Asbury, Francis (1745-1816)

American Eras

Francis Asbury (1745-1816)

Sources

Methodist circuit rider and bishop

Frontier Clergyman . Over the course of his long career as a Methodist minister and bishop, Francis Asbury traveled over 300, 000 miles on horseback, crossed the Appalachian Mountains more than sixty times, preached 16, 500 sermons, and ordained 4, 000 other Methodist preachers. Asbury’s heroic labors were only an extreme case of the incessant traveling of itinerant ministers all over the American backcountry. These men together made Methodism the fastest-growing Protestant denomination in early national America.

From England to America . Asbury was born in England in 1745 and apprenticed to be a blacksmith. After he experienced a conversion, Asbury became a Methodist lay minister instead. He immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1771 as a missionary and was the only Methodist missionary to remain in the United States during the Revolutionary War. Methodism was suspect during this period because of the views of John Wesley, its English founder, who opposed American independence. Asbury struggled to maintain contact among the scattered American Methodists during these years and was rewarded as the war ended, leaving him the leader of a movement poised for intense growth. The English Method ist leaders appointed Asbury a joint superintendent of American Methodism, together with Thomas Coke, whom they sent to America to ordain him. Asbury shrewdly seized the initiative, however, calling the “Christmas Conference,” a gathering of leading American Methodists, in Baltimore on 24 December 1784, to discuss the matter. The conference formed the Methodist Episcopal Church as a separate American denomination. The delegates then chose Asbury as their first bishop.

Shaping American Methodism . As bishop Asbury devoted himself to the growth of the denomination, especially on the frontier. He encouraged the practice of “circuit riding,” urging the Methodist clergy to travel from place to place, seeking converts everywhere rather than remain settled in one church. And he endorsed the camp-meeting style of revivals as another tool for bringing people to Christianity. During his tenure Methodism became the largest and fastest-growing denomination in the United States as thousands were drawn by its optimistic message and populist feel. Despite his leadership duties, Asbury never gave up traveling and preaching himself, and he died doing missionary work in Spotsylvania, Virginia, on 31 March 1816.

Sources

Russell E. Richey, Early American Methodism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991);

L. C. Rudolph, Francis Asbury (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1966).

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