Glenn T. Miller

The Methodist church was founded as a separate entity by John Wesley in 1744 in England. He had initially hoped to reawaken the Church of England to the demands of vital piety. Wesley's theology was a warm-hearted evangelicalism that stressed the experience of Christ within the heart, man's capacity to accept Christ's offer of redemption, and the need for a disciplined life. In his later years Wesley came to believe in the possibility of entire sanctification or holiness (a state of perfection) and taught that it should be the goal of every Christian. This latter doctrine has contributed to many of the divisions within Methodism.

Methodist ideas entered the American colonies informally at first, notably through the efforts of Robert Strawbridge and Philip Embury, and their success prompted Wesley to send Richard Broadman and Joseph Pilmoor to America in 1769. Two years later he sent Francis Asbury, who was to become the great apostle of early Methodism in America. At first, Methodism was an extremely small movement that existed on the fringes of the Anglican church, but after the revolutionary war, the Methodists completely separated from that body. The Christmas Conference, held in Baltimore in 1784, marks the beginning of the Methodist church in America. At that meeting sixty preachers joined with Richard Vassey, Richard Whitcoat, and Thomas Coke, delegates from Wesley, in ordaining Francis Asbury and establishing an order for the church. The conference decided on a form of government by deacons, elders, and superintendents (later bishops); adopted the Book of Discipline, which regulated the life of the church and its members; and elected Coke and Asbury as its first superintendents.

Almost immediately after the Christmas Conference, Methodism entered a period of rapid expansion. The system of circuit riders, which Wesley had experimented with in England, met the need for clergymen in outlying regions and allowed relatively uneducated men to enter the ministry. Wherever the circuit rider could gather a crowd, he would stop, preach a sermon, and organize a Methodist class to continue the work until he was able to return. Methodist theology was also easy for the average man to understand, and the Methodist emphasis on discipline was invaluable to communities that were far from the ordinary restraints of civilization. The Methodist combination of simplicity, organization, and lay participation not only made it the largest Protestant denomination but also decisively influenced the other frontier churches. Other denominations, even those of Calvinist background, were forced to accept elements of Methodist theory and practice in order to survive.

The 19th century was a period in which the Methodists, like many other American denominations, experienced internal division. The question of slavery, an important issue for churches located in both the North and the South, led to the formation of three separate ecclesiastical bodies: the Methodist Episcopal church (1844); the Methodist Episcopal church, South (1844); and the Wesleyan Methodist Connection, a small antislavery church founded in 1843. After the Civil War most black Methodists formed their own denominations. In the same period, the increasingly middle-class nature of the church contributed to disputes over the issue of entire sanctification, and the lower-class membership largely withdrew into the "Holiness" or "Pentecostal" movement.

In the 20th century, Methodism has been involved in both the ecumenical movement and the Social Gospel. The Methodist Social Creed was adopted by the Federal Council of Churches in 1908 as its own statement of social principles. Methodism has also begun to heal the divisions within its own ranks. In 1939 the Methodist Episcopal church; the Methodist Episcopal church, South; and the Methodist Protestant church merged. In 1968 this church merged with the Evangelical United Brethren to form the United Methodist church.

The principal Methodist groups and their 1974 membership figures are United Methodist church, 10,192,265 members; African Methodist Episcopal church, 1,500,000 members; African Methodist Episcopal Zion church, 1,024,974 members; African Union First Colored Methodist Protestant church, 8,000 members; Christian Methodist Episcopal church, 466,718 members; Evangelical Methodist church, 10,519 members; Free Methodist church of North America, 65,066 members; Fundamental Methodist church, 722 members; Primitive Methodist church, U.S.A., 11,945 members; Reformed Methodist Union Episcopal church, 5,000 members; Reformed Zion Union Apostolic church, 16,000 members; Southern Methodist church, 9,917 members; Union American Methodist Episcopal church, 28,000 members.

Bibliography 

Emory Stevens Bucke and others, eds., History of American Methodism.

Hunter Dickinson Farish, The Circuit Rider Dismounts: A Social History of Southern Methodism.

Gerald K. Kennedy, The Methodist Way of Life.

Ralph Ernst Morrow, Northern Methodism and Reconstruction.

Warren William Sweet, Methodism in American History.