The Wesleys did everything right, including producing the evangelical renewal in the stodgy Church of England. Had it not been for the elitist, rigid, narrow, exclusivist Anglican bishops, the entire Wesleyan movement could have remained a part of the CoE. That it did not is to the loss of the CoE.
I wonder if this idea comes from anything other than Anglo-Catholic propaganda since the 1850s and Wesleyan insistence since the 1790s. It all seems so unfair to the established church. Going from the vast numbers of beautiful anti-atheist, anti-deist, and genuinely Christian tracts of the 1720s, it all seems like a big lie to justify schism, to me.
Did they alter an Anglican theology that was apostolic and in full conformity with Scripture and the Fathers? Did they deny and violate the Bishops of the Church? Did they create an "easy believist" pietism that is a shame and embarrassment for today's Christianity? Ok great so let's pinpoint this then? Since they thankfully departed and left, are you saying that Anglicanism in its natural state is elitist, rigid, narrow, and excusivist?
John and Charles Wesley never left the CoE. The Methodist preachers and societies had no choice due to the intransigence of the CoE bishops. That being the case , there was no schism involved.
So, you believe that John Newton was not a true Anglican? I feel sorry for you if you believe this. Some here remind me of the first century Pharisees, beating on your chests and shouting,"Look how holy we are and how closely we adhere to the teachings of our fathers and their traditions" while looking down your long noses with contempt at others -- other good Anglicans, by the way. The Wesleyan revival renewed the CoE, and it was in great need of renewal at the time.
Phariseeism is not about holiness, tradition, or separation, but rather about self-righteousness & self-justification before God. That's what I've always thought anyway. From what I've observed of Stalwart, he seems to believe justification before God by faith, and the unrighteousness of sinful man, including himself. These seem to make him decidedly not-pharisaic. Surely, asserting your convictions about the absolute truth is not self-righteous or snobbish? Anyway, how did the Wesleyan schism renew the C of E? All the radical methodists just left in 1790. That's separation, not revival. Theologically, they advocated a cheap faith, whereby everyone who "kneels humbly at the Cross" (in Stott's words) immediately receives the Holy Ghost, and all those benefits that actually come via the sacraments & Confirmation. There's something populist & simplistic in this.
I can't speak fro the Methodist Church in England but the UMC here in the US, to it's credit, still doesn't allow ordaining of homosexuals or gay marriage. Then again the UMC is quickly becoming more Southern Hemisphere based than US. I feel that Wesley is often caricaturized and it's a case of what folks think he said versus what he actualkly said -- grant it modern day Methodism in the US anyways is apel shade of what Wesley actually taught.
Yes , and the increasing representation of African and Latin Methodists in General Conference, along with the Southeastern USA Methodists, are all that is keeping the UMC from going the way of TEC and PCUSA, to the anguish and consternation of the sodomite lobby within the UMC.
Consular, Weselyan revivalism is not the same thing as Methodist schism. As far as the US goes, and I've brought this up before, Wesley felt compelled to help the colonists set up a church in the absense of the Church of England which totally abandoned them. Even the Episcopal church couldn't get help from all those charitable C of E bishops who were so concerned for the salvation of souls that they denied the episcopacy (and thus valid sacraments, the means of grace, or the fullness of ecclesia as it had been recieved) to former British brothers and sisters solely on the basis of national politics, and if not for the non-jurors in Scotland there'd be no TEC today. Wesley heard the cries of methodist Anglicans in the US and, as a true evangelist, did what he could to give them, as best he could, what every christian needs and what every minister of the gospel is duty bound to provide: a church. That he had to do so in spite of the Anglican bishops, rather than with their support and solidarity, is much more damning of the bishops than of Wesley. Historical facts can have a way of making us uncomfortable about the sacred cows we've created for ourselves, but that's no reason to ignore them or try to whitewash over them. Wesley used an abbreviated form of the same 39 articles that we use today (it should be noted that the Episcopal Church's Articles are also abbreviated), he gave them a very similar prayerbook (it should be noted that the american prayerbook differed markedly from the 1662 BCP), he used an episcopalian form of government (not in succession, but what you gonna do when christian brishops are more concerned with pleasing the king than pleasing God)...And he remained a faithful Anglican clergyman till he died. The powerful witness of John and Charles Wesley has been as much a benefit to Anglicanism as it has been to any of the other churches that grew out of the Wesleyan tradition. For Wesley, evangelism and ecumenism go hand in hand with the bible and biblical living: "I am a member of the Church of England; but I love good men of every Church. My ground is the Bible. Yea, I am a Bible bigot. I follow it in all things, both great and small." Again, I'm biased. I attended Christ Church Savannah for a time, where both John Wesley and George Whitefield were rectors. If these Methodist interlopers were so subversive, why is Christ Church still one of the oldest Anglican churches in the US, oh that was until Bishop Louttit happend to them. This whole mess about easy believesim is hilarious to me. To Wesley, faith meant nothing if it was not actually practiced. He held high standards of holiness for his societies and was even mocked for it...hence the name methodist. He excommunicated those who would not adhere to biblical lifestyles. I've found it much "easier" to live as a faithful Anglican than I did as a faithful Methodist. In his Words: "Do all the good you can, By all the means you can, In all the ways you can, In all the places you can, At all the times you can To all the people you can As long as ever you can!"
They altered the 39 Articles, without consulting the Bishops, without it passing in the Synod or Convocation. They taught a completely foreign and alien doctrine of regeneration. They rejected the injunctions of the Bishops to cease their heretical practices, and when the Bishops told them so, they ignored and disregarded it. John Newton was not a methodist. So did those bishops who refused Methodism, and the Anglicanism that followed after them, remain elitist, pigheaded, and all those other things you like to label people with? Not sure what you mean LL? "In 1787, two priests – William White of Pennsylvania and Samuel Provoost of New York – were consecrated as bishops by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York, and the Bishop of Bath and Wells, the legal obstacles having been removed by the passage through Parliament of the Consecration of Bishops Abroad Act 1786." It's not Wesley who was himself an "easy believist", but that he founded easy believism. Just look at the history of 19th century Christianity and you will find Wesleyan churches sprouting like mushrooms on the body where proper, liturgical, and apostolic preaching had been done beforehand. Subsequently, Wesleyans founded pentecostalism. That whole movement where you raise your hands in the air, and preach in guttural 'tongues' -- that is a direct historical result from Methodism and the Holiness Movement.
Any biography on Wesley will lay out exactly what I'm talking about. Holiness churches came out of the Wesleyan tradition. Penatacostalism, while sharing some similarities to holiness, began in earnest with the Azuza Street experience which involved several strands of Christians. If your going to blame Wesley for Pentacostal Preachers, then blame Cranmer for Schori, Robinson, and Borg. As for Seabury, he was consecrated in on November 14, 1784 in Aberdeen by nonjuring bishops of theScottish Episcopal Church, specifically the Right Reverend Robert Kilgour, the Right Reverend Arthur Petrie, and the Right Reverend John Skinner after his requests were rebuffed by the C of E since he would not swear allegience to the king. The fact that you would leave that out shows me just how dedicated you are to the truth Stalwart
Methodists, by and large are good and devout people, much more so than the typical Episcopalian I worship with. I should know as I come from a family full of them. I am Anglican but I cannot imagine that the good rector of my home church would have been so hungry for souls that he would travel out to the hog farms and cotton fields of south Georgia and talk day in and day out to men and women of no account about the message of God's love revealed through Jesus Christ and plead with them to come to church. A methodist minister did though, and because of it my Grandparents were baptized and joined the Methodist Church, they raised their children in that Church, and because of it, I grew up in a Christian home. A field preacher that's willing to share the gospel is a far better minister of the Gospel than any pedigreed Archbishop that sits cloistered in his temple never venturing out to talk to "those kind of people". That's why the Methodist church has exploded.
Was that necessary? My Rector and people around him are much better than any Methodist I've ever seen (and I attended several UMC churches when I explored Christianity). But why do you impose your experience upon us? Do you want me to tell you of heroic Anglican rectors I know personally, ministering without compromise to a church of 3-4 people, with liberal churches (TEC, methodist, PCUSA) all around them? Do you want me to tell you of a rector who ministers in the wilderness of northern Canada, deprived of a church ad ministering the Service at the homes of his parishioners, without compromise, without giving up or giving in? Did you ask me about those rectors? No, you sat on your own experience, quite sure that it described the gamut of life in the world. But why has it collapsed? You do realize that the Methodists, once were the largest Protestant denomination in the world, are now non-descript? What happened? My response would be that the Methodists focused on emotions, rather than a rational, liturgical appeal. In this sense they were exactly like the charismatics that you claim they were nothing like. You can even go back to all of the original Methodist founders -- Wesley, Whitfield, even an outsider like Jonathan Edwards -- all of these rested on massive emotional appeals. Whitfield was even once asked, why he preached his sermon to the coal miners in the way that he did (long, complex etc). He replied that he didn't care about them remember his sermon. He just wanted them to have an emotional experience of God during the preaching. And now most evangelicals try to replicate this 'experience' so the Methodists have outlived their usefulness.
About as necessary as this: Do you really want to talk numbers? Methinks you need to sweep your own front porch before you start pointing out someone else's. The Anglican/Episcopal church was the church of the empire, has had state church status, and 300 yr head start and all that means what exactly? Take a look at this: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/site...oads/domestic_fast_facts_trends_2007-2011.pdf or how about this: http://www.churchsociety.org/issues_new/church/stats/iss_church_stats_attendance.asp In the US the UMC has a membership of almost 8million whereas the TEC is barely hanging on to 1million. Ok, next time I'm back home, I'll leave my TEC parish of about 50 people (of whom we're lucky if 15-20 show up) and go down the road to my family's Methodist church, where between 600-800 people show up every sunday and pass on this news. I'll bet they'll be as surprised as I am.
Wesley's students started setting up splinter movements shortly after his death resulting in the Nazarene churches. All of the Wesleyan 'revivals' were characterized by emotionalism and frenzy. How can you possibly disclaim the connection between Wesley and the charismatics? Ok and the men I linked to were ordained in 1787. Additionally, William White was the first Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, not Seabury. So what is your point? Why did you attack me? Men ordained by CoE were the ones who are the dominant line of succession in the TEC, and were ordained just a few years after Seabury was. So where was this 'crying need' that supposedly made Wesley's schism necessary? Besides how does Seabury even relate to Wesley, since he wasn't by any stretch of the imagination a Methodist?
Yes I do want to talk numbers. You are comparing the worldwide Methodists to the US Episcopal Church. I guess to each his own. If you sought to denigrate Anglicanism, that could be one strategy to follow. Maybe you should leave your family's Methodist church, where between 600-800 people show up every sunday, and attend any of your local Megachurches, where 5,000-10,000 show up every sunday.
Exactly what has that to do with a discussion regarding the decline in the Methodist church versus the Episcopal church? Your argument is running everywhere but at the issue. Pentacostalists don't champion Wesley's theology either so evidently my point is made. Samuel Seabury was the first bishop of the Episcopal Church Stalwart, that fact is uncontravertable. As is the fact that the Episcopal Church owes it's liturgy to Scotland not England for this very same reason. Bishops in England became scared that they'd be dealing with a Jacobite America, that is the only reason they began ordaining Americans. That fact is also well documented. Wesley, as I have pointed out above was never a schismatic. He was filling a need in the US that the C of E clergy created by abandoning their posts.