Baker (ed.), Letters (vols 25–6; as yet

incomplete)

16 Edited by ST Kimbrough, Jr and K G C Newport; Nashville, TN: Kingswood Books, 2007–8.

17 Edited by K G C Newport; Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001

18 Edited by ST Kimbrough, Jr and O A Beckerlegge; Nashville, TN: Kingswood Books, 1988–92.

19 Edited by C Wallace, Jr.; Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997

20 Edited by R P Heitzenrater; Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1985

21 Edited by J A Vickers; Nashville, TN: Kingswood Books, 2005

22 Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1989

As the title suggests, Rack was concerned to locate Wesley within the century British social and cultural context, emphasising the ‘enthusiastic’ aspects

eighteenth-of the Wesleyan movement but also the many ways in which Wesley reflected the culture of the Enlightenment including, for example, Wesley’s use of Lockean terms

in explicating the role of religious experience as a source of knowledge Rack’s work shied away from the more complex theological controversies associated with Wesley, and it appeared just ahead of some of the important developments in eighteenth-century British history noted above, but his work was cognisant of the newly developing understanding of eighteenth-century British culture and society that was appearing in the 1980s and 1990s

Richard P Heitzenrater’s study of Wesley and the People Called Methodists

(1995) addressed a subject matter delimited very much like that of Rack, that is, a biographical study of John Wesley and his role in fostering the nascent Methodist

though Heitzenrater wrote in a highly compressed style Heitzenrater’s work was designed more as a textbook and does not offer a single consistent argument in the way that Rack’s study does, though Heitzenrater did summarise major themes in the conclusion of his work His study pays less attention to contemporary studies

of eighteenth-century British culture and society, but shows more concern than Rack’s book for the development of Wesleyan theological categories Speaking generally, British studies of the Wesleyan movement in recent decades have tended

to be more concerned with social and cultural contexts, whereas American studies

of the Wesleyan movement in the same period have focused more consistently

on theological developments and developments in the structures of Methodist communities The biographies by Rack and Heitzenrater illustrate these tendencies.One further biographical study warrants consideration here, and that is Gareth

not as comprehensive a biographical study as those of Rack and Heitzenrater, it utilised manuscript sources extensively and brought to light a number of aspects

of the early Wesleyan movement that escaped the attention of earlier interpreters Most critically, Lloyd showed how deep the rift between John and Charles Wesley actually was from the 1750s forward, a rift that conventional Methodist historiography had consistently and, Lloyd demonstrates, deliberately minimised

in its stress on the brothers’ unity in their evangelistic mission Lloyd’s was the first work to document the distinct existence of a continuing ‘Church Methodist’ party associated with Charles Wesley, a group that inculcated Evangelical ‘heart religion’ and practised Wesleyan class, band and society meetings, but which did not practise itinerancy and chose to remain in canonical conformity with the Church of England Lloyd’s study has caused us to recognise, by contrast, some of John Wesley’s independent and more separatist tendencies

23 Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995

24 Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007

John Wesley and the Xes

One of the characteristic trajectories of Wesleyan scholarship in the late nineteenth century and into the twentieth century was the examination of specific aspects of John Wesley’s life and especially his thought in comparison with specific sources

in eighteenth-century or earlier Christian culture Sometimes cast as studies of the influence of various Christian cultures on Wesley, many of these studies originated

as dissertations, though some have survived revision into critically important books

on a range of topics comparing John Wesley and a range of particular theological and ethical movements I have referred to such studies under the heading ‘John Wesley and the Xes,’ where X is a variable that can be replaced by the name of a specific movement in Christian culture

This trajectory of study originated in the Victorian era by an Anglican barrister

and legal scholar, Richard Denny Urlin, in his study of John Wesley’s Place in Church

History: Determined with the Aid of Facts and Documents Unknown to, Or Unnoticed by, His Biographers (1870).25 Urlin argued that Wesley displayed many traits of ‘high church’ Anglicanism

Urlin’s work was answered by Methodist scholar James H Rigg in a pamphlet

argued that the meaning of ‘high church’ had changed between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: ‘a clergyman might have steadily held the opinions and profession of a High Churchman all his life in the last century [the eighteenth century] and yet not hold one of the characteristic opinions of a Ritualising High

The dialogue between Urlin and Rigg over ‘high churchmanship’ set the pattern for studies of John Wesley in relationship to particular strands of Christian tradition The early and mid-twentieth century saw studies of John Wesley in relationship

25 London, Oxford and Cambridge: Rivingtons, 1870

26 London: The Wesleyan Methodist Book Room, 1882

27 Ibid., 7; Rigg’s pamphlet refers to C J Abbey and J H Overton’s The English Church

in the Eighteenth Century (London: Longman & Co, 1887) on this point about the meaning of

‘High Church’ in the eighteenth century

28 G Croft Cell, The Rediscovery of John Wesley (New York: Holt, 1935).

29 M Piette, John Wesley in the Evolution of Protestantism (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1937; originally published in 1925 as John Wesley: Sa Réaction dans l’Evolution du Protestantisme)

J Murray Todd, John Wesley and the Catholic Church (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1958)

30 R C Monk, John Wesley: His Puritan Heritage (Nashville, TN and New York: Abingdon

Press, 1966)

31 M Schmidt, John Wesley: A Theological Biography (trans Norman Goldhawk and

Denis Inman; 2 vols; Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1973)

Theology of the Wesleyan Movement

The various studies of ‘John Wesley and the Xes’ led in the decades after the Second World War to a flourishing of studies of John Wesley’s theology, especially

in the United States The earliest of these studies – those of Colin W Williams and Albert C Outler – were undertaken as a result of ecumenical contacts and the desire to ‘place’ Wesleyan and Methodist theologies in dialogue with a variety

of other Christian theological and doctrinal traditions Wesleyan and Methodist churches have historically taken the theology of John Wesley as normative for their

communities as essays in systematic theology, combining criteria of theological validity along with historical study

Within the scope of numerous accounts of Wesley’s theology in the last century, I shall focus here on a series of single-volume studies of John Wesley’s theology The first of these was offered by the Australian Methodist theologian Colin W Williams (1921–2000), who later served as dean of Yale Divinity School (1969–79) Williams had worked with the ecumenical movement, and recounted his experience of attending ecumenical meetings in which Methodists seemed

Theology Today (1960) was an attempt to help Methodists relate to the ecumenical

important precedents in this work An early chapter on religious authority had five sections, two of which were devoted to the authority of scripture, and the

so-called ‘Wesleyan Quadrilateral’ in the 1970s and beyond Moreover, Williams followed a scheme through his book that roughly reflects what subsequent

Wesleyan theologians would refer to as the ordo salutis, the ‘order of salvation’ or

‘way of salvation’, as an organising motif for Wesley’s most distinctive theological

doctrines and which were considered to be opinions on which differences could be

32 The specific senses in which Wesley’s thought is normative for Wesleyan communities has been much disputed, and differs between the various Wesleyan denominations, but all Wesleyan communities take at least the Wesleyan teachings on the ‘way of salvation’ to be normative for their communities

33 C W Williams, John Wesley’s Theology Today (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1960),

37 Ibid., 15–21 I have followed this trajectory, though with slightly different results,

in Wesleyan Beliefs: Formal and Popular Expressions of the Core Beliefs of Wesleyan Communities

(Nashville, TN: Kingswood Books, 2010), 17–62

Williams’s work had viewed Wesley in the light of the Lutheran and Reformed theologies that were consistent foci of the Protestant Neo-Orthodoxy that had shaped theological debate in the mid-twentieth century Another interpreter of John Wesley’s theology who also worked from experience in the ecumenical movement was Albert C Outler of Southern Methodist University But Outler expanded the backdrop for theological comparison with Wesley to reflect his substantial knowledge of Anglican, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christian cultures Outler’s

1973 Fondren Lectures, published in 1975 as Theology in the Wesleyan Spirit, followed

the recognisable pattern of the ‘way of salvation’, with chapters on the human condition, the ‘gist of the Gospel’ (including justification) and Christian holiness The book raised questions about whether Wesley’s doctrine of sin followed more

a Catholic pattern than typically Protestant teachings about original sin, and also asked if Wesley’s understanding of sanctification did not follow Catholic as well as

Randy Maddox’s Responsible Grace: John Wesley’s Practical Theology (1994)

represented a new generation in single-volume studies of John Wesley’s theology, though Maddox built upon many of Outler’s insights, including his notion of John Wesley as a ‘practical theologian’ and on Wesley’s convergences with Anglican, Catholic and Eastern-Christian thought Maddox showed an awareness of many private texts beyond the published texts on which accounts of Wesley’s theology have often relied For example, on the doctrine of original sin, he cited a letter

of John Wesley to Dr Mason in which Wesley expressed doubts that any person

to crucial transitions in Wesley’s thought, for example Wesley’s growing sense of

The same John Wesley sermon on ‘The New Creation’ became the basis of another single-volume study offered by Maddox’s mentor at Emory University,

Theodore Runyon, whose book, The New Creation: John Wesley’s Theology Today,

appeared in 1998 The subtitle of Runyon’s work indicates that in some sense he

saw his work as an extension of Colin W Williams’s earlier study of John Wesley’s

Theology Today, but Runyon was much more attuned to concerns coming from

contemporary Christian theologians concerned with issues of human liberation, issues that had been explored in meetings of the Oxford Institute of Methodist Theological Studies, and which had also been the subject of a book-length study by

one of Runyon’s doctoral students, Theodore W Jennings, Jr., in Good News to the

Poor: John Wesley’s Evangelical Economics (1990).41 Another area to which Runyon’s

38 A C Outler, Theology in the Wesleyan Spirit (Nashville, TN: Tidings, 1975), 34–9 on

Wesley’s ‘essentially catholic’ (34) view of original sin, and 72–3 on his understanding of

Christian perfection as teleiosis

39 R L Maddox, Responsible Grace: John Wesley’s Practical Theology (Nashville, TN:

Kingswood Books, 1994), 74–5 and footnote 76

40 Ibid., 235–53, esp 252–3

41 T Runyon, The New Creation: John Wesley’s Theology Today (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1998) T W Jennings, Jr., Good News to the Poor: John Wesley’s Evangelical Economics

work paid sustained attention was the issue of human religious experience and the cultivation of the ‘religious affections’, a subject that had been explored by

yet another of Runyon’s doctoral students, Gregory S Clapper, in John Wesley on

Religious Affections: His Views on Experience and Emotion and Their Role in the Christian Life and Theology (1989).42

The most recent work in this series of single-volume explorations of John

Wesley’s theology is that of Kenneth J Collins, The Theology of John Wesley: Holy

Love and the Shape of Grace (2007) Collins’s work offers a constructionist account

of John Wesley’s thought in the sense in which legal scholars describe accounts of legal texts that adhere closely to original meanings as ‘constructionist’ readings of the texts The book utilises the thematic conception of ‘holy love’ as a consistent motif through which Wesley’s theology is interpreted, paying close attention to

is important because John Wesley often made rather fine distinctions, for example when he distinguished one sense or ‘extent’ of the term ‘salvation’ in which the term includes preventing grace, and another more ‘proper’ or restricted sense in

charts to illustrate the distinctions that he found in Wesley’s thought For example,

it showed how the expressions ‘full assurance of faith’ and ‘full assurance of hope’, which one might take as referring to the same phenomenon, are in fact used consistently to refer to subtly different ranges denoted by the term ‘assurance’: the former (‘full assurance of faith’) is consistently associated with entire sanctification, whereas the latter (‘full assurance of hope’) could be used to refer either to an assurance that accompanies entire sanctification or to an assurance that follows

These five single-volume studies represent only a shadow of the voluminous output on John Wesley’s theology since 1960 Adding a substantial body of work on the theology of his brother Charles would expand this bibliography even further These include studies of specific theological topics (original sin, justification,

(Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1990)

42 Runyon, The New Creation, 146–67; G S Clapper, John Wesley on Religious Affections:

His Views on Experience and Emotion and Their Role in the Christian Life and Theology (Metuchen,

NJ: Scarecrow Press: 1989)

43 K J Collins, The Theology of John Wesley: Holy Love and the Shape of Grace (Nashville,

TN: Abingdon Press, 2007), esp 6–12 where Collins lays out the ‘axial theme’ of holy love

44 John Wesley, sermon on ‘The Scripture Way of Salvation’, I:2 and I:3; in A C Outler

(ed.), Sermons (Bicentennial Edition of the Works of John Wesley; Nashville, TN: Abingdon

Press, 1984–87), 2:156–8

45 Collins, 140–42

46 Only a sample of these can be listed as follows and in the next two notes B E Bryant,

‘John Wesley’s Doctrine of Sin’ (PhD dissertation, King’s College, University of London,

1992) W R Cannon, The Theology of John Wesley, With Special Reference to the Doctrine of

Justification (New York and Nashville, TN: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1946) H Lindström, Wesley and Sanctification: A Study in the Doctrine of Salvation (London: Epworth Press, 1950) J

uses of scripture and other sources such as early Christian writings and the works

Structures of the Wesleyan Movement

A number of studies since the 1960s have focused on the distinctive institutions or structures of the Wesleyan movement One of the earliest of these was motivated

by the Anglican–Methodist negotiations that were underway in the UK in the late

1960s Frank Baker’s study of John Wesley and the Church of England (1970) examined the sequence of events that led the Methodist people to a de facto separation from the

on the development of separate Methodist structures, including the classes, bands and societies, the conference of preachers (both lay as well as ordained preachers), the Model Deed and subsequent legal steps that gave the Methodist people a distinct legal identity, and eventually the ordinations John Wesley performed in

the 1780s and his production of an alternative to the Book of Common Prayer, The

Sunday Service of the Methodists In North America (1784) which, despite the title, was

also published and used in Britain

Baker’s study was followed by a more focused study by his doctoral student at

Duke University, David Lowes Watson, in The Early Methodist Class Meeting (1985)

Watson’s work pointed to the regular agenda of the Methodist class meetings, focused on accountability for the specific items listed in the ‘General Rules of the United Societies’ (1743) Watson’s work points out that these groups did not function primarily for Bible study, prayer or sharing of personal experiences Some

of those elements were present, but the focus of the groups was on accountability to

R Tyson, Charles Wesley on Sanctification: A Biographical and Theological Study (Grand Rapids, MI: Francis Asbury Press, 1986) O E Borgen, John Wesley on the Sacraments: A Theological

Study (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1972) D S Long, John Wesley’s Moral Theology: The Quest for God and Goodness (Nashville, TN: Kingswood Books, 2005)

47 S J Jones, John Wesley’s Conception and Use of Scripture (Nashville, TN: Kingswood Books, 1995) T A Campbell, John Wesley and Christian Antiquity: Religious Vision and Cultural

Change (Nashville, TN: Kingswood Books, 1991) R G Tuttle, John Wesley: His Life and Theology

(Paternoster Press, 1979; reprint edition, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984), which focuses

on Wesley’s use of Catholic mystical sources

48 R S Brightman, ‘Gregory of Nyssa and John Wesley in Theological Dialogue on

the Christian Life’ (PhD dissertation, Boston University, 1969) E Colón-Emeric, Wesley,

Aquinas, and Christian Perfection: An Ecumenical Dialogue (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press,

2009)

49 Baker, passim

50 D L Watson, The Early Methodist Class Meeting (Nashville, TN: Discipleship

Resources, 1985), 93–123, 134–45

the Methodist class meetings became the basis for a renewal of the practice of group accountability that Watson advocated under the title ‘Covenant Discipleship’.

small-A recently completed doctoral dissertation at Southern Methodist University extends this trajectory of scholarship In this work, Kevin M Watson has studied

earlier than the Methodist class meetings, and were based on Moravian models

as well as the model of English ‘religious societies’ They involved groups of adherents who professed a conversion experience and who were seeking the goal

of perfect love: entire sanctification The bands were separated by gender and marital status to enable more intimate sharing within the groups Watson’s work utilises manuscript sources from participants in the band meetings in addition to the writings of the Wesleys, and his research shows how the bands were able to foster communities with intense personal relationships that served as core groups for the larger Methodist societies His work also suggests that the distinct identity

of the Methodist bands was difficult to maintain through the eighteenth century, and they seem to have evolved into the gender-segregated ‘prayer meetings’ of American Methodism by the early nineteenth century

The Wesleyan Movement, the Enlightenment and the Early Romantic Culture of the Eighteenth Century

Scholarship on the eighteenth-century Wesleyan revival has very often focused

on the movement’s central emphases on religious experience and the ‘religious affections’ that the Wesleys took to be signs of divine grace Early twentieth-century Methodist interpreters Herbert Brook Workman and Umphrey Lee both understood the Wesleys’ emphasis on religious experience to be a key element

religious affections has received attention in recent theological studies by Gregory

particular, pointed to Wesley’s use of Lockean concepts and Lockean terminology

51 K M Watson, ‘The Early Methodist Band Meeting: Its Origin, Development, and Significance’ (PhD dissertation, Southern Methodist University, 2012) K M Watson is no relation to D L Watson.

52 H B Workman, The Place of Methodism in the Catholic Church (London: Epworth Press, revised and enlarged edition of 1921; first edition was 1909), 16 U Lee, John Wesley

and Modern Religion (Nashville, TN: Cokesbury Press, 1936), 17, 302–3, and the conclusion on

321

53 Clapper, passim Runyon, The New Creation , 146–67 W J Abraham, Aldersgate and

Athens: John Wesley and the Foundations of Christian Belief (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press,

2010), 23–40

(‘simple ideas’) to make sense of Wesley’s emphasis on religious experience in the

In recent decades, the Wesleyan culture regarding religious experience and the religious affections has come to be considered in relation to the cultures of the Enlightenment and the early Romanticism of the eighteenth century Richard

Brantley’s study of Locke, Wesley, and the Method of English Romanticism (1984)

argued that John Wesley’s modification of Locke’s epistemology, by which Wesley allowed for religious experience and certain religious affections as genuine sources

of human knowledge, laid an intellectual foundation for the work of the English

Romantic period A more recent study by Phyllis Mack, Heart Religion in the British

Enlightenment (2008), views the phenomenon of Methodist ‘heart religion’ as a

function of popular religious culture, utilising hymns, pamphlets, tracts and other literature as indications of the spirituality of common people Her work focuses

on the tension between the exuberant religious experiences of the Methodists,

In their own ways, both Mack and Brantley reflect a growing consensus among interpreters of the eighteenth century that early Romanticism does not need to be seen in opposition to the Enlightenment; the various expressions of ‘heart religion’ could be understood as popular analogues to the empirical epistemology of more

sophisticated Enlightenment philosophes.

The Wesleyan Movement in Relation to Social Issues and Social Change

A final area of intense scholarly research is concerned with the relationship between the early Methodist movement in relation to the Industrial Revolution and the social transformations that came about as a result of the move towards industrialisation concurrent with the evolution of the Methodist movement from the 1730s Enormously influential on twentieth-century scholarship in this area was

the French social historian Élie Halévy, whose study of England in 1815 (1913) and

earlier articles advocated the view that Methodism functioned for England as an

54 Clapper, 55–7 Similarly, cf F Dreyer, ‘Faith and Experience in the Thought of John

Wesley’, American Historical Review, 88 (1983), 12–30, and Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast, 384–6

55 R Brantley, Locke, Wesley, and the Method of English Romanticism (Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 1984), passim, and see his explanations of this thesis in his

introduction, pp 1 and 2, then 201–13 He continued this trajectory of scholarship with

Coordinates of Anglo-American Romanticism: Wesley, Edwards, Carlyle, and Emerson (Gainesville,

FL: University of Florida Press, 1993)

56 P Mack, Heart Religion in the British Enlightenment: Gender and Emotion in Early

Methodism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)

‘antidote’ to the Jacobin fervour that fuelled the French Revolution.57 Methodism was seen, then, despite its challenges to British culture, as an essentially conservative and anti-revolutionary phenomenon Wesley’s own political conservatism has often been cited in favour of such a view.

Among British historians, E P Thompson’s study of The Making of the English

Working Class (1963) was widely acclaimed as substantiating Halévy’s argument

about the conservative role that Methodism played in eighteenth-century British

in non-Methodist circles, in the twentieth century Thus J H Plumb’s volume

on England in the Eighteenth Century in The Pelican History of England series

described Wesley as ‘absolutely and completely conservative’ and his Methodist

movement as being ‘not a religion of the poor but for the poor’ In Methodism,

Plumb explained, ‘The puritan ideal was reborn shorn of its political radicalism.’ Methodism worked against movements for popular education, he claimed, and

‘The successful Methodist could regard his overworked children with a complacent heart.’ The movement ‘encouraged violent hatred of Papists and did all it could

to maintain laws against them’ ‘Jews were the murderers of Christ’, according

to Plumb’s view of Methodism, and Methodist leaders vehemently rejected ‘any

An early criticism of these perspectives was offered by Methodist historian

Robert F Wearmouth in his 1945 study of Methodism and the Common People of the

Eighteenth Century Wearmouth argued that Wesley and the eighteenth-century

Methodists had consistently sought to empower poor and working-class people by recognising their gifts and offering education and organisation as well as religious

John Wesley and early Methodists for the common people of the eighteenth century

In this way he reinterpreted the Wesleyan movement as a movement in support of

that would be favoured within Wesleyan churches, quite contrary to the views of Halévy and the later views expressed by Thompson and Plumb

Many subsequent interpretations of John Wesley by Methodists and Methodists alike have emphasised the socially progressive works of the Methodist

non-57 É Halévy, Histoire de peuple anglais aux dix-neuvième siècle (in English: Halévy’s History

of the English People in the Nineteenth Century; E I Watkin, tr.; 6 vols; London: Ernest Benn

Ltd, 1931–32) An earlier article of Halévy on ‘La naissance du Méthodisme en Angleterre’

appeared in the Revue de Paris (1906) and was subsequently translated into English by Bernard Semmel as The Birth of Methodism in England (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago

Press, 1971)

58 E P Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (London: V Gollancz, 1963)

59 J H Plumb, England in the Eighteenth Century (The Pelican History of England series;

Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1950; revised edition of 1963), 91–7; the quotations are from 94, 95 and 96

60 R F Wearmouth, Methodism and the Common People of the Eighteenth Century (London:

Epworth Press, 1945), 263–8, which is the concluding argument of the book as a whole

61 Ibid., 267