METHODISM. – One of the most important branches of Protestantism, which originated from the preaching of the Wesley brothers: John, born at Epworth (Lincolnshire) on 17 June 1703, died in London on 2 March 1781; and Charles, born at Epworth on 18 December 1707, died in London on 29 March 1788.
OUTLINE: I. Origin of Methodism – II. Historical development of Methodism – III. Doctrine of Methodism
I. ORIGIN OF METHODISM – In the second year of his studies at Oxford (1729), John Wesley began to receive Holy Communion weekly and to adhere strictly to the prescribed methods of study at the University. Soon after, his brother Charles, already an Anglican minister, joined him, but only then, under the influence of edifying readings (J. Taylor – W. Law, *The Imitation of Christ*), did John develop a more concrete and profound religious sentiment. A group of young men gathered around them, alternating the reading of the classics with that of the New Testament in Greek, and together practising regular exercises of piety and asceticism (fasting, works of charity). They aspired in some way, beyond the simple “justification by faith” (according to Protestant conception), to a certain personal sanctification; they were therefore called, by way of derision, the Holy Club (“the holy club”), or Bible bigots, and also, because of the regularity of their life and studies, “Methodists”; they accepted this nickname.
At Oxford, George Whitefield, born at Gloucester on 16 December 1714, died at Newburyport (Massachusetts) on 30 September 1770, joined them, but in that same year (1735) the Wesleys accepted the invitation of Colonel J. E. Oglethorpe, founder and governor of that colony, to go to Georgia. Here John’s zeal was not well received; however, he managed to gather a small group in Savannah (1736), and above all came into contact with some Moravian Brethren who had emigrated there, and was influenced by them. This tendency became stronger when, upon their return to England, they met another member of that community, Peter Böhler, and at a meeting on 24 May 1738, John Wesley believed he perceived the inward testimony of attained salvation: a decisive experience in his life.
A visit to Herrnhut confirmed this for him, and he began, together with his brother and Whitefield, to preach among the people with the aim of “spreading scriptural holiness throughout the land.” Thus arose the first regular groups, in London and Bristol in 1739, which may be considered as the place where Methodism was truly born, with meetings now held in premises belonging to the two “societies.”
The Wesleys, and also Whitefield, however, had no intention whatsoever of founding a new sect, and their movement was originally and by intention a religious “revival” movement, which had precedents and parallels in England and Wales and in a certain way in German “Pietism,” an attempt in short to infuse warmth and religious vigour into Anglicanism, which had become stiffened by rationalism and subservience to political power. But it was the Anglican clergy who opposed the new preaching; no longer admitted to the pulpits, it took place in houses and schools, and from 1739, first with Whitefield and shortly after with Wesley, also in the open air. Thus began a period of decisive crisis, with the progressive distancing of J. Wesley from the Moravian Brethren, whose “quietism” no longer satisfied him, and with the definitive break (1740), upon his return from a journey to America with Whitefield himself, who remained firmly attached to the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. Thus, right from the beginning, there occurred the first in a long series of schisms. Whitefield joined the revival movement begun in Wales with the preaching of Griffith Jones (1684–1761), Howell Harris (1714–1773), Daniel Rowland (1713–90), and the hymn-writer W. Williams (1719–91); he also received the support of the Countess of Huntingdon. The “Calvinist Methodist” groups were organised as early as 1742–43, but gradually separated from the Anglican Church; in 1823 they adopted the Calvinist “Westminster Confession of Faith” (of 1647), forming the Calvinist Methodist Church of Wales, which later, federated with the United Free Church of Scotland and the Presbyterian Church of England and Ireland, became the Presbyterian Church of Wales.
The Methodist groups grew in number; Wesley, unable to rely on a sufficient number of Anglican ministers, found himself increasingly compelled to rely on laymen, among whom John Nelson, the stonemason turned into an effective preacher, whom he met in 1742, stood out. The following year he drew up the rules for the organisation of the “United Societies,” with their characteristic subdivision into “classes” of 12 members, under a “class leader” or “guide,” a kind of pastor and at the same time trustee of John himself, through whom he exercised his oversight, even over moral conduct, and his spiritual direction. And he continued to extend his activity: in the north, to Newcastle-on-Tyne, in Cornwall, through Charles, a most prolific and popular hymn-writer who was later to withdraw; in Ireland, where he went 42 times after 1747; in Scotland, where in 1751 he made his first of 22 journeys. And as early as 1744 he had gathered his preachers at the first annual Conference: this was to become the supreme organ and the keystone of the entire organisation. Nevertheless, there was still no complete break with Anglicanism, and for many years matters remained at this stage, also because of Charles Wesley’s particular reluctance. The separation came as a result of the new situation created in America. After the Wesleys, Whitefield had gone there, and returned often, dying there; but other Methodists had also emigrated, and in 1766 Philip Embury, an Irishman, began to preach in New York, joined by an army officer, Thomas Webb, and about the same time in Maryland by another Irishman, Robert Strawbridge. In turn, Wesley sent R. Boardman and J. Pilmoor there in 1769, and in 1771 R. Wright and Francis Asbury (d. 1816). Asbury, after the Revolution, remained in America; indeed, it was in 1773 that the first American annual Conference was held in Philadelphia. Once the independence of the United States had been recognised, in December 1783 a conference held in Baltimore turned to Wesley to obtain from him a constitution that would make American Methodism autonomous from that of the mother country. The refusal of the Bishop of London to ordain anyone for a dissenting community induced Wesley to lay hands on Thomas Coke, an Anglican minister, authorising him to do the same for Asbury (1784); and he also prepared 25 Articles of Religion and a Book of Discipline. Coke and Asbury thus became the leaders of the mother Methodist community in the United States, the Methodist Episcopal Church. In England, having taken that decisive step, Wesley, now in extreme old age, prepared to do the same. In 1784 he permanently organised the sovereign Assembly of 100 preachers, designated by himself, and in 1788 he ordained A. Mather, and the following year H. Moore.
Historical developments of Methodism
The subsequent development of Methodism followed different lines in Great Britain and America, although with certain similarities. In both countries, in fact, the usual phenomenon of continual schisms among Protestant denominations is observed, although this tendency has been countered by that of union, especially as ecumenism (v.) has unfolded and in relation to II. There is also a progressive increase in the functions and authority of the laity, according to a trend described as democratic. However, while in the United Kingdom the main causes of schisms were theological and ecclesiological in nature and the democratic tendency encountered strong resistance, in the United States these were much less pronounced, whereas issues that disturbed the life of the entire nation carried enormous weight: the problem of blacks and slavery and that, connected with the former, of the autonomy or sovereignty of individual states within the Confederation.
In England, the Conference of 1791 and those that followed were faced with the fundamental question of whether to remain in communion with the Anglican Church or to leave II. In 1791 it was decided to extend to all preachers the rights granted by Wesley to the first 100, who, however, remained the official leaders until 1932 (vacancies were to be filled by co-optation). The question of whether it was permissible to administer Communion to ministers not ordained within the Anglican Communion was, after lengthy discussions, left by the Plan of Pacification of 1795 to individual local churches. The admission of laypersons to the Conference also raised objections and was gradually resolved, but only fully in 1878. The issue of the relationship between local churches and the Conference also provoked lively disagreements. Essentially, the three principles—episcopal, presbyterian, and congregationalist—were contending for dominance.
Meanwhile, precisely because it desired a more democratic organization, the Methodist New Connection (1796–97) had broken away, led by Alex Kilham. Subsequently, those who did not accept that ministers should be salaried separated to form the Independent Methodists (1885–86), and then, in the name of a revival of open-air preaching, the two “awakening” movements of Hugh Bourne and William Clowes in Staffordshire (Primitive Methodists, 1811–12) and of William O’Bryan (later Bryant) in Devonshire (Bible Christians, 1815). A protest against the power of the Conference led to the separation of the Protestant Methodists (1827–28), while opponents of the founding of a theological school formed the Wesleyan Methodist Association (1835), and other serious schisms occurred in 1849. But in 1857 the Wesleyan Association (1836), having absorbed several of the Protestant Methodists and the Wesleyan Reformers (1849), united to form the United Methodist Free Churches, which in turn merged in 1907 with the New Connexion and the Bible Christians into the new United Methodist Church. In their turn, this body, the Primitive Methodists, and the Wesleyan Methodist Church amalgamated in 1932 to constitute the Methodist Church of Great Britain. This, together with the Australasian Methodist Church (itself the result of various unions), forms the “Eastern Section” of the Ecumenical Methodist Conference, which has met every ten years since 1881 (that of 1941, however, took place in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1947; that of 1951 in Oxford).
It should be noted here the considerable activity of English Methodists in missions: that in the West Indies began even during Wesley’s lifetime; then they accompanied the economic and political expansion of Great Britain: in Ceylon (1813), India, Australia, southern and western Africa, China (1851), and Burma (1887).
In the United States, on the other hand, apart from a few cases of dissent over disciplinary or organizational matters (Union American Methodist Episcopal Church, 1813; Methodist Protestant Church, 1828–30; Congregational Methodist, 1852; Free Methodist Church, in the name of stricter moral rigorism, 1860), the Methodist Church was in general truly “episcopal,” as it was called, but soon separate black congregations emerged (African Methodist Episcopal Church, 1816; African Union Methodist Episcopal Church, also 1816; African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, in New York from 1796, under that name from 1820), and the issue of slavery was felt to implicate the most fundamental principles of Christian ethics. As early as 1842–43 a group of abolitionists broke away to form the Wesleyan Methodist Connection (later Church of America), and when northern Methodists found it scandalous and unacceptable that a Methodist bishop, J. O. Andrew, had become a slave owner, those in the South separated to form the Methodist Episcopal Church South; for the same reason the Methodist Protestant Church and some other smaller groups also split (English sects had also penetrated America). Moreover, even after the Civil War the policy of keeping blacks separate from whites continued, so that the former sought independence (Colored Methodist Episcopal Church South, 1870). The Protestant Methodists reunited in 1877, but the southern Church remained separate and experienced further schisms for organizational reasons (Congregational Methodist Church, 1872; from this, the New Congregational Methodist Church, 1881).
But although the rivalry between the northern and southern Methodist Episcopal Churches continued to be felt and indeed the curious phenomenon occurred of the southern Church expanding into northern states, especially in California and the Pacific region, and conversely of the northern Church into southern states, the disagreements gradually diminished with time, and the need for unity was increasingly felt. On the other hand, “democratization” had made great progress, so that, once negotiations had been initiated between the two main Methodist Episcopal Churches, Protestants were also invited to participate. Thus, after several years of negotiations, the merger of the three groups—Methodist Episcopal, Methodist Episcopal South, and Methodist Protestant—was approved in principle in 1937 and finalized at the Kansas City Conference in 1939. The new Methodist Church is organized on the basis of six major subdivisions, five based on territory and one, called “central,” comprising the entire territory of the United States and including all blacks who had been members of the three preexisting communities. The North American Churches, together with the Canadian and Japanese, constitute the “Western Section” of the Ecumenical Conference.
In Canada, Methodism was introduced by English preachers (Laurence Coughlan, sent by J. Wesley in 1765) and Americans (Asbury himself went there in 1811), and various branches developed. The process of reunion was rapid: the Methodist Episcopalians, having become autonomous in 1828, merged with the Wesleyans, of English origin, in 1833; other groups joined them, forming, between 1877 and 1883, the Methodist Church in Canada, which federated in 1925 with Presbyterians and Congregationalists in the United Church of Canada. From Canada and the United States, Methodism was propagated to Japan (Methodist Church of Japan, 1907).
The Methodist organization is still based on the directives established by Wesley. The various churches are governed by leaders and, as regards temporal administration, by stewards ("servants," i.e., "costs" as a substitute for "bishops"; "soprintendenti" ["superintendents"] are recognized); the various local churches are grouped into "circuits" (circuits), under the presidency of a superintendent, considered essentially as primus inter pares. However, even in England from 1791, after Wesley's death and to continue his work, several "circuits" were in turn united into "districts," with "synods" that meet twice a year and send their representatives to the "conference."
This organization is introduced more or less in the other churches; in addition, there are extensive "missionary areas" (even for Europe) and central conferences; and at the top the already mentioned Ecumenical Conference.
Methodism's growth, already notable during Wesley's lifetime, was rapid in the 19th century and, especially in England and through the work of some smaller sects, it penetrated significantly among the working classes. In 1791 there were 71,668 members in Great Britain and Ireland, with 294 preachers; in 1945, 783,152 members, with 4,750 ministers. In overseas missions (British Empire) about 250,000; in the United States, about 10 million. Overall, the actual members of the various communities were estimated at about 12 million in 1932, plus about 10 million people who attended "Sunday schools," with about 1 million teachers and leaders.
In Italy, the first Methodist worship gathering was held in Modena in 1873; from 1881 the Italian "conference" ceased to be considered missionary. But despite considerable efforts, especially in the first years after World War I, it does not appear that Methodism has made significant progress.