METHODIST CHURCHES

PART I: ENGLAND

The Methodist Churches originated as a pietist religious movement within the Church of England, led by John and Charles wesley, George whitefield, the Countess of Huntingdon (Selina Hastings), and other Evangelical Anglicans. The epithet "Methodist" had

been hurled in derision at the pious Oxford undergraduates of the "Holy Club," who met from 1729 for practices of devotion and philanthropic works under the direction of the Wesleys. After the dispersal of the club (1735) the name was still applied to the Wesleys' followers. John himself defined a Methodist as "one who lives according to the method laid down in the Bible." Part I of this entry surveys the origins and subsequent developments of Methodism in England, while Part II presents the history and growth of Methodist Churches in North America.

First Establishment. The early Methodists sought to revive and purify the Church of England, whose separation from Rome had brought the total dependence of the bishops upon the crown. The aftermath of the bitter religious quarrels of the 17th century, as well as the influence of the writings of Henry Bolingbroke (1678–1751), Anthony Collins (1676–1729), Anthony Shaftesbury (1671–1713), and other deists, led some bishops to doctrinal indifference and many preachers to an advocacy of a grave piety devoid of emotionalism. Accordingly, Anglican missionary fervor, discipline, and liturgy suffered. Debility and indifference, however, were not universal. Many clergymen had reacted against the prevailing formalism and rationalism. William law, for example, extolled piety and ascetism in his Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1728), which left its mark upon John Wesley. The latter's father, the Reverend Samuel Wesley (1662–1735), stressed the saving work of Christ and faith in Jesus as the savior of the world.

Wesley's hope to lead other evangelical-minded Anglican clergy to minister to the Methodists, whose piety and fervor would animate the whole Church, was unfulfilled. The opposition of many churchmen who denied their pulpits to Methodist preachers led Wesley to measures that eventually meant independence. But as long as he lived, he shrank from the establishment of independent churches and counseled loyalty to the church of his father. His field preaching, itinerancy, emotional sermons, employment of lay preachers, and ordination of presbyters prepared the way for ultimate separation of Methodists from Anglicanism. As did Lady Huntingdon, Wesley in 1787 accepted the protection of the Toleration Act (1689) for Methodist ministrations outside parish churches.

The movement revolved around John Wesley, whose strong personality, exemplary life, managerial skill, frequent pastoral visits to the scattered Societies, and extensive writings commanded his converts and his itinerant preachers. Although he had called an annual conference since 1744, he regarded its function only as advisory. In 1784 his Deed of Declaration named 100 of the itinerants as constituting the Conference of the "People called Methodists." The Legal Hundred thus formed the official body of the movement and held chapels and other property in trust, and also administered, assigned, and controlled the preachers after Wesley's death.

Historical Organization. The original basic unit of Methodism was the Society, a form of organization existing within the Church of England without formal sanction since 1678. The various Societies in London, Bristol, and elsewhere admitted communicants of the Church of England, dissenters, and others who had "a desire to flee from the Wrath to come, and to be saved from their Sins," and issued to members in good standing quarterly tickets of identification. Within each Society were Classes of 12 or more persons, under a leader who visited each member weekly, collected contributions, kept the minister informed, and distributed the tickets. Wesley adopted the plan of the Bristol Methodists to collect a penny a week from each member and, in the process of collecting the money, to "enquire how their souls prosper." Also within the Societies in the early days were the Bands of 5 to 10 persons, who were organized according to their status as married and single men, and married and single women. Each little group met weekly for confession and for prayer that all might be healed. Another short-lived company was the Select Societies, whose members asserted that they had already attained the heights of Christian perfection.

Wesley's close supervision and inspiration kept the Societies united. In his absence, lay assistants were permitted to preach in the morning and evening when ministers were away, visit the Classes monthly, adjudicate differences, deal with the "Disorderly Walkers," and supervise the stewards. Wesley arranged the Societies according to geographical location, into Circuits, which were placed under a helper. After Wesley's death, Circuits were organized into Districts. The aggregate of all the Societies, Circuits, and Districts under the authority of the Conference formed the Methodist "Connexion."

Today Methodist administrative authority is exercised through a system of assemblies or conferences of local churches, from the quarterly meetings of the Circuit, to the District, and the annual conference. In the Conference, an equal number of clergy and laity hold a representative session to deal with administrative and financial questions. Then the pastoral session, composed of the Legal Hundred (the ministers who have been sitting in the representative session that year) and others, deals with pastoral and disciplinary matters.

Doctrine. Wesley's teachings emphasized certain historic Christian truths, as modified by the Protestant reformers and by his own religious experience. Their foundation was acceptance of the divinity of Jesus and the Trinity, as well as the universality of original sin, the consequent weakening of human nature, and the necessity of man to cooperate with grace in order to gain salvation. To Protestantism Wesley owed his reliance on the Bible as the measure of religion, his denial of purgatory and rejection of the invocation of saints and veneration of relics, and his adoption of puritanical norms of conduct for his followers. From Protestantism too he derived the major importance he assigned to preaching (he called his chapels "preaching houses") and his views of the Sacraments. As he saw it, baptism was a sign of regeneration that had already occurred in the Christian; and it was to be administered to infants, who were in the kingdom of God, to strengthen their faith. The Eucharist was understood as a memorial of the Passion and Death of Jesus.

The basic doctrines of Methodism are: (1) Universal Redemption—Christ died for all, and He offers His love to all people. (2) Justification by faith and the New Birth—unlike the vast majority of evangelicals in the Church of England, who embraced Calvinistic justification, Wesley assigned a role to free will and to good works. Justification brought the regenerated sinner freedom from "outward" sin; still for triumph over "inward" sin the Christian must experience the New Birth that renews our fallen nature. (3) The witness of the Spirit—God's Spirit witnesses to the soul of the just man that he is His child. This assurance that he is the son of God ("ease after pain, rest after labour, joy after sorrow, light after darkness") leads him to feel the certainty of present pardon and to recognize that Christ lives in him. Wesley sought to bring every man into an experience of personal fellowship with God, that is, possession by the indwelling God. This assurance differs from certainty of final perseverance in Calvinistic predestination. (4) Perfection, sanctification, or holiness—the Christian may attain the state of complete sanctification that excludes all voluntary offense and enables him to grow in grace toward the fullness of salvation. Today Methodists view sanctification as the inherent righteousness of the justified who have the power to resist evil.

The Methodists emphasized not dogma but the living of a Christian life and the following of certain religious observances. Above all, the Methodists were to have the love of God in their hearts. Wesley enjoined celebrating the festivals of the Church of England, and he added the love feast (agape) and the watch nights, which he borrowed from the Moravians. In each quarter Christians were to meet at night in order to "eat Bread with Gladness and Singleness of Heart" and join in brotherly union in song and in relating religious experiences. Distinctive in Methodist observance was the prominence accorded to the singing of hymns. There was no confession of faith, though Wesley did stipulate that American Methodists were to accept an adaptation of the Thirty-Nine Articles, and that British preachers were to adopt the first four volumes of his sermons (edited in 1787–88), which contained 44 discourses, and his Notes on the New Testament. In effect, this meant Wesley's interpretation of the Scriptures. After his death, doctrinal authority rested with the conference.

Developments in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Even in the days of Wesley, Methodists were divided. Lady Huntingdon failed to compose the differences over predestination of the Wesleys and Whitefield. Later, disputes occurred over the relationship of Methodists to Anglicanism, the necessity of taking Communion in parish churches, and refraining from holding services during the hours of the Church of England. The plan of Thomas Coke (1747–1814) to have Methodist preachers ordained in the Church of England for the purpose of administering the sacraments to the Methodists failed. Preachers ordained by Wesley and other ministers proceeded to ordain their own preachers. Methodists gradually ceased going to Anglican services. For much of the 19th century, nonetheless, some chapels neither scheduled services during the hours of the Established Church nor administered the sacraments. No formal separation from the Church of England occurred until 1891. The authority of the preachers in full Connexion and of the conference and the role of the laity touched off many disputes that led to schism. Jabez Bunting (1779–1858), four times president of the conference and regarded as the second founder of Methodism, aroused much resentment. His foes, who had published "Fly Sheets," or a series of broadsides, from 1849 to 1856 against his rule, were expelled; many of them were lost to Methodism.

Splintering shattered the Methodist unity. Alexander Kilham (1762–98) and William Thompson left with 5,000 supporters to form the Methodist New Connection (1797) because they favored universal suffrage and democratic principles in church government. The strongest dissident group, the Primitive Methodists, was formed by Hugh Bourne (1772–1852), a carpenter, who joined his forces with the similarly dissident Clowesites (William Clowes, 1780–1851). The Primitive Methodists wanted camp meetings, which were widely used in America but condemned by the Liverpool Conference in 1807, and field preaching. Considerable working-class support was evident in the increase of membership from 200 to 165,410 in 1875. Another group, the Bible Christians, was founded in 1815 by William O'Bryan (1778–1868), an itinerant preacher, who appealed to the Bible, and not to the Prayer Book as well, as the sole authority and who favored the ministry of women.

In addition to several other offshoots of the main body of Methodism there were the Protestant Methodists and the Wesleyan Methodist Association. The first was organized by Matthew Johnson and 70 local preachers who opposed the introduction of an organ into the Brunswick Street chapel at Leeds in 1828. The Protestant Methodists merged with the Wesleyan Methodist Association, which had come into existence following the creation of a school for the education of ministers. Part of the motivation of these dissenting groups was the desire of a greater voice for the laity in administrative and financial matters. The association favored decentralization and the autonomy of the circuit and the individual chapel in the management of business. In 1857 it merged with the Wesleyan Reformers—the opponents of Bunting—to become the United Methodist Free Churches. Although the schisms and internal disputes cost Methodism dearly, by the 1860s membership was again on the rise.

The vast industrial and social changes prompted Methodists to attract the poor once more, to alter their dominant middle-class character, and to renew their evangelical fervor. Their social conscience was stirred. Hugh Price Hughes (1847–1902) established the West London Mission in 1887, which combined social and religious features, and later another great figure in Methodism, John Scott Lidgett (1854–1953), directed the settlement in southeast London, where religious, social, educational, and medical services were provided.

The unification of the several branches of Methodism was facilitated by the fact that they differed not in doctrine but in church government. An Act of the English Parliament in 1907 authorized the merger of the Methodist New Connexion, the Bible Christians, and the United Methodist Free Churches as the United Methodist Church. In 1932 the Wesleyan Methodists, Primitive Methodists, and the United Methodist Church came together as the Methodist Church, with a combined membership of 859,652. The unified church does not include the Wesleyan Reform Union (with autonomous individual churches) or the Independent Methodist Church (with a voluntary ministry that admits women). The first ecumenical Conference of Methodists met in London in 1881. Subsequent consultative assemblies have usually met at 10-year intervals. At the meeting in Oxford in 1951, the name of the organization was changed to World Methodist Council. Its functions include liaison among the various Methodist groups and cooperation with the World Council of Churches.

Methodism took root in the British Isles, wherever English rule and influence existed. In Wales many evangelists, including Howell harris, Griffith Jones (1683–1761), George Whitefield, and the Wesleys, made Methodism—but by no means the Wesleyan variety—the country's strongest religious force. Methodism did not flourish in Scotland. In Ireland itinerant preachers, dubbed Swaddlers, faced the opposition of Catholic priests and the attachment of the Irish to their traditional faith. Methodism made headway in the British overseas possessions such as America, the West Indies, and Canada. In 1925 the Canadian Methodists and the Congregationalists and Presbyterians formed the United Church of Canada. Autonomous churches were established in Australia and New Zealand.

Bibliography: h. burbridge, Methodisme (Studies in Comparative Religion, ed. j. m. t. barton; London 1957). n. sykes, Church and State in England in the XVIIIth Century (Cambridge, Eng. 1934). w. j. townsend et al., eds., A New History of Methodism, 2 v. (London 1909). w. w. sweet, The Methodists, a Collection of Source Materials (Chicago 1946). r. f. wearmouth, The Social and Political Influence of Methodism in the 20th Century (London 1957). f. s. mead, s. s. hill, and c. d. atwood, eds., Handbook of Denominations in the United States, 11th ed. (Nashville 2001).

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PART II: NORTH AMERICA

John wesley had spent two years (1736 to 1737) in Georgia as chaplain to General James E. Oglethorpe's colony and missionary to the Native Americans, but he sailed home to England disheartened at the failure of his mission. After coming under the influence of the Moravians, he experienced conversion on May 24, 1738, and through the next half-century successfully promoted his evangelical movement within the Anglican communion. In America, however, the colonists' victory in the War for Independence made a British-controlled Methodist Church unacceptable and impractical, with the result that the first Methodist Church was organized in America rather than in England, homeland of the Wesleyan Revival.

Origin and Historical Development. Unofficial lay preachers who had gone from Ireland and England, not as missionaries but as immigrants, were the founders of Methodism in America. In 1766 Philip embury began to preach in New York, and the society he formed there built a chapel on John Street (1768) with the aid of Captain Thomas Webb of the British Army, a lay preacher. In 1768 Webb also founded a society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and two years later led in purchasing and completing a half-finished sanctuary, later St. George's, the oldest church of American Methodism. At about the same time Robert Strawbridge, unordained and unofficial, settled in Frederick, Maryland, making his cabin a preaching center. Between 1769 and 1774 Wesley dispatched eight experienced itinerant preachers to America, where under their leadership a corps of indigenous preachers developed. Francis asbury, one of Wesley's emissaries who arrived in 1771 and was the only one to remain through the Revolution, became to American Methodism what Wesley was to British.

The achievement of American independence convinced Wesley that it was time for his followers there to be free from his control and to organize into a church with an ordained ministry. When the Anglican bishop refused to ordain his America-bound leaders, Wesley took upon himself the solemn setting-apart of Dr. Thomas Coke, already a priest, to be superintendent for America, and also ordained two itinerants to accompany Coke. In 1784, 60 of the 83 itinerant preachers met in a Christmas Conference in Baltimore, Maryland, and elected Asbury as cosuperintendent. He was ordained deacon and elder on successive days, and on the third, consecrated as superintendent. To Wesley's consternation the new body named itself the Methodist Episcopal Church and designated their superintendents bishops. This was the first religious group in the United States to create an independent, national church organization. Later, formal greetings were exchanged between the bishops of the new church and the president of the new republic. Coke, because of missionary assignments for Wesley, left leadership entirely to Asbury, except for brief visits. At his death in 1816, Asbury's diary revealed that he had traveled 270,000 miles, preached 16,000 times, held 224 conferences, and ordained 4,000 ministers. The societies, which numbered 316 members in 1771, had grown to a denomination of 214,235 members, more than in England.

Methodism's close connectionalism and its circuit system were well adapted to following the population westward. The pulpit emphasis upon free grace and free will for all met with remarkable response from pioneers freshly tuned to the implications of democracy. Between 1800 and 1830 membership increased sevenfold. By 1850 there were 1,208,110 Methodist members in America. Because of the demand for ministers many of the circuit riders were chosen more for their zeal than their learning. Their deficiencies were made up in part by private study and reading; but since their congregations were rough and uncultured, too much education was undesirable and might only estrange them from their listeners. As a consequence, the transition to the later standard of a liberal arts degree followed by three years of graduate study in a theological seminary was slow, and for many years divinity schools were scorned and mistrusted.

Doctrine and Worship. Wesley supplied the Methodist Church in America with doctrinal and liturgical standards. He abridged to 24 the 39 Anglican Articles of Religion, endorsed as theological norms his own Notes on the New Testament and certain published sermons, prescribed general rules, and provided liturgical aids. However, because of primitive settings for the circuit riders' ministrations, the dignified Order of Morning and Evening Prayer soon lost out to completely informal worship and extempore prayer. Rituals for Methodism's two sacraments, baptism and holy communion, and for such rites as marriage and burial were conscientiously followed. Methodists take holy communion kneeling and partake of both elements. While sprinkling is the usual method of baptism, every adult and the parents of every infant to be baptized have the choice of sprinkling, pouring, or immersion.

Methodists have had few doctrinal disturbances, probably because of their light stress on dogma. "Whosoever imagines a Methodist is a man of such and such opinion is grossly ignorant of the whole affair," Wesley wrote. Despite this liberality there is a definite Wesleyan theological accent. The founder's message was twofold: first, the experience of the new birth, the gift of God's grace, offered freely to all repentant men; second, the moral ideal that the gospel presents. Basic, of course, to all other standards were the Scriptures, declared to be "the sole and sufficient rule of belief and practice."

Early Methodists answered calvinism with the Arminian doctrine of universal redemption (see arminian ism). Accordingly, salvation is full and present, available to all and conditioned on repentance and faith in Christ. Inwardly it is authenticated by the witness of the spirit bringing peace and assurance. Outwardly its evidence is a life of loving service. Methodism's doctrine of Christian perfection emphasizes not the possibility of sinlessness, but rather perfection in love and motives.

By mid-20th century there were evidences, extending to the laity, of reawakened interest in theology. Doctrinal presentations appeared in Methodist periodicals and church school curriculum. There was an organized circulation of eight doctrinal booklets on "Our Faith." An inquiry on the beliefs of Methodists confirmed that while most of the austere restrictions on dress and amusements have long been outmoded, the major doctrinal emphasis of Wesley remained vital.

Methodist Churches in Canada. In 1925 the United Church of Canada was formed by the union of three communions, one of which was the Methodist Church of Canada. This strong body was itself the product of the union in 1883 of four independent Canadian Methodist bodies. In 1765 Methodism in Newfoundland developed from the work of English itinerants. Two preachers, dispatched by the Christmas Conference in Baltimore, reached Nova Scotia in 1785. Others followed, and from 1800 on the work was taken over by British missionaries. In the Niagara region, now Ontario, a Canadian conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in 1824, but four years later was granted independence. Numerous Methodists were found also among the Tory refugees who fled to Canada during and after the American Revolution.

Methodist Churches in the United States. On May 10, 1939, after years of negotiations, the long-separated Methodist Episcopal Church (numbering some 4,750,271 members), the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (2,619,197 members), and the Methodist Protestant Church (195,000 members) merged to form "The Methodist Church." The united church was partitioned into six jurisdictions—five geographical, one racial. All were empowered to elect and assign their own bishops, formerly a General Conference prerogative. The merging of the missionary, educational, and benevolent agencies of the three bodies was accomplished smoothly. A union of the evangelical united brethren and the Methodist Church, was approved in principle by both bodies in 1962 and 1964, and ratified by their respective General Conferences in 1966. In 1968, the United Methodist Church, combining the Evangelical United Brethren and the Methodist Church came into existence.

The Methodist Protestant Church. This was organized in Baltimore in 1830 by reformers who protested the autocratic practices of bishops and the absence of laymen in the conferences. In a century membership increased from 5,000 to nearly 200,000. Meanwhile their democratic principles prevailed in the major Methodist bodies. Laymen in equal numbers were in all conferences, and bishops, while still there, exercised their powers with restraint and consideration. In 1939 Methodist Protestants joined in the reunion movement, furnishing two leaders for consecration as bishops in the new body, The Methodist Church.

Wesleyan Methodist Church. In 1843 objectors to the bishops' compromises on slavery, made to keep peace with the South, withdrew to organize a church "free from episcopacy and free from slavery." In 1968, it merged with the Pilgrim Holiness Church to become the Wesleyan Church.

Free Methodist Church. A conservative group that was organized in 1860 by ministers and laymen expelled from churches in western New York for "fanatical reactionism." They had condemned pew renting, liquor, tobacco, the use of musical instruments in worship, and neglect of the doctrine of entire sanctification. The word "free" in their name refers to free seats, freedom from ecclesiastical domination, freedom from sin, and freedom in worship.

Methodist Episcopal Church, South. As the nation was to do later, the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1844 split over slavery. A Georgia bishop, James O. Andrew, through marriage had come into possession of slaves. Church law forbade a minister to hold slaves. State law prohibited their emancipation. A resolution was passed in the General Conference calling upon Bishop Andrew to "desist from the exercise of his office as long as this impediment remains." When protests on constitutional grounds failed, the Southerners sought and obtained a provisional separation agreement establishing boundaries and providing for the division of institutional assets. Membership divided, with 689,310 adhering to the North and 462,851 to the South. In May 1845 the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was duly organized. Both churches prospered until the Civil War; they launched missionary enterprises, domestic and foreign, and founded schools and colleges. Although the war years and Reconstruction were disastrous, recovery was rapid and by 1866 American Methodism comprised nearly half of all Protestant communicants. In 1939, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Protestant Episcopal Church were reunited to form the Methodist Church. Those who objected to the merger formed a new church, the Southern Methodist Church.

Historic African American Methodist Churches. African Methodist Episcopal Church. This group, the oldest and largest, developed from Bethel Church, Philadelphia, an all-black congregation set up in 1794 under the leadership of Richard Allen by members of St. George's Church, who were displeased by discriminatory treatment. In 1816 it joined with five other congregations to establish the African Methodist Episcopal Church, severing its ties with the all-white Methodist Church.

African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Similar friction between black and white members of John Street Church, New York, resulted in 1796 in permission for its black members to worship separately in a church they named Zion. Other congregations with similar problems maintained a loose affiliation. In 1822 efforts failed to form these churches into a Methodist episcopal annual conference, as did also an attempt to unite them with the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Led by James Varick, they then organized independently.

The Christian (formerly Colored) Methodist Episcopal Church. This group was founded on request of African Americans, who in 1870 were still members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The parent body sponsored the new church. Both the African Methodist Episcopal and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion churches moved aggressively into the South as the Civil War ended, quadrupling their memberships between 1860 and 1870.

Bibliography: The History of American Methodism, ed. e. s. bucke et al., 3 v. (Nashville 1964). w. c. barclay, History of Methodist Missions, 3 v. (New York 1949–57). h. e. luccock and p. hutchinson, Story of Methodism (New York 1949). n. b. harmon, Organization of the Methodist Church (Nashville 1948). r.m. cameron, Methodism and Society in Historical Perspective (Nashville 1961). s. p. schilling, Methodism and Society in Theological Perspective (Nashville 1960). w. g. muelder, Methodism and Society in the 20th Century (Nashville 1961). f. s. mead, s. s. hill and c. d. atwood, ed., Handbook of Denominations in the United States (Nashville 2001).

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