The purpose of this study is to determine to what extent the teacher’ manual, The Methodist Teacher V-VI, Fall, Winter, and Spring 1964-65, published by the Graded Press, Nashville, Tennessee, succeeds in providing insights for church school teachers in understanding the developmental patterns of the late elementary years in order to encourage and guide the child intelligently in his Christian growth.

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)

This thesis examines the controversy surrounding the doctrine of atonement among transatlantic Methodist during the Victorian and Progressive Eras. Beginning in the eighteenth century, it establishes the dominant theories of the atonement present among English and American Methodists and the cultural-philosophical worldview Methodists used to support these theories. It then explores the extent to which ordinary and influential Methodists throughout the nineteenth century carried forward traditional opinions on the doctrine before examining in closer detail the controversies surrounding the doctrine at the opening of the twentieth century. It finds that from the 1750s to the 1830s transatlantic Methodists supported a range of substitutionary views of the atonement, from the satisfaction and Christus Victor theories to a vicarious atonement with penal emphases. Beginning in the 1830s and continuing through the 1870s, transatlantic Methodists embraced features of the moral government theory, with varying degrees, while retaining an emphasis on traditional substitutionary theories. Methodists during this period were indebted to an Enlightenment worldview. Between 1880 and 1914 transatlantic Methodists gradually accepted a Romantic philosophical outlook with the result that they began altering their conceptions of the atonement. Methodists during this period tended to move in three directions. Progressive Methodists jettisoned prevailing views of the atonement preferring to embrace the moral influence theory. Mediating Methodists challenged traditionally constructed theories for similar reasons but tended to support a theory in which God was viewed as a friendlier deity while retaining substitutionary conceptions of the atonement. Conservatives took a custodial approach whereby traditional conceptions of the atonement were vehemently defended. Furthermore, that transatlantic Methodists were involved in significant discussions surrounding the revision of their theology of atonement in light of modernism in the years surrounding 1900 contributed to their remaining on the periphery of the Fundamentalist-Modernist in subsequent decades.

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)