Methodist

Methodism began within the Church of England when Oxford students John and Charles Wesley, along with George Whitefield, formed a disciplined Holy Club in the 1720s dedicated to methodical prayer, Bible study, and charity, earning the mocking nickname Methodists. After a 1738 spiritual experience convinced John Wesley that assurance of salvation came through faith, he began open-air preaching to workers the established church largely ignored, organizing converts into small accountability groups called societies. Methodism remained a renewal movement inside Anglicanism until after Wesley's death, when it formally separated into its own denomination, first in America in 1784.

Key figures: John Wesley, Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, Francis Asbury.

Methodist theology follows John Wesley's synthesis, often summarized as the Wesleyan Quadrilateral: Scripture as primary authority, read in conversation with tradition, reason, and Christian experience. Methodists emphasize God's grace working in stages: prevenient grace that draws every person toward God before they seek it, justifying grace received through faith, and sanctifying grace that continues shaping a believer toward Christian perfection, a lifelong growth in love for God and neighbor rather than instant flawlessness. This Arminian emphasis on free will and grace offered to all, not a predestined few, distinguishes Methodism from Calvinist branches of Protestantism.

Wesley insisted faith must produce visible works: care for the poor, prison visitation, opposition to slavery, and disciplined personal holiness. Methodism has historically paired personal piety with social conscience, giving rise to the social holiness principle, that Christian faith is inherently communal and must address societal wrongs, not only individual sin.

• Wesleyan Quadrilateral: Scripture, tradition, reason, experience
• Arminian theology, grace offered to all, not predestined
• Emphasis on sanctification and 'going on to perfection'
• Strong social holiness and social justice tradition
• Connectional church structure with itinerant clergy
• Small-group accountability rooted in original 'class meetings'

Methodist worship typically blends liturgical structure, a set order of service, lectionary Scripture readings, and the Lord's Supper offered relatively often, with hymn singing (Charles Wesley wrote over 6,000 hymns) and an expository sermon. Services can range from formal and traditional to contemporary depending on the congregation. Holy Communion is open to all who seek it, reflecting Wesley's view of it as a means of grace available even to those still growing in faith.

Methodism uses connectional governance: local churches are grouped into conferences overseen by bishops, in denominations like the United Methodist Church, who appoint pastors to congregations rather than churches calling their own clergy independently. Regional and general conferences, composed of clergy and lay delegates, set denomination-wide doctrine and policy, giving Methodism more central structure than Baptist or non-denominational congregationalism.

Methodism differs from Calvinist Protestant traditions like Presbyterianism by teaching that grace is offered to all people, not a predestined elect, and that believers can fall from grace or grow toward Christian perfection. Unlike Baptist congregational autonomy, Methodist churches operate under bishops and appointed clergy in a connectional system, closer in structure to Anglicanism, its parent tradition. Methodism also practices infant baptism, unlike Baptists, while retaining a strong Protestant emphasis on personal conversion and Scripture, placing it theologically between Anglican sacramentalism and evangelical revivalism.

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Methodism claims roughly 80 million adherents worldwide across bodies like the United Methodist Church, Global Methodist Church, African Methodist Episcopal Church, and British Methodist Church, with especially large and growing communities in Africa and the Philippines.