Religion Universe: METHODISM (METHODIST) Protestant

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METHODISM (METHODIST)

“Methodist” originated as a pejorative designation by critics of the members of the Holy Club in Oxford, but John Wesley (1703‑91), its Anglican leader from 1729 and himself converted to serious Christian living in 1725, used it to mean a methodical pursuit of biblical holiness.*

Methodism, one of Protestantism's most influential evangelistic renewal movements, has become a worldwide communion. The current (2000) edition of the World Methodist Council Handbook states that worldwide Methodist membership now numbers about 38 million persons, whilst the Methodist world community, comprising both members and all those who come within the sphere of influence of the Methodist churches, now stands at over 75 million. Although the national churches have their own statements on doctrinal standards and church order, Methodism possesses a real unity* derived from the spiritual heritage which its principal founder, John Wesley, by his missionary preaching, and his brother Charles (1707‑88), by his colossal output of hymns and religious poetry, bequeathed to it.

John Wesley's missionary experience in the English colony of Georgia (1736‑37) was in many ways a failure, but it did provide him with the setting for shaping his concept of the small class under an appointed leader as the basic grouping for Bible‑centred Christian nurture, vital to the harmonious growth of the Methodist movement. With an increase of dependable collaborators, Wesley later constituted the itinerant pastorate in correlation with local Methodist societies, each composed of several classes. The itinerant pastorate bound these societies together in a form of living communion which avoided both the danger of fragmentation inherent in congregational church polity and the tendency towards static centralization in the Presbyterian churches (see church order ).

Returning to England from Georgia, Wesley experienced a second conversion on 24 May 1738. He received the grace to foresake reliance on his own efforts to attain perfection and to surrender himself totally, in loving trust, to the work of God's grace within him. Wesley thus became the instrument of divine power, which alone accounts for the stupendous missionary and pastoral achievement of his remaining 50 years as undisputed head of Methodism.