Wesley and Methodist Studies (WMS) publishes peer-reviewed essays that examine the life and work of John and Charles Wesley, their contemporaries (proponents or opponents) in the eighteenth-century Evangelical Revival, their historical and theological antecedents, their successors in the Wesleyan tradition, and studies of the Wesleyan and Evangelical traditions today. Its primary historical scope is the eighteenth century to the present; however, WMS will publish essays that explore the historical and theological antecedents of the Wesleys (including work on Samuel and Susanna Wesley), Methodism, and the Evangelical Revival. WMS has a dual and broad focus on both history and theology. Its aim is to present significant scholarly contributions that shed light on historical and theological understandings of Methodism broadly conceived. Essays within the thematic scope of WMS from the disciplinary perspectives of literature, philosophy, education and cognate disciplines are welcome. WMS is a collaborative project of the Manchester Wesley Research Centre and The Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History, Oxford Brookes University.

With the decision to provide of a scholarly edition of the Works of John Wesley in the 1950s, Methodist Studies emerged as a fresh academic venture. Building on the foundation laid by Frank Baker, Albert Outler, and other pioneers of the discipline, this handbook provides an overview of the best current scholarship in the field. The forty-two included essays are representative of the voices of a new generation of international scholars, summarising and expanding on topical research, and considering where their work may lead Methodist Studies in the future. Thematically ordered, the handbook provides new insights into the founders, history, structures, and theology of Methodism, and into ongoing developments in the practice and experience of the contemporary movement. Key themes explored include worship forms, mission, ecumenism, and engagement with contemporary ethical and political debate.

This book highlights the life and writings of an itinerant preacher in John Wesley’s Methodist Connexion, Thomas Wride (1733-1807). Detailed studies of such rank and file preachers are rare, as Methodist history has largely been written by and about its leadership. However, Wride’s ministry shows us that the development of this worldwide movement was more complicated and uncertain than many accounts suggest. Wride’s attitude was distinctive. He was no respecter of persons, freely criticising almost everyone he came across, and in doing so exposing debates and tensions within both Methodism and wider society. However, being so combative also led him into conflict with the very movement he sought to promote. Wride is an authentic, self-educated, and non-élite voice that illuminates important features of Eighteenth-Century life well beyond his religious activities. He sheds light on his contemporaries’ attitudes to issues such as the role of women, attitudes towards and the practice of medicine, and the experience and interpretation of dreams and supernatural occurrences. This is a detailed insight into the everyday reality of being an Eighteenth-Century Methodist minister. As such, this text will be of interest to academics working in Methodist Studies and Religious History, as well as Eighteenth-Century History more generally.

Revivalism was one of the main causes of division in nineteenth century British Methodism, but the role of revivalist theology in these splits has received scant scholarly attention. In this book, James E. Pedlar demonstrates how the revivalist variant of Methodist spirituality and theology empowered its adherents and helped foster new movements, even as it undermined the Spirit’s work through the structures of the church. Beginning with an examination of unresolved issues in John Wesley’s ecclesiology, Pedlar identifies a trend of increasing marginalization of the church among revivalists, via an examination of three key figures: Hugh Bourne (1772-1852), James Caughey (1810-1891), and William Booth (1860-1932). He concludes by examining the more catholic and irenic theology of Samuel Chadwick (1860-1932), the leading Methodist revivalist of the early twentieth century who became a strong advocate of Methodist Union. Pedlar shows that these theological differences must be considered, alongside social and political factors, in any well-rounded assessment of the division and eventual reunification of British Methodism.

Details the progression of Methodist's views toward poverty-stricken individuals between 1729 and 1999.

Explores the emergence of African Methodism within the black Atlantic and how it struggled to sustain its liberationist identity.

"In this book, a Methodist minister examines the sources of John Wesley's ideas about marriage and shows how those beliefs found expression in the cleric's revision of the Anglican wedding service." "Author Bufford W. Coe describes the radical differences between a typical eighteenth-century wedding and a church wedding of today. He also tells the fascinating story of Wesley's romances with Sophia Hopkey and Grace Murray, based on his own private diaries, and shows how those relationships, as well as his miserably unhappy marriage, were affected by Wesley's beliefs about matrimony." "Four days after Wesley decided he would marry at the age of forty-seven, he spoke to a group of unmarried men and encouraged them to remain single. In the matrimonial service he devised for American Methodists, Wesley eliminated the custom of the bride being given in marriage by her father, although Wesley consistently taught that Christians should not marry without the consent of their parents. Wesley strongly condemned the Roman Catholic Church for requiring celibacy of its priests, but his own rules required that Methodist preachers who married during their initial probationary period were thereby disqualified." "In 1784, Wesley published The Sunday Service of the Methodists in North America with Other Occasional Services. Coe studies the components of Wesley's marriage liturgy from the Sunday Service to try to determine why Wesley revised the Anglican wedding service in the way that he did."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

John Wesley (1703–1791), leader of British Methodism, was one of the most prolific literary figures of the eighteenth century, responsible for creating and disseminating a massive corpus of religious literature and for instigating a sophisticated programme of reading, writing and publishing within his Methodist Societies. John Wesley, Practical Divinity and the Defence of Literature takes the influential genre of practical divinity as a framework for understanding Wesley’s role as an author, editor and critic of popular religious writing. It asks why he advocated the literary arts as a valid aspect of his evangelical theology, and how his Christian poetics impacted upon the religious experience of his followers.

Although the doctrine of the Holy Spirit has often been a neglected subject in theology, it remains vital for understanding both the Christian confession of God as Trinity and the nature of the Christian life. In view of those two topics, God's Love through the Spirit examines the relationship between love and the person and work of the Holy Spirit in Thomas Aquinas and John Wesley - two very different figures whose teachings on the Spirit and the Christian life are found to be, on the whole, surprisingly compatible. An investigation into Aquinas's amor-based pneumatology, including a groundbreaking analysis of his recently discovered Pentecost sermon, and a fresh assessment of the doctrine of sanctification in Wesley show that in distinctive yet largely complementary ways, Aquinas and Wesley provide resources that can be used to reclaim a richer pneumatology, specifically in relation to the theological virtue of love.

Hymnody is widely recognised as a central tenet of Methodism’s theological, doctrinal, spiritual, and liturgical identity. Theologically and doctrinally, the content of the hymns has traditionally been a primary vehicle for expressing Methodism’s emphasis on salvation for all, social holiness, and personal commitment, while particular hymns and the communal act of participating in hymn singing have been key elements in the spiritual lives of Methodists. An important contribution to the history of Methodism, British Methodist Hymnody argues that the significance of hymnody in British Methodism is best understood as a combination of its official status, spiritual expression, popular appeal, and practical application. Seeking to consider what, when, how, and why Methodists sing, British Methodist Hymnody examines the history, perception, and practice of hymnody from Methodism’s small-scale eighteenth-century origins to its place as a worldwide denomination today.