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

ASHGATE

RESEARCH

COMPANION

THE ASHGatE RESEarCH COMPaNION tO
WOrLD MEtHODISM


ASHGATE

RESEARCH

COMPANION

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.


The Ashgate Research
Companion to World Methodism

Edited by
William Gibson
Oxford Brookes University, UK
PEtEr FOrSaItH
Oxford Brookes University, UK

MartIN WELLINGS
Oxford Methodist Circuit, UK


First published 2013 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright © William Gibson, Peter Forsaith, Martin Wellings and the contributors 2013
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.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
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Notices ..
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only
for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

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.

BX8332.A84 2013
287–dc23
2012026628

ISBN 9781409401384 (hbk)


Contents
List of Tables  
Notes on Contributors  

ix
xi

PART I: INTRODUCTiON
1Introduction

William Gibson

3

PART II: HiSTORiCAL CONTEXT
2


The Origins and Early Growth of Methodism, 1730–91
Ted A. Campbell

13

3


The Price of Respectability: Methodism in Britain and the
United States, 1791–1865
Kevin Watson

4


Methodism: Consolidation and Reunion, 1865–1939
Morris L. Davis

51

5


Methodism: Shifting Balances, 1939–2010
Brian Beck

65

33

PART III: WORLD METhODiSm
6


Church Statistics and the Growth of Global Methodism:

Some Preliminary Descriptive Statistics
David J. Jeremy

7


The Wesleys’ Role in World Methodism
Jason E. Vickers

109

8


Methodism, Ecumenism and Interfaith Relations
David M. Chapman

121

87


The Ashgate Research Companion to World Methodism
9


Holiness and Pentecostal Movements Within Methodism
Priscilla Pope-Levison

141

10


Methodism and Women
Margaret Jones

157

11


Methodism and Liberation Theology
Joerg Rieger

175

12


Methodism, Globalisation and John Wesley
Keith Robbins

199

PART IV: BELiEF AND PRACTiCE
13


Methodism and the Bible

Peter Phillips

217

14


Music, Hymnody and the Culture of Methodism in Britain
J. R. Watson

233

15


Episkopé and Connexionalism: Ecclesiology and
Church Government in Methodism
Russell E. Richey

16


Methodist Liturgy and Worship
Karen B. Westerfield Tucker

269

17

Methodist Spirituality
Ian M. Randall

289

18


Methodism and the Evangelical Tradition
Martin Wellings

307

19


A Historical Survey of Methodist Preaching
John Munsey Turner

325

251

PART V: CULTURE AND SOCiETY
20


Methodism and Politics: Mapping the Political
on the Methodist Genome
Stephen J. Plant

21


The Methodist Conscience: Slavery, Temperance and Pacifism
Jennifer L. Woodruff Tait

vi

345
365


Contents
22


Material and Cultural Aspects of Methodism: Architecture,
Artefacts and Art
Peter Forsaith

23


Methodism and Education
John T. Smith

407

24

Methodists and Business, 1860–1960
David J. Jeremy

431

25


Methodism in Literature
Laura Davies

461

26


Methodism and Social Justice
Jonathan Rodell

477

Select Bibliography and Further Reading  

501

Index  

515

vii

387


This page has been left blank intentionally


List of Tables
6.1

Divergencies in British Methodist statistics of members: EMC
and WMC compared with Currie et al. for 1880, 1910 and 1955.  

97

6.2

Official global Methodist statistics of members, 1880–2006  

99

6.3

The global presence of Methodists, 1880–2006  

102

6.4

Average percentage and numerical growth rates in global Methodist
membership for selected available periods,  

103

6.5

National Methodist densities ranked by size, 1880–2006  

104

24.1 Occupational composition of UK Methodist lay leaders,
1872–2000 (percentages)  

436

24.2 Methodist adult affiliations among business leaders in Britain in the DBB
and the DSBB (1,561 individuals) compared with members in 1907  

438

A.1

Methodists among British business leaders, nineteenth
and twentieth centuries  

454

A.2

Methodists among American business leaders, nineteenth
and twentieth centuries  

457


This page has been left blank intentionally


Notes on Contributors
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.


The Ashgate Research Companion to World Methodism
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.

xii


PART I
Introduction


This page has been left blank intentionally


1
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


The Ashgate Research Companion to World Methodism
‘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
Hempton has so clearly demonstrated was a feature of Wesleyan Methodism.1 Nor,
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
D. Hempton, Methodism: Empire of the Spirit (New Haven, CT and London: Yale
University Press, 2005).
1

4


Introduction
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
partly because it required little formal education, relying instead on vital piety.2
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.

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
2

5


The Ashgate Research Companion to World Methodism

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
analytical Wesley scholarship in the UK and USA.3 Consequently the Methodism
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
foundational myths of John Wesley.4 This tension between myth, history and faith
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
preaching the Gospel and teaching the Methodist discipline.’5 He is the equivalent
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
See in particular Jason Vickers’s essay in this volume.
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.
3
4

6


Introduction
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
projected back onto it.6 Writing of the challenge of introducing the works of John

Wesley in Latin America, L. E. Wethington wrote:
One of the greatest challenges of introducing Wesley himself is how
‘the essential Wesley’ can be lifted out of his 18thC [sic] context, pruned
and replanted in 21stC Latin America? Some Methodists have rejected
Wesley because he did not project in his own 18thC a model of social
ethics for the 21st C. Dare we suggest that no Wesley scholar is likely
to develop a Wesleyan social ethics for the 21st C unless it is deeply
rooted in John Wesley’s essential theology.7
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
‘will the real John Wesley please stand up?’8
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
others.9 The contribution of such early Methodists to the formation of the identity
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
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).
6

7


The Ashgate Research Companion to World Methodism
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
some of the distinctive theology of Methodism.10 It was principally from the nonWesleyan traditions that the working class leadership of Methodism was most
strongly represented.11 And non-Wesleyan Methodism was responsible for some of
the missions which spread Methodism across the world. Moreover the interaction
between Wesleyan and non-Wesleyan strands can be distorted if the distinctive
character of non-Wesleyan Methodism and traditions is not recognised.12 How can
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,
in which he said:
We know that John Wesley made a very limited impact in Wales and Scotland,
and even in England there were plenty of non-Wesleyan ‘Methodists’: a ‘Methodist’
in the mid-eighteenth century meant anyone who supported the revival and who

stressed the core evangelical doctrine of justification by grace through faith and
claimed the defining evangelical experience of conversion. The societies founded
by the Wesley brothers or assimilated into their ‘connexion’ were part of a much
wider movement including the Moravians and Calvinistic evangelicals inside and
outside the Church of England.13 While the Salvation Army owes its foundation to
Wesleyan Methodism it also regards itself as a non-Wesleyan institution.14 In short,
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 NineteenthCentury 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.

8


Introduction

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 faultline 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,
9


The Ashgate Research Companion to World 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.

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PART II
Historical Context


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