History of Methodism
I |
Introduction |
Methodism, worldwide Protestant movement dating from 1729, when a group of students at the University of Oxford, England, began to assemble for worship, study, and Christian service. Their fellow students named them the Holy Club and �methodists,� a derisive allusion to the methodical manner in which they performed the various practices that their sense of Christian duty and church ritual required.
II |
|
The Wesleys |
Among the Oxford group were John Wesley, considered the founder of Methodism, and his brother Charles, the sons of an Anglican rector. John preached, and Charles wrote hymns. Together they brought about a spiritual revolution, which some historians believe diverted England from political revolution in the late 18th century. The theology of the Wesleys
Monument to John Wesley located in
Savannah, Georgia
leaned heavily
on Arminianism and rejected the Calvinist emphasis on
predestination.
Preaching the doctrines of Christian perfection and personal
salvation through faith, John Wesley quickly won an enthusiastic
following among the English working classes, for whom the formalism
of the established Church of England had little appeal.
Opposition by
the English clergy, however, prevented the Wesleys from speaking in
parish churches; consequently, Methodist meetings were often
conducted in open fields. Such meetings led to a revival of
religious fervor throughout England, especially among the poor. John Wesley's message as
well as his personal activities among the poor encouraged a social
consciousness that was retained by his followers and has become a
hallmark of the Methodist tradition. Methodist societies sprang up,
and in 1744 the first conference of Methodist workers was held.
Wesley never renounced his ties with the Church of England, but he
provided for the incorporation and legal continuation of the new
movement.
III |
|
Division and
Reunification |
Soon after John
Wesley's death in 1791, his followers began to divide into separate
church bodies. During the 19th century many such separate Methodist
denominations were formed in Britain and the United States, each
maintaining its own version of the Wesleyan tradition. In 1881 an
Ecumenical Methodist Conference was held to coordinate Methodist
groups throughout the world. Conferences have been held at regular
intervals since then. They are currently known as the World
Methodist Conference, which meets every five years. The centennial
gathering was convened in Honolulu in July 1981.
Early in the
20th century in Britain, the separate Methodist bodies began to
coalesce. The Bible Christians, the Methodist New Connexion, and the
United Methodist Free Churches united in 1907 to form the United
Methodist Church, which in 1932 joined with the Primitive Methodist
and Wesleyan Methodist churches to bring the long chapter of
Methodist disunity in Britain to an end. Today the Methodist Church
in the United Kingdom has the distinction of being the �mother
church� of world Methodism.
IV |
|
Structure of British
Methodism |
The governing
body of the British Methodist Church is the Conference. All church
courts and committees derive their authority from the Conference and
are responsible to it for the exercise of their appropriate
functions. Below the Conference administratively is a church court
for each district, circuit, and society. Geographic districts number
34. Each district is divided into circuits, generally 30 to 40 in
number. Each circuit is subdivided into local societies, the number
varying considerably. Administration of the church is not only
delegated to the lower courts but also to 13 connexional
departments. The work of each department is carried on at the
district, circuit, and society level by responsible committees. By
this means the Conference maintains control over the work of the
various levels of the church. Communication is thus maintained
between the Conference and all the members. The Conference also
maintains missions around the world.
V |
|
Origins of Methodism in the U.S. |
Methodism was
brought to the U.S. before the American Revolution by emigrants from
both Ireland and England. The earliest societies were formed in
about 1766 in New York City, in Philadelphia, and near Pipe Creek,
Maryland. In 1769 John Wesley sent his first missionaries to
America. Francis Asbury, commissioned in 1771, was the missionary
most instrumental in establishing the American Methodist church. The
first annual conference was held in Philadelphia in
1773.
At the Christmas Conference held in Baltimore, Maryland, in
1784, the Methodist Episcopal Church was formally organized as a
body separate from the English Methodist structure. Asbury and
Thomas Coke were given the title bishop and became heads of the new
church. Wesley sent Twenty-five Articles of Religion, adapted from
the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, to serve as its
doctrinal basis.
Methodism, spread by the circuit rider and the revival meeting, advanced westward with the frontier. During the early 19th century, the tolerant doctrinal positions of Methodism and its stress on personal religious experience, universal salvation, and practical ethics gave it a major role in religious awakening and attracted converts in large numbers.
The first Parsonage where John Wesley lived.
The Chapel was directly behind the house.
Savannah, Georgia
VI |
|
Organization and
Sacraments |
Annual
geographic conferences were organized throughout the U.S. in the
early 19th century. A democratic form of government similar to the
federal governmental system was adopted in the Methodist Episcopal
Church, and it remains the basic structure of the United Methodist
Church. A Council of Bishops was set up as the executive branch of
the church, with a General Conference as the legislative branch.
Later, a judicial council was established to serve as an
ecclesiastical court. The bishops and the judicial council were to
meet under the supervision of the General Conference.
Within both
British and American Methodism, two sacraments, baptism and the
Lord's Supper (Eucharist), are recognized. Baptism may be
administered by immersion, pouring, or sprinkling. Methodists
interpret the Lord's Supper as either a celebration of the presence
of Christ, as taught by the French Protestant theologian John
Calvin, or in a strictly memorial sense, as taught by the Swiss
Protestant reformer Huldreich Zwingli.
VII |
|
Schisms |
In the U.S., as
in Britain, division among Methodists came early. At the end of the
18th century, black members in Philadelphia withdrew from the
church, where segregation had been forced upon them, and established
an independent congregation. Soon church groups from other cities
along the Atlantic seaboard joined with them to form the African
Methodist Episcopal Church. In the second decade of the 19th century
in New York City a similar movement developed independently; it
attracted black congregations from other cities and became the
African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Agitation against the power
of the bishops and a desire for lay representation caused another
split in 1830, resulting in the formation of the Methodist
Protestant Church. Slavery became the most divisive issue in the
history of Methodism. Radical abolitionist Methodists broke away
from the Methodist Episcopal Church in the 1840s to form the
Wesleyan Methodist Church, which in the 20th century merged with the
Pilgrim Holiness Church to become the Wesleyan Church.
In 1844 the
largest schism in American Methodism occurred when the Methodist
Episcopal Church, South, was formed by supporters of slavery after
the General Conference became deadlocked over the issue. In the
1860s the holiness controversy produced another schism, when a group
of Methodist dissenters who believed in a reemphasis on Wesley's
doctrine of personal holiness broke away to form the Free Methodist
Church of North America.
After the
American Civil War, the two black Methodist denominations and the
Methodist Episcopal Church tried to proselytize the black
congregations within the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, which in
response encouraged and authorized its black members to form the
Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, now known as the Christian
Methodist Episcopal Church.
VIII |
|
Mergers |
Each of these
separate Methodist bodies formed denominational agencies to manage
education, missions, evangelism, and publishing. Through their
individual missionary programs, competing Methodist missions
appeared around the world. It became apparent that some cooperation
was essential, and each Methodist denomination joined one or more
international missionary organizations in the late 19th and early
20th centuries. One of these was the Ecumenical Methodist
Conference, which first met in 1881.
The movement
for unity did not succeed as completely in the U.S. as it did in
Britain, where one Methodist church resulted. After much effort,
three of the major Methodist bodies in the U.S., namely, the
Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist Protestant Church, and the
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, united in 1939 to form the
Methodist Church.
In 1946 two
small denominations of German ethnic origin that were unaffiliated
with Methodism but greatly influenced by it, the Evangelical Church
and the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, united to form the
Evangelical United Brethren Church. In 1968 this church joined with
the Methodist Church to become the United Methodist Church, bringing
more than half of world Methodism into one denomination.
Methodist
churches in other countries generally stem from either the British
or the American Methodist traditions. Some national Methodist
churches have become independent of their parent churches, which
increases the importance of their cooperation through the World
Methodist Council. The ecumenical movement, in which Methodists have
been leading participants, has resulted in the unification of some
Methodist groups with other denominations, making their long-term
relationship with world Methodism problematic.
Contributed
By: |
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"Methodism,"
Microsoft� Encarta� Online Encyclopedia
2003 |
� 1993-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved. |