Methodist Church in Great Britain

The Methodist Church of Great Britain is a Protestant Christian denomination in Britain, and the mother church to Methodists worldwide. It participates in the World Methodist Council, and the World Council of Churches among other ecumenical associations.

Methodism began primarily through the work of John Wesley (1703–1791), who led an evangelical revival in 18th-century Britain. An Anglican priest, Wesley adopted unconventional and controversial practices, such as open-air preaching, to reach factory labourers and newly urbanised masses uprooted from their traditional village culture at the start of the Industrial Revolution. His preaching centred upon the universality of God's grace for all, the transforming effect of faith on character, and the possibility of perfection in love during this life. He organised the new converts locally and in a "Connexion" across Britain. Following Wesley's death, the Methodist revival became a separate church and ordained its own ministers; it was called a Nonconformist church because it did not conform to the rules of the established Church of England. In the 19th century, the Wesleyan Methodist Church experienced many secessions, with the largest of the offshoots being the Primitive Methodists. The main streams of Methodism were reunited in 1932, forming the Methodist Church as it is today.

Methodist circuits, containing several local churches, are grouped into thirty districts. The supreme governing body of the church is the annual Methodist Conference; it is headed by the president of Conference, a presbyteral minister (currently Graham Thompson), supported by a vice-president who can be a local preacher or deacon. The denomination ordains women and openly LGBT ministers.

The Methodist Church is Wesleyan in its theology and practices. It uses the historic creeds and bases its doctrinal standards on Wesley's Notes on the New Testament and his Forty-four Sermons. Church services can be structured with liturgy taken from a service book—especially for the celebration of Holy Communion—but commonly include free forms of worship.

The 2009 British Social Attitudes Survey found that around 800,000 people, or 1.29 per cent of the British population, identified as Methodist. , active membership stood at approximately 164,000, representing an 18.8 per cent decline from the 2014 figure. Methodism is the fourth-largest Christian group in Britain. Around 202,000 people attend a Methodist church service each week, while 490,000 to 500,000 take part in some other form of Methodist activity, such as youth work and community events organised by local churches.

History

Origins

The movement that would become the Methodist Church originated in the early 18th century within the Church of England. A small group of students at Oxford University, including John Wesley (1703–1791) and his younger brother Charles (1707–1788), met together for the purpose of mutual improvement; they focused on studying the Bible and living a holy life. Other students mocked the group, saying they were the "Holy Club" and "the Methodists", being methodical and exceptionally detailed in their Bible study, opinions and disciplined lifestyle.

The first Methodist movement outside the Church of England was associated with Howell Harris (1714–1773), who launched the Welsh Methodist revival in the 1730s. This was to become the Calvinistic Methodist Church (today known as the Presbyterian Church of Wales). Another branch of the Methodist revival was under the ministry of George Whitefield (1714–1770), a friend of the Wesleys from the Oxford Holy Club—resulting in the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion.

The largest branch of Methodism in England was organised by John Wesley. In May 1738 he claimed to have experienced a profound discovery of God in his heart, a pivotal event that has come to be called his evangelical conversion. From 1739, Wesley took to open-air preaching, and converted people to his movement. He formed small classes in which his followers would receive religious guidance and intensive accountability in their personal lives. Wesley also appointed itinerant evangelists to travel and preach as he did and to care for these groups of people. It is a tribute to Wesley's powers of oratory and organisational skills that the term ''Methodism'' is today assumed to mean ''Wesleyan Methodism'' unless otherwise specified. Theologically, Wesley held to the Arminian belief that salvation is available to all people, in opposition to the Calvinist ideas of election and predestination that were accepted by the Calvinistic Methodists.

Methodist preachers were famous for their impassioned sermons, though opponents accused them of "enthusiasm", i.e. fanaticism. During Wesley's lifetime, many members of England's established church feared that new doctrines promulgated by the Methodists, such as the necessity of a new birth for salvation, of justification by faith, and of the constant and sustained action of the Holy Spirit upon the believer's soul, would produce ill effects upon weak minds. Theophilus Evans, an early critic of the movement, even wrote that it was "the natural Tendency of their Behaviour, in Voice and Gesture and horrid Expressions, to make People mad". In one of his prints, William Hogarth likewise attacked Methodists as enthusiasts full of " Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism". Other attacks against the Methodists were physically violent—Wesley was nearly murdered by a mob at Wednesbury in 1743. The Methodists responded vigorously to their critics and thrived despite the attacks against them.

As Wesley and his assistants preached around the country they formed local societies, authorised and organised through Wesley's leadership and conferences of preachers. Wesley insisted that Methodists regularly attend their local parish church as well as Methodist meetings. In 1784, Wesley made provision for the continuance as a corporate body after his death of the 'Yearly Conference of the People called Methodists'. He nominated 100 people and declared them to be its members and laid down the method by which their successors were to be appointed. The Conference has remained the governing body of Methodism ever since.

Separation from the Church of England

As his societies multiplied, and elements of an ecclesiastical system were successively adopted, the breach between Wesley and the Church of England ( Anglicanism) gradually widened. In 1784, Wesley responded to the shortage of priests in the American colonies due to the American Revolutionary War by ordaining preachers for America with power to administer the sacraments. Wesley's actions precipitated the split between American Methodists and the Church of England (which held that only bishops could ordain persons to ministry).

With regard to the position of Methodism within Christendom, "John Wesley once noted that what God had achieved in the development of Methodism was no mere human endeavor but the work of God. As such it would be preserved by God so long as history remained." Calling it "the grand depositum" of the Methodist faith, Wesley specifically taught that the propagation of the doctrine of entire sanctification was the reason that God raised up the Methodists in the world (see ).

British Methodism separated from the Church of England soon after the death of Wesley. There were early contentions over the powers of preachers and the Conference, and the timing of chapel services. At this point in time a majority of Methodist members were not attending Anglican church services. The 1795 Plan of Pacification permitted Methodist chapels to celebrate Holy Communion where both a majority of trustees and a majority of the stewards and leaders allowed it. (These services often used Wesley's abridgement of the ''Book of Common Prayer''.) This permission was later extended to the administration of baptism, burial and timing of services, bringing Methodist chapels into direct competition with the local parish church. Consequently, known Methodists were excluded from the Church of England. Alexander Kilham and his "radicals" denounced the Conference for giving too much power to the ministers of the church at the expense of the laity. In 1797, following the Plan of Pacification, Kilham was expelled from the church. The radicals formed the Methodist New Connexion, while the original body came to be known as the Wesleyan Methodist Church.

1790 to 1910

Early growth

Early Methodists were systematic in collecting statistics on membership. Their growth was rapid, from 58,000 in 1790 to 302,000 in 1830 and 518,000 in 1850. Those were the official members, but the national census of 1851 counted people with an informal connection to Methodism, and the total was 1,463,000. Growth was steady in both rural and urban areas, despite disruption caused by numerous schisms; these resulted in separate denominations (or " connexions") such as the Wesleyan Methodist Church, the first and largest, followed by the New Connexion, the Bible Christian Church and the Primitive Methodist Church. Some of the growth can be attributed to the failure of the established Church of England to provide church facilities. In the later 19th century a programme of church building by the established church, in competition with the Nonconformists, increased the number of church-attending Anglicans. This reduced the opportunities for the Nonconformists in general and the Methodists in particular to keep growing. Membership reached 602,000 in 1870 and peaked at 841,000 in 1910.For the numbers see

Early Methodism was particularly prominent in Devon and Cornwall, which were key centers of activity by the Bible Christian faction. The Bible Christians produced many preachers, and sent many missionaries to Australia. Methodism as a whole grew rapidly in the old mill towns of Yorkshire and Lancashire, where the preachers stressed that the working classes were equal to the upper classes in the eyes of God. In Wales, three elements separately welcomed Methodism: Welsh-speaking, English-speaking, and Calvinistic.

The independent Methodist movement did not appeal to England's landed gentry; they favoured the developing evangelical movement inside the Church of England. However, Methodism became popular among ambitious middle class families.Binfield, Clyde (2006). "Victorian values and industrious connexions: The Wesley Historical Society Lecture 2002." ''Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society'' 55: 141–168. For example, the Osborn family of Sheffield, whose steel company emerged in the mid-19th century in Sheffield's period of rapid industrialisation. Historian Clyde Binfield says their fervent Methodist faith strengthened their commitment to economic independence, spiritual certainty and civic responsibility.

Methodism was especially popular among skilled workers and much less prevalent among labourers. Historians such as Élie Halévy, Eric J. Hobsbawm, E. P. Thompson, and Alan Gilbert have explored the role of Methodism in the early decades of the making of the British working class (1760–1820). On the one hand it provided a model of how to efficiently organise large numbers of people and sustain their connection over a long period of time, and on the other it diverted and discouraged political radicalism. In explaining why Britain did not undergo a social revolution in the period 1790–1832, a time that appeared ripe for violent social upheaval, Halévy argued that Methodism forestalled revolution among the working class by redirecting its energies toward spiritual affairs rather than workplace concerns. Thompson argues that overall it had a politically regressive effect.

Leadership

John Wesley was the longtime president of the Methodist Conference, but after his death it was agreed that in future, so much authority would not be placed in the hands of one man. Instead, the president would be elected for one year, to sit in Wesley's chair. Successive Methodist schisms resulted in multiple presidents, before a united conference assembled in 1932.

Wesley wrote, edited or abridged some 400 publications. As well as theology he wrote about music, marriage, medicine, abolitionism and politics. Wesley himself and the senior leadership were political conservatives. Although many trade union leaders were attracted to Methodism—the Tolpuddle Martyrs being an early example—the church itself did not actively support the unions. Historians Patrick K. O'Brien and Roland Quinault argue:

John Wesley's own Tory sympathies and autocratic instincts had been strong and genuine, and as far as possible he had instilled into his followers deference toward established social and religious authorities. He emphasised political quietism. His mission he saw as strictly spiritual, and his own inherently conservative political instincts and social values reinforced a pragmatic concern to give as little offense as possible to a suspicious wider society. These same motives influenced the ministerial oligarchy...."Methodism" said Jabez Bunting...hates democracy as it hates sin."

Jabez Bunting (1779–1858) was the most prominent leader of the Wesleyan Methodist movement after Wesley's death. He preached successful revivals until 1802, when he saw revivals leading to dissension and division. He then became dedicated to church order and discipline, and vehemently opposed revivalism. He was a popular preacher in numerous cities. He was four times chosen to be president of the Conference and held numerous senior positions as administrator and watched budgets very closely. Bunting and his allies centralised power by making the Conference the final arbiter of Methodism, and giving it the power to reassign preachers and select superintendents. He was zealous in the cause of foreign missions. In English politics he was conservative. He had little tolerance for liberal elements or for Sunday schools and temperance crusades, which led to expulsion of his opponents, whereupon a third of the members broke away in 1849. Numerous alliances with other groups failed and weakened his control.

William Bramwell (1759–1818) was a preacher who engendered controversy due to his intense revivalist preaching style, which spurred awakenings throughout the north of England—including the 1793–97 Yorkshire Revival—and his association with Alexander Kilham (1762–1798). Kilham was a revivalist who led the New Connexion secession from mainstream Wesleyan ministry.

Hugh Price Hughes (1847–1902) was the first superintendent of the West London Methodist Mission, a key Methodist organisation. Recognised as one of the greatest orators of his era, he also founded and edited an influential newspaper, the ''Methodist Times'' in 1885. Hughes played a key role in leading Methodists into the Liberal Party coalition, away from the Conservative leanings of previous Methodist leaders.Kent, J.H.S (1966). 'Hugh Price Hughes and the Nonconformist Conscience'. pp. 181–205. In ''Essays in Modem English Church History''

John Scott Lidgett (1854–1953) achieved prominence both as a theologian and reformer by stressing the importance of the church's engagement with the whole of society and human culture. He promoted the Social Gospel and founded the Bermondsey Settlement to reach the poor of London, as well as the Wesley Guild, a social organisation aimed at young people which reached 150,000 members by 1900.

Women

Early Methodism experienced a radical and spiritual phase that allowed women authority in church leadership. In 1771, Mary Bosanquet (1739–1815) wrote to John Wesley to defend hers and Sarah Crosby's work preaching and leading classes at her orphanage, Cross Hall. Her argument was that women should be able to preach when they experienced an "extraordinary call". Wesley accepted Bosanquet's argument, and formally began to allow women to preach in Methodism in 1771. In general, the role of the woman preacher emerged from the sense that the home should be a place of community care and should foster personal growth. Women gained self-esteem at this time when members were encouraged to testify about the nature of their faith. Methodist women formed a community that cared for the vulnerable, extending the role of mothering beyond physical care. However the centrality of women's role sharply diminished after 1790 as the Methodist movement became more structured and more male dominated.

In the 18th century Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, (1707–91) played a major role in financing and guiding early Methodism. Hastings was the first female principal of a men's college in Wales, Trevecca College, for the education of Methodist ministers. She financed the building of 64 chapels in England and Wales, wrote often to George Whitefield and John Wesley, and funded mission work in colonial America. She is best remembered for her adversarial relationships with other Methodists who objected to a woman having power.

Youth and education

Methodists placed a high priority on close guidance of their youth, as seen in the activities of Sunday schools and the Band of Hope (whose members signed a pledge to "abstain from all intoxicating liquors").

Wesley himself opened schools at The Foundery in London, and Kingswood School. A Wesleyan report in 1832 said that for the church to prosper the system of Sunday schools should be augmented by day-schools with educated teachers. It was proposed in 1843 that 700 new day-schools be established within seven years. Though a steady increase was achieved, that ambitious target could not be reached, in part limited by the number of suitably qualified teachers. Most teachers came from one institution in Glasgow. The Wesleyan Education Report for 1844 called for a permanent Wesleyan teacher-training college. The result was the foundation of Westminster Training College at Horseferry Road, Westminster in 1851.

19th-century England lacked a state school system; the major supplier was the Church of England. The Wesleyan Education Committee, which existed from 1838 to 1902, has documented Methodism's involvement in the education of children. At first most effort was placed in creating Sunday schools. In 1837 there were 3,339 Sunday schools with 59,297 teachers and 341,443 pupils. In 1836 the Wesleyan Methodist Conference gave its blessing to the creation of 'Weekday schools'. In 1902 the Methodists operated 738 schools, so their children would not have to learn from Anglican teachers. The Methodists, along with other Nonconformists, bitterly opposed the Education Act of 1902, which funded Church of England schools and funded Methodists schools too but placed them under local education authorities that were usually controlled by Anglicans. In the 20th century the number of Methodist Church-operated schools declined, as many became state-run schools, with only 28 still operating in 1996.

Colonial missions

Through vigorous missionary work, Methodism spread throughout the British Empire. It was especially successful in the new United States, thanks to the Second Great Awakening of the early 19th century. English emigrants brought Methodism to Canada and Australia. British and American missionaries reached out to India and some other imperial colonies. In general the conversion efforts were only modestly successful, but reports back to Britain did have an influence in shaping how Methodists understood the wider world.

Nonconformist conscience

Historians group Methodists together with other Protestant groups as "Nonconformists" or "Dissenters", standing in opposition to the established Church of England. In the 19th century the Dissenters who went to chapel comprised half the people who actually attended services on Sunday. The "Nonconformist conscience" was their moral sensibility which they tried to implement in British politics. The two categories of Dissenters, or Nonconformists, were in addition to the evangelicals or " Low Church" element in the Church of England. "Old Dissenters", dating from the 16th and 17th centuries, included Baptists, Congregationalists, Quakers, Unitarians, and Presbyterians outside Scotland. "New Dissenters" emerged in the 18th century and were mainly Methodists, especially the Wesleyan Methodists.

The "Nonconformist conscience" of the "Old" group emphasised religious freedom and equality, pursuit of justice, and opposition to discrimination, compulsion and coercion. The "New Dissenters" (and also the Anglican evangelicals) stressed personal morality issues, including sexuality, family values, temperance, and Sabbath-keeping. Both factions were politically active, but until the mid-19th century the Old group supported mostly Whigs and Liberals in politics, while the New generally supported Conservatives. However the Methodists changed and in the 1880s moved into the Liberal Party, drawn in large part by Gladstone's intense moralism. The result was a merging of the Old and New, strengthening their great weight as a political pressure group. They joined on new issues especially supporting temperance and opposing the Education Act 1902, with the former of special interest to Methodists. By 1914 the conscience was weakening and by the 1920s it was virtually dead politically.

Architecture

In the early days of Methodism chapels were sometimes built octagonal, largely to avoid conflict with the established Church of England. The first was in Norwich (1757); it was followed by Rotherham (1761), Whitby (1762), Yarm (1763), Heptonstall (1764) and nine others. John Wesley personally approved the design of the octagonal chapels, stating, "It is better for the voice and on many accounts more commodious than any other." He is also said to have added—"there are no corners for the devil to hide in".

''Methodist Heritage'' records the Yarm chapel as the oldest in England in continual use as a place of Methodist worship. Its design and construction were overseen by Wesley, who preached at the chapel frequently and declared it as his "favourite".

Nevertheless, the Heptonstall chapel has also contested for the title of oldest octagon chapel in continual use. The building featured in the BBC
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