METHODISM. - One of the most important branches of Protestantism, which takes its origin from the preaching of the Wesley brothers: John, b. at Epworth (Lincolnshire) on 17 June 1703, d. at London on 2 March 1781; and Charles, b. at Epworth on 18 Dec. 1707, d. at London on 29 March 1788.
I. ORIGIN OF METHODISM
John Wesley, in his second year of studies at Oxford (1729), began to take part weekly in "Communion and to adhere strictly to the methods of study prescribed by the University." Shortly afterward he was joined by John, already an Anglican minister, but only then, under the influence of edifying readings (J. Taylor-W. Law, The Imitation of Christ), animated by a more concrete and profound religious sentiment. Thus a small group of young men gathered around them, who alternated the reading of the classics with that of the New Testament in Greek, and together practiced regular exercises of piety and asceticism (fasting, works of charity). They aspired in some way, beyond the simple "justification by faith" (according to the Protestant conception), to a certain personal sanctification; they were therefore called, in derision, Holy Club ("the Holy Club"), or Bible biggots and also, because of the regularity of their life and studies, "Methodists"; they accepted this nickname.
At Oxford George Whitefield joined them, b. at Gloucester on 16 Dec. 1714, d. at Newburyport (Massachusetts) on 30 Sept. 1770, 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 pleased little; he nevertheless succeeded in gathering a small group at Savannah (1736), and above all he came to know some Bohemian Brethren who had emigrated there, and felt their influence. This tendency grew stronger when, on returning to England, they came to know another member of that community, Peter Böhler, and at a meeting, on 24 May 1738, John Wesley believed he perceived the inner testimony of the salvation he had attained: a decisive experience of his life.
A visit to Herrnhut procured him confirmation of it, and he began, with his brother and with Whitefield, his preaching among the people, aimed at "spreading scriptural holiness throughout the land." Thus arose the first regular groups, in London and Bristol in 1739, which can be considered as the year in which Methodism was truly born, with the meetings held in premises by then belonging to the two "societies."
The Wesleys, and Whitefield too, however, had not the slightest intention of founding a new sect, and theirs was originally, and in intention, a movement of religious "revival," which had precedents and parallels both in England and in Wales and in a certain sense in German "Pietism," in short an attempt to give religious warmth and vigor to an Anglicanism stiffened by rationalism and by subjection to political power. But it was the Anglican clergy that opposed the new preaching; no longer admitted to the pulpits, it took place in houses and schools and from 1739, with Whitefield first and Wesley shortly after, also in the open air. Thus began a period of decisive crisis, with the progressive estrangement of J. Wesley from the Bohemian Brethren, whose "quietism" no longer satisfied him, and with the definitive break (1740), on his return from a journey to America, with G. Whitefield himself, who had remained strictly attached to the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. Thus there occurred, right at the outset, the first of 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 of the hymn-writer W. Williams (1719-91); he also had the support of the Countess of Huntingdon; the "Calvinist Methodist" groups organized themselves as early as 1742-43, but slowly detached themselves from the Anglican Church; in 1823 they adopted the Calvinist "Westminster Confession of Faith" (of 1647), and formed the Calvinist Methodist Church of Wales, which later, having 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 count on a sufficient number of Anglican ministers, found himself increasingly compelled to rely on laymen, among whom John Nelson stood out, the bricklayer turned most effective preacher, whom he came to know in 1742; the following year he dictated the rules for the organization of the "United Societies," with the characteristic subdivision into "classes" of 12 members, under a "class leader" or "guide" (class leader), a kind of pastor and at the same time trustee of John himself, who through these men exercised his supervision, also over moral conduct, and his spiritual direction. And he kept extending his activity ever further: in the north, at Newcastle-on-Tyne, in Cornwall, through Charles, a most prolific and popular writer of hymns, who was later to withdraw; in Ireland, whither he went 42 times after 1747; in Scotland, where in 1751 he made the first of 22 journeys. And as early as 1744 he had gathered his pastors in the first annual Conference: that which was to become the sovereign organ and the keystone of the whole organization. Nevertheless, a complete break with Anglicanism had not yet come, and for many years matters remained at this point, also because of the particular reluctance of Charles Wesley. The separation was the result of the new state of affairs that had arisen in America. Whitefield had gone there, after the Wesleys, and returned there often and died there; but other Methodists had emigrated there, and in 1766 the Irishman Philip Embury 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 his turn, Wesley sent there in 1769 R. Boardman and J. Pilmoor, and in 1771 R. Wright and Francis Asbury (d. 1816). The latter, when the revolution broke out, remained in America; indeed, precisely in 1773 the first American annual Conference met in Philadelphia. Once the independence of the United States was recognized, in Dec. 1783 a conference, assembled 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 dissident community induced Wesley to lay hands on Thomas Coke, an Anglican minister, authorizing him to do the same with Asbury (1734); and he further prepared 25 articles of faith and a Ritual. Coke and Asbury were thus the heads of the mother Methodist community in the United States, the Methodist Episcopal Church. In England, that decisive step having been taken, Wesley, by then extremely old, prepared to do the same. In 1734 he permanently organized the sovereign Assembly of 100 preachers, designated by himself, and in 1788 he ordained A. Mather, and the following year H. Moore.
II. HISTORICAL EVENTS OF METHODISM
The subsequent development of Methodism followed different lines in Great Britain and in America, though with certain similarities. In both countries, in fact, one observes the phenomenon common to Protestant denominations, of continual schisms, although this tendency was opposed by that of union, which grew stronger especially with the unfolding of "ecumenism" (v.) and in relation to it. One also notes the progressive increase in the functions and authority of the laity, along a tendency called democratic. But while in the United Kingdom the prevailing motives for the schisms were of a theological and ecclesiological order and the democratic tendency encountered strong resistance, in the United States these were instead far smaller, while questions that disturbed the life of the entire nation carried very great weight: the problem of the Negroes and of slavery, and the one connected with it, of the autonomy or sovereignty of the individual States within the Confederation.
In England the Conference of 1791 and those following it found themselves faced with the fundamental problem of whether to remain in the Anglican communion or leave it. In 1791 it was decided to extend to all preachers the rights conferred by Wesley on the first 100, who nevertheless remained the official leaders until 1932 (vacancies were to be filled by co-optation). The question of whether it was lawful to administer the Supper to ministers not ordained in the Anglican Communion, after long discussions, was left by the Plan of pacification of 1793 to the individual local churches. The admission of laymen to the Conference also raised obstacles and was resolved gradually, but fully only in 1878. The problem of the relations between the local churches and the Conference likewise aroused lively dissent. In substance, three principles contended for the field: episcopalian, presbyterian and congregationalist.
Meanwhile, precisely because it wanted a more democratic organization, the Methodist New Connexion (1796-97) had been breaking away, led by Alex Kilham. Subsequently, not admitting that ministers should be salaried, the Independent Methodists (1805-1806) broke away, then, for a revival of open-air preaching, the two "revival" movements, of Hugh Bourne and William Clowes, in Staffordshire (Primitive Methodists, 1811-12) and of Will. O'Bryan (later Bryant) in Devonshire (Bible Christians, 1815). A protest against the power of the Conference provoked the separation of the Protestant Methodists (1827-28), while the 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), absorbing several of the Protestant Methodists, and the Wesleyan Reformers (1849) united to form the United Methodist Free Churches, which in turn in 1907 merged with the New Connexion and with the Bible Christians into the new United Methodist Church. In their turn, this one, 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, since 1881, every 10 years (that of 1941 took place however in Springfield [Massachusetts], in 1947; that of 1951 in Oxford).
One must note here the conspicuous activity of the English Methodists in the missions: that of the West Indies began already during Wesley's lifetime; then they accompanied the economic and political expansion of Great Britain: in Ceylon (1813), in India, in Australia, in southern and western Africa, in China (1851) and in Burma (1887).
In the United States, on the other hand, apart from a few cases of dissent for disciplinary reasons, or of organization (Union American Methodist Episcopal Church, 1813; Methodist Protestant Church, 1828-30; Congregational Methodist, 1852; Free Methodist Church, in the name of a stricter moral rigorism, 1860), the Methodist Church was on the whole truly "episcopal", as it was called, but separate Negro communities soon arose (African Methodist Episcopal Church, 1816; African Union Methodist Episcopal Church, also 1816; African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, in New York from 1796, with this name from 1820) and the question of slavery was felt as involving the most fundamental principles of Christian ethics. As early as 1842-43 a group of abolitionists broke away and formed the Wesleyan Methodist Connection (later Church of America), and when the Methodists of the northern States found it scandalous and inadmissible that a Methodist bishop, J. O. Andrew, had become a slave owner, those of the South separated, forming the Methodist Episcopal Church South; and for the same reason the Methodist Protestant Church and some other minor group split (the English sects had also penetrated into America). Moreover, the policy of keeping the Negroes separate from the whites continued even after the Civil War, so that the former wished to make themselves independent (Colored Methodist Episcopal Church South, 1870). The Protestant Methodists reunited in 1877; but the Southern Church remained separate, and experienced other schisms, for organizational reasons (Congregational Methodist Church, 1872; from this, the New Congregational Methodist Church, 1881).
But if the rivalry between the Methodist Episcopal Churches of the north and of the south continued to be felt and there was even the curious phenomenon of the expansion of the Southern Church into northern States, especially in California and in the zone of the States gravitating on the Pacific, and conversely of the Northern Church into southern States, the dissensions, with time, gradually diminished and the need for unity was increasingly felt. On the other hand "democratization" had made great progress, so much so that, once negotiations between the two main Methodist Episcopal Churches were under way, the Protestants too asked to take part in them. Thus there came about, after various years of negotiations, the fusion of the 3 groups: Methodist Episcopal, Methodist Episcopal South and Methodist Protestant, approved in principle in 1937 and completed at the Kansas City Conference in 1939. The new Methodist Church is organized on the basis of six great subdivisions, 5 on a territorial basis and one, called "central", comprising the entire territory of the United States and including all the Negroes who were already members of the three pre-existing communities. The North American Churches, with the Canadian and the Japanese, constitute the "western section" of the Ecumenical Conference.
In Canada Methodism was introduced by English preachers (Laurence Loghlan sent by J. Wesley in 1765) and American ones (Asbury himself went there in 1811) and thus various ramifications arose. The process of reunion was rapid: the Methodist Episcopal, having become autonomous in 1928, merged with the Wesleyans, of English origin, in 1833; other groups united with 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 from the United States Methodism was propagated into Japan (Methodist Church of Japan, 1907).
The Methodist organization is still founded on the directives established by Wesley. The various churches are governed by the leaders and, as regards temporal administration, by stewards ("servants", that is διάλογος; just as instead of "bishops", bishops, one speaks of "superintendents", ἐπίσκοπος); the various local churches are grouped into "circuits" (circuits), under the presidency of a superintendent, considered in substance as primus inter pares. But already in England from 1791, after Wesley's death, and for 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 "conferences."
This organization is introduced in approximately the same form in the other churches; there are moreover vast "missionary areas" (also for Europe) and central conferences; and at the summit the already mentioned Ecumenical Conference.
The growth of Methodism, already notable during Wesley's lifetime, was rapid in the 19th century and, especially in England and through the work of certain minor sects, it penetrated to a notable extent among the working classes. In 1791 there were counted in Great Britain and Ireland 71,668 members, with 294 preachers; in 1945, 783,152 members, with 1,730 ministers. In the overseas missions (British Empire) ca. 250,000; in the United States, ca. 10 million. Altogether, the effective members of the various communities were estimated at ca. 12 million in 1932; in addition ca. 10 million people attended the "Sunday schools," with ca. 1 million teachers and leaders.
In Italy, the first Methodist worship meeting was held in Modena in 1873; from 1881 the Italian "conference" ceased to be considered as missionary. But, despite notable efforts, made especially in the first years after the First World War, it does not appear that Methodism has made notable progress.
III. DOCTRINE OF METHODISM
From the doctrinal point of view Wesley neither wished nor believed that he was innovating. "Methodism," he affirmed, "is the old religion, the religion of the Bible, the religion of the primitive Church, the religion of the Church of England." He started from the premise common to all Protestants, of the absolute and total depravity of man after original sin, and drew from contact with the mystics and from his own personal experience the other concept, of the inner testimony of the Spirit. But he also felt, and with him his brother Charles, who expressed it in several of his hymns, the universality of the Redemption; against the Calvinist Whitefield, the Wesleys reaffirm the principle that the Savior died for all. On the other hand, they and their first companions had sought their own personal "sanctification" through the scrupulous fulfillment of their duties, religious and moral. Accordingly, justification is for the Methodist the work of faith, but not only through an entirely external application of the merits of Jesus Christ to the believer, without any collaboration on his part; the faith that justifies is for them a "faith working through love," produced by love and which in turn bears fruits of good works. The sole condition for being admitted into the community is "a desire to flee from the wrath to come and to be saved from sin": therefore remorse and repentance for sins committed, and the firm will not to fall back into them: "the disposition to lead an honorable, peaceful, modest life, abstaining from all that does not redound to the glory of God." For this reason Protestant theologians are wont to qualify Methodism as "Arminian," insofar as it accepts a certain freedom of the will. Man, however, according to this doctrine, desires and obtains from God the capacity to fulfill the precepts of the love of God and of neighbor. The inner testimony of the Spirit gives the Christian the certainty of his repentance and of his faith in Christ, the assurance of his redemption and of having become a son of God; he therefore spontaneously seeks to free himself entirely from evil and thus to fulfill the divine precepts; in the effort to obey the law of love he recognizes the proof of his real, effective belonging to the Church. The Christian perfection attainable in this life is not, however, considered absolute, such as to render man impeccable; it does not imply liberation from ignorance, from error, from the weakness proper to man and from temptations, but means liberation from sin, from evil impulses and desires. Such is, for Methodism, the goal of every truly Christian existence. From the revaluation of the freedom of the will and of the usefulness of works depends the interest of its adherents in practical activity, in social problems, as well as a certain moral rigorism, especially with regard to temperance, relations between the sexes, and the use of wealth.
In the rest, Wesley, in elaborating his 25 articles of faith, adhered, summarizing or condensing them somewhat, to the 39 Anglican Articles; with significant modifications such as, on the other hand, the one by which to "the majesty of the King" he added "his parliament," while he eliminated every trace of royal supremacy over the religious society. Another characteristic is the constant recourse to the press. The Methodist Book Concern, created in America in 1789, and reorganized in 1939 as the Methodist Publishing House, with extensive facilities in Nashville, Cincinnati and Chicago, and a series of bookshops in the principal cities, is considered one of the most important religious publishing enterprises in the world.