The Canon · No. 076
Methodism
Wesleyanism
1738 CE – present · Abrahamic · Living · UK, US, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Korea, Fiji
VI. REFORMATION & EARLY MODERN — 1500 – 1800
How many
Roughly 60–80 million across the World Methodist Council, including the Holiness churches that descend from it.
Who began it
John Wesley (1703–1791), an Anglican priest, with his brother Charles Wesley the hymn-writer and George Whitefield the preacher. Wesley never left the Church of England and did not intend a new denomination.
What it is for
To spread scriptural holiness across the land — a renewal movement aimed at the working poor whom the established church was not reaching.
What it worships
The Trinity.
What it holds
Arminian rather than Calvinist: Christ died for everyone, grace can be resisted, and salvation is genuinely open to all. Prevenient grace goes before conversion and makes response possible. Assurance — a person can know they are forgiven, which is what Wesley experienced at Aldersgate when his heart was, in his phrase, strangely warmed. Christian perfection or entire sanctification — the possibility of being so filled with love that one no longer wilfully sins, the doctrine from which the entire Holiness and, indirectly, Pentecostal movements grow. Social holiness: Wesley held there is no holiness but social holiness.
What it does
Field preaching to crowds of thousands, which the parish clergy regarded as an outrage. Class meetings — small weekly groups of about a dozen for mutual accountability, the organisational innovation that made Methodism spread. Lay preachers, including women from an early stage. Hymn singing; Charles Wesley wrote around 6,500 hymns. Circuit riders on the American frontier. Historic opposition to alcohol, which shaped the temperance movement.
After death
Standard Christian resurrection and judgment, with the emphasis on assurance now and holiness now rather than on anxiety about the verdict.
Its texts
Bible; Wesley's Standard Sermons and Notes on the New Testament; the Articles of Religion; the Wesley hymnbook, which functioned as the tradition's real catechism.
Its branches
United Methodist Church; British Methodist Church; AME, AME Zion and CME churches; Free Methodist; Wesleyan Church; Nazarene; Salvation Army; Global Methodist Church (2022).
Of note
Methodism is the bridge between the Reformation and modern evangelicalism. The Pentecostal explosion of the twentieth century, now around 600 million people, runs directly out of Wesley's doctrine of a second work of grace.
Its timeline
- 1729 CE The Holy Club at Oxford; the nickname Methodist is an insult that sticks.
- <strong>24 May 1738 CE</strong> Wesley's Aldersgate experience.
- 1739 CE Whitefield persuades Wesley to preach in the open air at Bristol.
- 1744 CE First Methodist Conference.
- 1760s–70s CE Split with Whitefield's Calvinistic Methodism, which becomes the Presbyterian Church of Wales.
- 1784 CE Wesley ordains ministers for America; the Methodist Episcopal Church forms at the Christmas Conference.
- <strong>1787, 1816 CE</strong> Richard Allen and others walk out of a segregated Philadelphia church; the African Methodist Episcopal Church is founded, the first independent Black denomination in America.
- 1791 CE Wesley's last letter, days before his death, urges Wilberforce on against slavery.
- 1844 CE American Methodists split north and south over slavery; reunited 1939.
- 1867–1900s CE The Holiness movement; the Church of the Nazarene, the Salvation Army (William Booth, a Methodist), and then Pentecostalism all emerge from Wesleyan sanctification teaching.
- 1968 CE The United Methodist Church formed.
- 2019–2024 CE The UMC splits over sexuality; around a quarter of US congregations disaffiliate, and the 2024 conference removes the restrictive language.
Sources
Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.