Thesis (D. Min.)--Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, 1985. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [165-168]).

This thesis examines the ministry of John Fletcher (1729-85), vicar of Madeley, Shropshire (vic. 1760-85) as a case study on the Church of England and Methodism in the eighteenth century. Studies of Fletcher have tended to focus either on his contribution to Methodist theology or on his designation as Wesley's successor as the leader of the Methodists. The parish of Madeley has been, for the most part, peripheral to Fletcher studies. The present thesis, however, has aimed to examine Fletcher in his parochial context; to study both what the parish tells us about Fletcher, but also what Fletcher tells us about the parish, and more specifically, about the church in the eighteenth century in a local context. The main argument of this thesis is that Fletcher's ministry at Madeley was representative of a variation of a pro-Anglican Methodism--localized, centred upon the parish church, and rooted in the Doctrines and Liturgy of the Church of England. Three recent publications have provided a triad for understanding Fletcher: (1) in his industrial context; (2) in his theological context; and (3), in his relationship with leaders in the Evangelical Revival. This thesis has sought to examine a fourth component: Fletcher's work as an ordained clergyman of the Church of England, that is, in his ecclesial and ministerial context. The main body of the thesis focuses on two primary aspects of Fletcher's parish ministry: his stated duties and his diligence in carrying out other responsibilities and meeting other needs which arose, including addressing the various tensions which developed during his incumbency. Fletcher's background and his call to parochial ministry as well as the religious history of Madeley are outlined first (Chapter 1). There are three chapters which examine his performance of stated duties: worship services and preaching (Chapter 2); pastoral care andeducation (Chapter 5); and confrontation of erroneous doctrine (Chapter 6). Fletcher's ministry also included a scheme of church extension, represented primarily by his development of religious societies on which other aspects of his parochial duty built (Chapter 3). His evangelicalism and commitment to his parish simultaneously raised tensions between Fletcher and his parishioners (provoked by his 'enthusiasm' or zeal), and between Fletcher and John Wesley, whose variations of Methodism had similar aims, but different models of practice. A chapter is devoted specifically to these issues (Chapter 4).Fletcher's chapel meetings formed an auxiliary arm of the church, operating as outposts throughout his parish. His parishioners considered his ministerial model a 'Methodist' one even though it was not technically part of Wesley's Connexion (other than the fact that his itinerants were guests in the parish). In all, it is the conclusion of this thesis that Fletcher's pastoral ministry represents some of the best work of Anglicanism in the eighteenth century, demonstrating that despite the manifest challenges of industrializing society, residual dissent, and competition from the church's rivals, the Establishment was not incapable of competing in the religious marketplace.

William Watters was American Methodism's first itinerant preacher born in America. Although raised in an Anglican home, Watters was converted under the preaching and influence of Methodist preachers and soon became a class leader. At the invitation of Robert Williams, one of John Wesley's earliest workers in America, Watters embarked on his first itinerant preaching journey to the southeastern region of Virginia in October 1772. Watters quickly rose to prominence in the budding Methodist movement as a preacher and leader and was appointed to his first circuit at the 1773 Conference. As the Revolutionary War against Britain grew more intense Wesley's missionaries left the country or went into hiding. As a result Watters became a significant leader of Methodism, which included becoming the first American Methodist to chair a Methodist Conference in 1778. In the late 1770's the growing problem of limited access to the ordinances of baptism and communion came to a head with Methodists in Virginia and North Carolina ordaining themselves so that they could administer the ordinances. This created a split in American Methodism since preachers north of Virginia disagreed with these actions. In 1779 and 1780 the split was even more evident, with two separate annual conferences meeting. William Watters was the only preacher determined not to allow American Methodism to suffer irreparable damage from the schism. His proactive peacemaking efforts resulted in the reunification of the movement that met in a united Conference in 1781. Watters gave America Methodism fifty years of distinguished service as an itinerant preacher, a local pastor, trustee and benefactor. Health took William Watters off the punishing circuits but it could never keep him from serving the Lord through American Methodism. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / D.Th.(Church History)

Thesis / There is potential for a schism, within the Methodist Church of Southern Africa (MCSA) today, between Fundamentalist and Liberationist Methodists, who struggle to find common identity and vision. A question that needs examination is whether it is possible to develop an authentically, uniting Southern African Methodist Theology within the current Institutional structure of the MCSA. For this to become possible, some key areas of discussion are highlighted in this paper, such as the training of ministers and the MCSA as Institution. This paper attempts to enter into conversation between Fundamental and Liberation Methodism using the Doctrine of Christian Perfection, 'the Grand Depositum' of Methodism, as a point of reference and develop an epistemological framework based on Wesley’s 'quadrilateral' of Scripture, reason, experience and tradition. This paper takes as a standpoint the need for an authentically Southern African Methodist theology, which is both uniting and transformatory, in order for the MCSA to fulfil its vision of “A Christ Healed Africa for the Healing of Nations.” / Systematic theology and Theological Ethics / D. Th. (Systematic Testament)

Recent historians who have written about the development of Methodist religious identity in Upper Canada have based their narratives primarily on readings of documents concerned with ecclesiastical polity and colonial politics. This study attempts to complicate these narratives by examining the way religious identity in the province was affected by the cultural production and distribution of books as denominational status objects in a wider North American market before the middle of the nineteenth century. The first chapter examines the rhetorical strategies the Methodist Book Concern developed to protect its domestic market in the United States from the products of competitors by equating patronage with denominational identity. The remaining chapters unfold the influence a protracted consumption of such cultural commodities had on the religious identity of Methodists living in Upper Canada. For more than a decade after the War of 1812, the Methodist Book Concern relied on a corps of Methodist preachers to distribute its commodities north of the border. This denominational infrastructure conferred the accidental but strategic advantage of concealing the extent of the Concern’s market and its rhetoric from the colony’s increasingly anti-American elite. The Concern’s access to its Upper Canadian market became compromised, however, when Egerton Ryerson initiated a debate over religious equality in the province’s emergent public sphere in the mid-1820s. This inadvertently drew attention to Methodist textual practices in the province that led to later efforts on the part of Upper Canadians to sever the Concern’s access to its market north of the border. When these attempts failed, Canadian Methodists found ways to decouple the material and cultural dimensions of the Concern’s products in order to continue patronizing the Concern without compromising recent gains achieved by strategically refashioning themselves as loyal Wesleyans within the colony’s conservative political environment. The result was the emergence of a stable and enduring transnational market for Methodist printed commodities that both blunted the cultural influence of British Wesleyans and prepared the ground for a later secularization of Methodist publishing into and beyond the middle decades of the nineteenth century.

Recent historians who have written about the development of Methodist religious identity in Upper Canada have based their narratives primarily on readings of documents concerned with ecclesiastical polity and colonial politics. This study attempts to complicate these narratives by examining the way religious identity in the province was affected by the cultural production and distribution of books as denominational status objects in a wider North American market before the middle of the nineteenth century. The first chapter examines the rhetorical strategies the Methodist Book Concern developed to protect its domestic market in the United States from the products of competitors by equating patronage with denominational identity. The remaining chapters unfold the influence a protracted consumption of such cultural commodities had on the religious identity of Methodists living in Upper Canada. For more than a decade after the War of 1812, the Methodist Book Concern relied on a corps of Methodist preachers to distribute its commodities north of the border. This denominational infrastructure conferred the accidental but strategic advantage of concealing the extent of the Concern’s market and its rhetoric from the colony’s increasingly anti-American elite. The Concern’s access to its Upper Canadian market became compromised, however, when Egerton Ryerson initiated a debate over religious equality in the province’s emergent public sphere in the mid-1820s. This inadvertently drew attention to Methodist textual practices in the province that led to later efforts on the part of Upper Canadians to sever the Concern’s access to its market north of the border. When these attempts failed, Canadian Methodists found ways to decouple the material and cultural dimensions of the Concern’s products in order to continue patronizing the Concern without compromising recent gains achieved by strategically refashioning themselves as loyal Wesleyans within the colony’s conservative political environment. The result was the emergence of a stable and enduring transnational market for Methodist printed commodities that both blunted the cultural influence of British Wesleyans and prepared the ground for a later secularization of Methodist publishing into and beyond the middle decades of the nineteenth century.

William Watters was American Methodism's first itinerant preacher born in America. Although raised in an Anglican home, Watters was converted under the preaching and influence of Methodist preachers and soon became a class leader. At the invitation of Robert Williams, one of John Wesley's earliest workers in America, Watters embarked on his first itinerant preaching journey to the southeastern region of Virginia in October 1772. Watters quickly rose to prominence in the budding Methodist movement as a preacher and leader and was appointed to his first circuit at the 1773 Conference. As the Revolutionary War against Britain grew more intense Wesley's missionaries left the country or went into hiding. As a result Watters became a significant leader of Methodism, which included becoming the first American Methodist to chair a Methodist Conference in 1778. In the late 1770's the growing problem of limited access to the ordinances of baptism and communion came to a head with Methodists in Virginia and North Carolina ordaining themselves so that they could administer the ordinances. This created a split in American Methodism since preachers north of Virginia disagreed with these actions. In 1779 and 1780 the split was even more evident, with two separate annual conferences meeting. William Watters was the only preacher determined not to allow American Methodism to suffer irreparable damage from the schism. His proactive peacemaking efforts resulted in the reunification of the movement that met in a united Conference in 1781. Watters gave America Methodism fifty years of distinguished service as an itinerant preacher, a local pastor, trustee and benefactor. Health took William Watters off the punishing circuits but it could never keep him from serving the Lord through American Methodism. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / D.Th.(Church History)

Thesis / There is potential for a schism, within the Methodist Church of Southern Africa (MCSA) today, between Fundamentalist and Liberationist Methodists, who struggle to find common identity and vision. A question that needs examination is whether it is possible to develop an authentically, uniting Southern African Methodist Theology within the current Institutional structure of the MCSA. For this to become possible, some key areas of discussion are highlighted in this paper, such as the training of ministers and the MCSA as Institution. This paper attempts to enter into conversation between Fundamental and Liberation Methodism using the Doctrine of Christian Perfection, 'the Grand Depositum' of Methodism, as a point of reference and develop an epistemological framework based on Wesley’s 'quadrilateral' of Scripture, reason, experience and tradition. This paper takes as a standpoint the need for an authentically Southern African Methodist theology, which is both uniting and transformatory, in order for the MCSA to fulfil its vision of “A Christ Healed Africa for the Healing of Nations.” / Systematic theology and Theological Ethics / D. Th. (Systematic Testament)

There is without doubt as much criticism of Liberation Theology as there is understanding regarding the need for a theology which seeks answers to the effectiveness of the Christian witness, against a background of mounting poverty, the oppression of woman and continued discrimination by one race against another, worldwide. Many scholars struggle with the revolutionary and often hostile nature and methodology of Liberation Theology. This paper attempts to enter into a conversation between the theology of John Wesley and Liberation Theology. The theology of John Wesley had a tremendous impact on social, political and economic areas of the Eighteenth century England. It was in many ways a revolutionary theology. This paper takes as a standpoint, the need for praxis with regard to Christian witness and therefore seeks to argue that there may be common ground between Wesleyan Theology and Liberation Theology. / Systematic Theology and Theological Ethics / M.Th. (Systematic Teology)

This study addresses eighteenth-century English-speaking evangelicals' understandings of church history, through the lens of published attempts to represent preceding Christian centuries panoramically or comprehensively. Sources entail several short reflections on history emerging in the early years of the transatlantic Revival (1730s-1740s) and subsequent, more substantial efforts by evangelical leaders John Gillies, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, Joseph and Isaac Milner, and Thomas Haweis. Little scholarly analysis exists on these sources, aside from the renaissance of interest in recent decades in Edwards. This is surprising, considering the acknowledged prominence of history-writing in the eighteenth century and the influence attributed, then and now, to the works of authors such as Gibbon, Hume, and Robertson. The aim is, first, to elucidate each of the above evangelicals' interpretations of the Christian past, both in overview and according to what they said on a roster of particular historical events, people and movements, and then to consider shared and divergent aspects. These aspects range from points of detail to paradigmatic theological convictions. Secondarily, evangelical church histories are analyzed in relation to earlier Protestant as well as eighteenth-century 'enlightened' historiography, in part through attention to evangelical authors' explicit engagement with these currents. This contextualization assists in determining the unique qualities of evangelical interpretations. Is there, then, evidence of a characteristically 'evangelical' perspective on church history? An examination of this neglected area illumines patterns and particulars of evangelicals' historical thought, and these in turn communicate the self-perceptions and the defining features of evangelicalism itself. Findings support the primary contention that evangelical leaders made use of a dynamic pattern of revival and declension as a means of accounting for the full history of Christianity. Beyond displaying the central place of 'revival' for evangelicals, these church histories demonstrate evangelicalism‘s complex relationship—involving both receptivity and critique—with Protestant and Enlightenment currents of historical inquiry.