Methodism

Methodism. A Christian denomination, itself made up of several parts, deriving from the preaching and ministry of John and Charles Wesley, and initially of George Whitefield. The term ‘methodist’ was in origin used derisively by opponents of the Holy Club at Oxford, but Wesley used it from 1729 to mean the methodical pursuit of biblical holiness. The rapid success of Methodism, reaching places and people that the established Church did not, soon set up a tension, since the class system seemed to be setting up a ‘parish’ within a parish, especially when those converted wanted no connection with the parish church. In any case, Wesley was compelled by the shortage of ordained preachers in America (after the war of Independence) to ordain his fellow presbyter, Thomas Coke (1747–1814), as Superintendent over ‘the brethren in America’, who became the Methodist Episcopal Church; the title of Superintendent became that of Bishop in 1787. Many divisions occurred in the 19th cent.: the Methodist Episcopal Church divided in 1844 over the issue of slavery; before that, two black Churches had been established, the African Methodist Episcopal (1816) and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion (1820), which now number over 4 million. Among many groups in Britain, the Wesleyan, Primitive, and United Methodists came together in the Methodist Church of Great Britain and Ireland, in 1932. In the USA, a similar process brought into being the United Methodist Church in 1968. The World Methodist Council was set up in 1951, not only to draw Methodists together, but to seek transconfessional actions and unions. Methodists number about 60 million in 100 countries.