A Brief Overview of Early Methodist History
Posted on 2006-09-17 at 21:10
Methodism began in 18th century Britain as a small society of students at Oxford. They became known, pejoratively, as "Methodists" becuase of their methodical approach to scripture and Christian living.
The three main proponents of this Anglican clarification movement were John Wesley (June 17, 1703 – March 2, 1791), Charles Wesley (18 December 1707 - 29 March 1788), and George Whitefield (December 16, 1714 - September 30, 1770).
Together these three men began the Methodist Revival. This early Methodist movement was a reaction to perceived apathy within the Church of England. It was driven by open-air preachers who established Methodist groups wherever they went. They gave boisterious, loud sermons that landed them accusations of being fanatical and mad. Critics popped up everywhere. Theophilus Evans wrote that it was "the natural Tendency of their Behaviour, in Voice and Gesture and horrid Expressions, to make People mad." William Hogarth also spoke of Methodists as "enthusiasts" full of "Credulity, Superstition and Fanaticism." Despite these accusations, the Methodist movement gained traction every day.
In the late 1760s, the Methodist Revival was brought to America by two travelling lay ministers named Philip Embury and Robert Strawbridge. By 1770 they were joined by Methodist missionaries sent by John Wesley himself to help organize the new American movement. Francis Ashbury reorganized the mid-Atlantic groups under the Methodist model (which caused no small bit of ill-will with the extant lay leaders). As the American Revolutionary War came and Wesley called many of his missionaries back, only Ashbury was left in the mid-Atlantic circuit. Strawbridge, however, had seen wild success in him mission, which began in Maryland at the same time as Embury. Strawbridge ordained himself and set about organizing a circuit. He trained others in the Methodist way and set them off to start circuits of their own. His organization's growth was astounding. The British missionaries who'd been sent to help Embury's group became aware of Strawbridge's group and brought it under their "official" wing. This, however, did not stop the native lay ministers from continuing to preach side-by-side with the missionaries from Wesley. This Southern Methodism did not have the same dependence on missionaries that the mid-Atlantic Methodism.
Though Strawbridge was ordained, none of his lay ministers were, and at the insistence of John Wesley they would still bring their congregation to an ordained Anglican minister for the performance of the sacraments. This ended, however, when the Anglican ministers began their flight to England around the time of the war. Left with no recourse, the lay ministers of Southern Methodism ordained themselves and began performing the sacraments on their own. This was a matter of great strife between the Southern and mid-Atlantic branches. To reconcile the groups, Ashbury was able to convince the Southerners to wait for word from Wesley on the subject.
Meanwhile in England, John Wesley allied himself with the Moravians---going as far as to help them found the Fetter Lane Society, the first real precursor to modern Methodism.
As his following in England grew, so to did tensions between his group and the Anglican church of which it was a part. His brother Charles and many of the followers urged a seperation from the Church of England, but John did not want that. "We dare not," he said, "administer baptism or the Lord's Supper without a commission from a bishop in the apostolic succession." By the next year, however, he had a change of heart. His recent reading convinced him that apostolic succession was a fiction. He said he was "a scriptural episcopos as much as any man in England."
In 1784, Wesley sent Ashbury a response to the American sacramental crisis. His response took the form of the Rev. Thomas Coke. Coke was sent to America to form an independant American Methodist Church.
Coke was to ordain Ashbury as a joint superintendant of the new church. Ashbury, seeing the great weight of the decision, chose to ask the assembled conference to vote, stating he would not accept any such office without the vote of his conference. He was voted into the office of Superintendent. Later, Coke and Ashbury were named Bishops, though Wesley did not agree to, nor did he approve of that titular promotion.
By 1792, the controversy of espiscopal power came to a head. Ultimately the conference gathered that year sided with Bishop Ashbury, though it caused the first strong split in the Methodist church, as the Primitive Methodists and the Republican Methodists branched off from the main church.
By late 1793, he broke with the Moravians. He brought with him those converted to his teachings and those converted by the words of his brother Charles and his friend George Whitefield. "Thus," he wrote, "without any previous plan, began the Methodist Society in England."