In Our Time - John Wesley and Methodism

Episode Date: December 10, 2020

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss John Wesley (1703 - 1791) and the movement he was to lead and inspire. As a student, he was mocked for approaching religion too methodically and this jibe gave a name to the movement: Methodism. Wesley took his ideas out across Britain wherever there was an appetite for Christian revival, preaching in the open, especially the new industrial areas. Others spread Methodism too, such as George Whitefield, and the sheer energy of the movement led to splits within it, but it soon became a major force. With Stephen Plant Dean and Runcie Fellow at Trinity Hall at the University of CambridgeEryn White Reader in Early Modern History at Aberystwyth UniversityAnd William Gibson Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Oxford Brookes University and Director of the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church HistoryProduced by Simon Tillotson and Julia Johnson

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Thanks for downloading this episode, in our time. There's a reading list to go with it on our website, and you can get news about our programs if you follow us on Twitter at BBC In Our Time. I hope you enjoy the programs. Hello, as a student, John Wesley 1703 to 1791, was mocked for approaching religion too methodically, a jive that gave a name to the movement he was to lead and inspire Methodism. He took his ideas out across Britain, wherever there was an appetite for Christian revival, preaching in the open air, especially in the new industrial areas. Others spread Methodism, too, such as George Whitfield,

and the sheer energy of the movement led to splits within it, but it soon became a major force for change. With me to discuss John Wesleyan Methodism are Stephen Plant, Dean and Runcie Fellow at Trinity Hall at the University of Cambridge, Erin White, reader in early modern history at Averis with University, and William Gibson, Professor of Ecclesiastical History Oxford Brooks University and director of the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History.

William Gibson, can you tell us about his early life, John Wesley? Well, John Wesley's upbringing was pretty unconventional because he was brought up in a tense and pretty insecure environment. This is partly because of his parents' turbulent marriage. Samuel and Susanna Wesley fell out about politics in 1701 and they'd separated and lived apart for about eight months. months, but eventually they were reconciled and, in fact, Susanna went on to have five further pregnancies. But their relationship was pretty strained.

Just a second. What was the argument about politics? They fell out because Susanna had become a Jacobite. She rejected the revolution of 68 and didn't believe that James II had stopped being king, whereas Samuel Wesley had accepted the revolution and regarded William III as the lawful king. How did it become so acute for that to them to separate? Well, it was a matter of their salvation. They believed that, well, in Samuel's case, believed that he'd taken an oath to William III

and therefore he was imperiling his salvation if he didn't hold firm to that. Susanna took the opposite view and felt that because she had accepted James II as her king, she would imperil her salvation if she changed a king midstream, so to speak. They seem to have lived very frugally. We always had bread, but we never knew whether there was going to be on a table, something like that. Yes.

This is partly because Samuel's parishioners and he were at loggerheads for much of the time, and as a result, they withheld their tithes from him. And they also took direct action against him. They burned his crops, they maimed cattle. And the result was that Samuel, Leslie got terribly badly in debt. Yeah, I shouldn't laugh. In fact, he was a terrible manager of his money,

and by today's values, he was something like £40,000 in debt by 1705, and he was imprisoned for three months in Lincoln Jail as a result. But another element of the upbringing was that the family believed that they were surrounded by the supernatural. Samuel thought that witches were active locally in Lincolnshire, and certainly on occasion he preached against witchcraft to his parishioners. And in 1716, the rectory was haunted by a ghost or poltergeist.

The family nicknamed the ghost Old Geoffrey. An old Geoffrey wrapped on headboards of beds. He rattled doors, he knocked chairs and tables. He caused clattering sounds all over the house. And there were curious apparitions of animals. that old Geoffrey clearly agreed with Susanna's politics because he seemed to accept the Jacobite position because he objected to George I being prayed for.

What experiences can you identify in that turmoil of a childhood that helped to shape him? I certainly think marital difficulty was one of the things that we shall see later on. He seems to have had difficulty forming relations with women and certainly sustaining a marriage. he also, I think, was fairly wary of parish ministry, perhaps as a result of his father's, rather difficult experiences.

And he spent three years as curate to his father. And that was the last time he really took part in parish ministry. He returned to Oxford as a tutorial fellow, and then after that, itinerated as a preacher. Thank you very much. Stephen Plant, as has been mentioned, he won a scholarship to Oxford. He was a brilliant man, we're told.

What sort of scholar was he, and what did the Holy Club do? Wesley went to Oxford in 1720 from Charterhouse and seems initially to have lived a fairly ordinary undergraduate life, enjoyed himself quite a lot. And then in preparation for his ordination to the deaconate in the Church of England, he seems to become a little bit more serious. And following ordination and that period of two years as a curate. at two in a bit years with his father in Lincolnshire.

He returned to Oxford in 1729. And it was at that point that his younger brother, about four years younger, Charles Wesley, welcomed him into a very small group of friends, perhaps no more than three at the time, which met really as a kind of reading or study group. It's glorifying it a little bit in retrospect to call it a holy club.

Sorry, John Trump, but it was called the Holy Club, by whom and why? Well, by other undergraduates. The group evolved through time, but their activities were not all that strange. They decided to take communion once a week instead of the usual once a term, which is what was required of them as members of the college. They read together, usually the classics in the week, and then on Sundays something a bit more religious. And then within a year or so, they also began undertaking charitable acts. They set up a bit of a school. They raised funds for the poor.

They started prison visiting and they began fasting a couple of times a week according to the pattern of the ancient or ancient church. But Wesley was the one whose personality loomed largest, and he was often the one to whom they looked for a lead. But they were called, in a derogry fashion, too interested in the method of religion, and that methodist came from that. They were thought to be too enthusiastic. I'm using the inverted commas, as well as the Holy Club.

So they mocked in a way they were mocked. But can we go on to what, in their view, was lacking in mainstream Anglican life that they had to set up this small club to rectify it? Well, in one sense, nothing at all. they didn't think that the Church of England had made any mistakes doctrinally and they didn't think its basic patterns were false what they wanted to do was be much more serious, much more in earnest about faith so Wesley from about 2017-25 was reading some quite serious texts about religion

Thomas A Kempus Jeremy Taylor and most particularly a contemporary called William Law a non-juring clergy member who'd written a book on, really on earnest religion, on how to be earnest about one's faith. And Law's point, which all of them took on board, was that faith wasn't just a matter of what you did on Sundays or even attending morning prayers in the college chapel. It involved a complete reorientation of every moment of your life, which had to be given to God.

and that meant accounting to God for each hour of your day. Thank you very much. Aaron White, personalities are important in this story. And one of the other great personalities here was George Whitfield, a member of the Holy Club. Can you tell us a bit about him? Yes, well, George Whitwilt was probably the most famous preacher of the age, and that's partly because he was very good at publicity. He made sure that newspaper reports were published about all his activities.

but he was really genuinely something of a transatlantic celebrity. He spent a lot of time in America and he's actually buried at Massachusetts because he died during a preaching tour there. He said he'd rather wear out than rust out, so he kept on preaching to the end. But he'd met the Wesley's, of course, at Oxford through the Holy Club and seems to have taken on something of a lead role while they were in America. He was a few years younger than them. And perhaps there are some comparisons with what William was saying about overcoming certain kind of childhood difficulties because he had suffered a great deal from the measles when he was four and had a lifelong squint as a result, so was mocked and bullied in his childhood. And of course, every single cartoon

emphasized the squint in years afterwards. He was a one-man revivalist for a while, wasn't he? I mean, we must get it in perspective. The perspective here is hyperbolic. Yeah, he was remarkable. And, you know, there are. accounts of the way he modulated his voice, the gestures, you know, the drama of his preaching was extraordinarily effective. And of course, one of his great contributions here was the fact that he also persuaded John Wesley to undertake field preaching out of doors because Whitfield began this practice around 1739 following the example of the Welsh Methodists. And he was gaining a great deal of response around the Bristol area around Kingswood

and urged John Wesley to follow him. So it's really as a result of that that we have then these characteristically Methodist, large preaching meetings that went on for two or three hours with all sorts of emotion being expressed during the course of this. William. John Wesley was very interested in the idea of primitivity and Stephen's already mentioned the early church.

And Wesley certainly believed that the early church was a model for how Christians should behave. By the only church, what does he mean? He means the original Christian fathers of the second and third century, and he believes this is the purest form of Christianity, and feel preaching is part of that. I mean, back to you. Before the movement had settled name,

there were others reviving Christianity in a similar way, in Wales, of course. Well, I mean, Methodism was, and Methodist, of course, was a nickname. It wasn't their choice, and for a while, certainly there was a degree of uncertainty about that and sometimes there'd be phrases like people called Methodist instead. I mean, the Welsh movement, of course, was given the name Methodist, again as a sort of nickname because they were perceived from the outside

to be very similar to the English movement around Whitfield and the Wesley's. So it certainly wasn't their choice of name and the Welsh movement was an entirely separate movement which sprang up in parallel. And of course, at the time, they would argue that the fact that these separate movements, these different streams of the evangelical revival, were emerging at the same time,

they would say that that was evidence that it was God's work in the world. But the Welsh movement began around 1735, when the two main leaders, Dania Rowland and Hoel Harris, went through conversion experiences. And by 1737, they'd met and began to work together. So we date the movement in Wales from 1737. And not long after that, they were joined by the third of the... three great leaders in Wales, William Williams,

who's, of course, best known perhaps as a hymn writer and famous for the English version of his hymn, Guide Me O Their Great Jehovah. Let's get back to Wesley. As we've been told, he came back to Oxford, became part of the Holy Club, and soon after that, he went to Georgia. What was that all about, William?

Well, in 1735, he went on a missionary preaching tour to Georgia. and Georgia was quite a seminal experience for him because he met Moravian brothers on the ship going over to America and he was extremely impressed by their piety and the earnestness, as Stephen calls it, of their religion. They took religion very seriously. They were European Protestants who were really fleeing from Catholic persecution.

And on the ship he was very much. impressed by their hymn singing and their pietist beliefs. And that was a very important moment. The second thing that's important about his experience in Georgia is he experimented with non-during liturgies. So although he used the Book of Common Prayer, he also introduced these non-during liturgies that Stevens talked about emerging from William Law. And this again links back to the idea of primitivity. He's trying to get back to the way in which the early church worshipped. And the third reason why Georgia was so important was because he left it really as a fugitive from justice. He had a relationship with a woman called Sophie Hopkey.

He thought that they were engaged, but he delayed setting a date for their marriage, and eventually Sophie Hopkey became disenchanted and married somebody else. And John Wesley regarded this as a breach of their arrangement. And he, he, refused to admit her to Holy Communion. And Sophie Hopke's husband then prosecuted John Wesley for defaming his wife. And while he was on bail, Wesley returned to England and never answered the charges. When he was gathering people around him to listen to him talk in the open air, wherever it was, what made it stand apart from what others were offering at that time?

A general revivalism was growing up here in America, just to take the... those two countries. What stood out about him and what he was saying? Well, I certainly think that once he'd returned to England, one of the key ingredients that made Wesley so attractive as a preacher and as a revivalist was a message of conversion and assurance of salvation. In 1738, Wesley experienced a conversion. He reinterpreted this through his life, but at the time he saw it as an instantaneous moment. He famously went to a Moravian meeting in London

and as he was listening to Luther's preface to St Paul, he said he felt his heart strangely warmed and he suddenly knew that he'd been saved. Now his brother had experienced this three days before and this is a very compelling experience that he promoted and he ensured was a centrepiece of Methodism. He made sure that people, gave testimony of their conversion, both orally and in writing.

And we've already mentioned hym singing, of course, which was an important part of Wesley's activities. In fact, early Methodism was particularly dependent on the sale of hymn books financially. So John and Charles Wesley were very keen to keep hym singing going. And the third big ingredient of Wesley's mission was, of course, preaching. He didn't quite have the dramatic flare of George Whitfield. But he certainly, people enjoyed hearing him preach.

He preached with vigour and energy. And to the 21st century mind, the 18th century thirst and delight in sermons seems a bit odd, but certainly at the time people flock to hear John Leslie preach because he was such an impressive preacher. Stephen Plant, what were Wesley's followers to do to progress their faith? What about how does Calvinism figure in? this and Armenianism. He didn't think that Methodists believed anything differently to anybody else

in the Anglican Church. He didn't think that Methodists were distinguished by any particular activities or costume or vocabulary or any of those kinds of things. He thought that, as he puts it in 1742, in a summary of what it meant to be Methodist, his simple summary of what it meant was that a Methodist is one who has the love of God shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost. In other words, it's going back to William Law. It's this complete, wholehearted love for others. It's not a particular doctrine. It's not a particular way of looking at the world, except that it's in earnest.

It means regular prayer, regular rejoicing, expunging from your life, anger and envy and malice, and offering service to others. And the way in which you did that was partly a social way. Wesley liked to say sometimes that there was no way to holiness except social holiness and by that he meant that individual Christians needed the support of other Christians to whom they were accountable. And this was facilitated in the early Methodist movement by things like what were called class meetings which are essentially small groups of people, five or six, up to 11 maybe with a class leader who met with members of his or her class on a regular basis to find

how they were doing. They met regularly about once a month in chapel for love feasts at which testimonies were given. They were encouraged to have regular communion in the local parish church. There were the hymns that we've already heard of and there was regular preaching. So there was a series of things which the Wesley's thought supported a kind of internal change. And that internal change was what Wesley sometimes like to call growth in holiness or sanctification, which meant the making real in your life of the grace of God. Thank you. Erin, what was it about personal experience that became so important for Methodists? And can you give us some examples of what kind of experience?

Well, yes, I mean, this is building really on what William said about the importance of conversion for Wesley. And that was mirrored in a lot of other experiences because the conversion, narrative became an essential element really and people would recount their own experiences of this and actually a lot of these accounts were then published and broadcasts because there was a sort of communication network which grew up between the different parts of the revival so there would be letter writing and there was there were also magazines which would publish these kind of accounts of experiences and conversions so you kind of had a sense of what was expected almost what the kind of standard was in terms of

conversions. So there are accounts of people saying that they'd had an initial desire and they were searching for conversion and then sometimes in something like a church service during a preaching, meeting or even when reading a book, we have accounts to some people reading John Bunyan and suddenly feeling that, as they said, the burden of sin had been lifted. And that was something that they would remember for the rest of their lives. But then, as Stephen was saying about then being that constant reiteration of this and this earnestness about it had to continue thereafter.

So the conversion experience itself was the beginning and from then on you had to continually monitor your progress. And for some people it was actually too introspective and we do see people dropping out that were unable to maintain that sort of level of commitment. Thank you. Calvinism, Aaron, began to play a big part in this.

The idea that some people were the elect from before birth even, and they were the chosen. How did that fit in, in your view, to Methodism? Because this was a brand of Methodism, because in the very early years, of course, Whitfield and Wesley and the Welsh Methodists and some of the Moravians all felt they had a lot in common, and they wanted to pool their resources. But certainly by around 1740, 1741, they were starting to find out they also had differences. And one of the main differences was about the path to salvation. Was it Armenian, as the Wesley's advocated, or Calvinist? What did Armenian mean to people then, that time? The basis goes back to Jacobus Arminius in the 17th century, but that was

basically the idea that salvation came through effort, through good works, through striving for perfection and could be attained, yes. Whereas, because the Calvinist theology was argued that basically humanity was sinful and could never really attain salvation for itself. So the only path was through having faith in God's grace

and God's irresistible grace would then atone for the elect. And of course this was always in a way acceptable as part of Anglicanism. The Anglican Church did not rule out Calvinism

by any means. So moderate Calvinism was adopted by the Welsh Methodists and also by George Whitfield and the Counters of Huntington in England. So it was a different strand. William? It seems to me that Armenianism, one of the attractive aspects of Armenianism, is that it appears to be almost democratic. It opens the possibility of salvation to anybody as long as they're prepared to believe and undertake good works. And this seems to me to be a very attractive aspect of Methodism in the 18th century. It's not class-orientated.

It's not economically orientated. It's open to everybody if they have the will and the faith. And this, as I say, seems to me to be a very attractive aspect to ordinary working people. Could you develop the idea that Methodism took root in places that the Anglican Church had, A, rather neglected, and places that were new to the geography of the country? country, i.e. industrial centres. I mean, first of all, took great as I understand it in London and Newcastle and Bristol, that triangle, but kept hitting industrial centres, as it were, the neglected artisans and poor. How much truth is there in that? Well, there's some truth in that. Certainly, Wesley's triangle between London, Bristol and Newcastle. These are places that saw the

growth of urban working classes. And certainly his preaching did very well. well in the new industrial areas. We've mentioned Kingswood already where there was a big mining community. The other place which we ought to mention, of course, is Cornwall, where the tin miners were part of that industrialisation of the West Country. And Cornwall became a bastion of Methodism. And certainly later on in the century, the North West, again an industrial area, was very strongly a stronghold of Methodism.

Wesley was certainly less successful in rural. areas. In Hampshire he referred to the people as dead, dull stones because they were so unresponsive to his message. But another part of this pattern was that he sometimes did fairly poorly in areas where Protestant descent and other forms of non-conformity were strong. So, for example, in Somerset, Wesley recorded that he was sometimes pelted with stones and mud. Stephen, if you were a Methodist, were you still expected to go to the Angling Church on a Sunday? That was certainly John Wesley's expectation. And initially that seems to have been the case.

But the movement did take on its own personality fairly quickly. And eventually Wesley had to come round to thinking about ways in which he might think about his movement to something that was going to outlast him, outlive him. And late in life began to take legal steps for a way. example, to protect the personality, the legal personality of the movement, which begin to make it into a separate church or denomination. So it's a decades-long slow breakdown of relations between Methodists and Anglicans. It was never a relationship which completely broke down, however, even into the 1750s, sorry, 1850s, the Book of Common Prayer was still widely in use. in Methodist chapels.

So the breakdown was not ever as sharp as you might think. So how was it marked? Did the fact that was decided to ordain people as bishops took on himself to do to ordinations, just bypassed bishops? Okay, so that was one of a series of steps towards the end of his life he took. The other was to give, as I said, the legal personality to his conference to set up his group of preachers as essentially a collective governing body for the new movement. But certainly a big step occurred in 1784.

It's a good point to go back to America actually in our thinking because the independence of America in 1776 had been a big shock to Wesley, who was a big supporter of the Hanoverians and had written to the colonists in support of the colonists in support of. loyalty to the crown. His piety was then still respected among American Methodists. His status as father of the church was unchallengeable, but he became a practical obstacle. And so in 1784, when he sent a couple of presbyters who he ordained and he also ordained a superintendent of the American church, his colleague Thomas Cook, they then commissioned. And another man, Francis Asprey, is a kind of co-superintendant, who convened a conference in Baltimore at Christmas in 1784, which democratically elected him as bishop against Wesley's advice. And really that's the moment at which the American Methodist Church becomes independent of British Methodism.

Erin, records, if we appear to see in the records that women outnumber men two to one in men. Methodists and Methodist churches. What's your reaction to that? Well, in some ways, of course, that's not unusual for minority religions. There's a common pattern there where women are often in the majority in emerging or minority religious movements. And one of the reasons put forward for that sometimes is that, of course, since they didn't often have a public or civic role, they had less to risk. So, for instance, as a dissenter in this period, you couldn't go to university, you couldn't hold public office. Well, if you're a woman, you couldn't do that anyway. So in some ways, you could say women were slightly more free to follow their conscience.

But of course, in addition to that, Methodism specifically did offer them much more of an opportunity to contribute because of the emphasis on lay participation. So it was true for both men and women that they were expected to recount their experiences. Their conversion experiences as women was as valid as those of men. Their day-to-day experiences and spiritual progress were also as valid and needed the same analysis and careful attention. And that was very rare. There were very few opportunities in this period for women to hear their own voice, to have an opportunity to speak, even if it was in a semi-private forum of the societies.

We shouldn't overstate this, of course, because it wasn't revolutionary in terms of giving opportunities for women. Most of the leadership roles went to men, and only very few women were allowed to preach in the 18th century, and they had to be quite exceptional. One of the earliest we know of was Elizabeth Thomas in Wales in 1741, but by 1771 John Wesley was persuaded to allow Mary Bosenké to preach him because she was said to have an extraordinary call. This is a good time, I think, to bring in Wesley's attitude to marriage.

He wrote one of his many, many books, which mostly financed the movement, talking in very high terms about marriage. He came close to it once or twice. It never quite happened for different reasons. And then he did get married. Can you take the story on from there, William Gibson? Yes. Well, as we said, John Wesley had a relationship with Sophie Hopkey in Georgia.

About 10 years after that, he had a friendship with a woman called Grace Murray, who lived in Newcastle and who had nursed him through an illness. And rather scandalously, he invited her to accompany him on a preaching tour of Ireland, which certainly wasn't the done thing for a single woman. And he seems to have regarded this as a form of engagement with her. But again, as with Sophie, he didn't act on it. And his brother Charles and George Whitfield, who regarded Grace as rather an inappropriate spouse for John Leslie.

Working class. I think it was to do with class principally, yes. and they arranged for her to marry another Methodist preacher John Bennett. But as you say, Wesley published in thoughts on marriage that the marriage was an ideal state. It was his own that was problematic. In 1751 he married a woman called Mary Vizal. He was aged 48 at that stage. She was a wealthy widow with four children.

But it was a disastrous marriage, really. Mary was very frustrated by John's itinerant preaching and the fact that he was very rarely at home and indeed when he was at home he was very busy with other things and she also resented John's friendships with other women and in particular with a young woman called Sarah Ryan with whom John Wesley had a long and frequent correspondence and as Mary Wesley's anxieties about these friendships grew

She questioned John. She opened his letters to and from Sarah Ryan. And the relationship gave way to violence. On one occasion, she was seen dragging John Wesley around the parlour by his hair. After their marriage had fallen apart and they'd separated, he published the second edition of thoughts on marriage, in which he recommended celibacy in the single life as the ideal state and much preferable to marriage. So he'd learnt from his mistakes, I guess. Stephen Plant, what factions did Methodism start to split into and why? Well, as you said in your introduction, the Methodist movement released a lot of entrepreneurial energy. And that created tensions, a pattern of tension really, between charismatic, free-thinking, entrepreneurial individuals on the one hand and the central control of the church on the other. And most of the breakaway movements of Methodism fall. into that kind of tension between the controlling centre and the charismatic individual who wants to break free.

So there were a series of breakaway movements, the first of them very shortly after Wesley's death a few years, the Methodist New Connection. The primitives were by far in a way the largest of the breakaway groups. And they were established in 1811 when Hugh Bourne, who was a wheelwright self-taught, taught himself languages on the staff of Cheshire Board. So Hugh Bourne himself ran a kind of camp meeting, which took a better day when people gave testimonies and prayed out loud and so on, all out of doors. And when he refused to stop doing that, he was expelled by the Wesleyans. They were also known as ranters because of their sort of rather enthusiastic style of preaching.

They did very well in places like the Durham minefields and East Anglia. and when they came to reunite with the Wesleyans in 1932, there was about half a million attending primitive Methodist churches Sunday by Sunday. It was a big, big movement. It's interesting that the Anglican church had put off by enthusiasm, by singing, by chanting, by movement, by showing your feelings in church.

It seemed to be set in a way that didn't want any of that emotion to enter into their sense. services, their services, as it were, let it drain away. The word enthusiasm actually relates back to the 17th century when enthusiasts were the people who cut off Charles I think the Church of England was very concerned about the repetition of what happened in the 17th century that you could allow ranters and Mughaltonians and diggers and these fringe religious groups to take control and they would end up in overturning the state. So religious enthusiasm was treated with considerable scepticism and concern.

Aaron, why do you think what really kept these societies together? What did they offer that people couldn't get anywhere else? Well, it's probably a combination of support and structure, both of which were really important for the survival of the movement. Because, of course, there was the emphasis on individual conversion, but once people had been converted, there had to be some system to maintain them in that sense of faith. And the best way to do that really was to bring them together into fellowship meetings

so they could sustain each other. So they were given a network of support. And at the same time, of course, allowed to speak and to participate and to gain that sense perhaps of self-confidence in doing so. So it was very important that they had those connections through society a sense as well than of being part of a much wider movement because they were told that they were part of a revival that was at work not just in the British Isles, but in America and other parts of the world.

William, in what ways was, can we divide Wesley up into part of him being an innovator and part of him an almost rigid traditionalist? Yes, well, in many respects, as we've seen, Wesley was a strong traditionalist. He described himself as a Tory high churchman. And as we've seen, he certainly believed that God had sanctioned the form of government in Britain. to rebel against it was sinful. Theologically, of course, he was also pretty traditional. He believed in witchcraft.

He certainly believed that demons and devils were active in the world. But in other respects, he was very progressive and innovative. He was interested in science. He experimented with medicine and indeed with electricity. He had electrical beds in London for healing. And he even wrote a medical... for his preachers to take round and sell. And he was also a very strong and early opponent of slavery.

In 1774, his tracked thoughts on slavery denounce the slave trade as the sum of all villainies. Stephen. If I just had something briefly about slavery in the United States, it's true that Wesley's opposition to slavery was well known, and this became a huge issue after the independence of the Methodist. Church in America, which led to a number of secessions because churches which had initially welcomed people, whether they were black or white on an equal basis, came in the 1790s to start segregating. And this led to a couple of splits leading to major black Methodist churches, the first

of them led by the remarkable Richard Allen, who'd been born a slave, bought himself out of slavery, and was asked to sit in the gallery, a gallery he built himself by raising funds for it amongst black members of a church in Philadelphia. And he led the black churches out, became the first group of African Americans to buy property anywhere in the United States and established something called

the American Methodist Episcopal Church, of which he was the first bishop. Methodism was developing all around the world, wasn't it? I was going in countries way outside Britain. Absolutely. I mean, the birth of Methodism was lucky in that it coincided, I say lucky in one sense, it coincided with the birth of colonialism. So as British imperial interests expanded, the missionaries just kept pace with it, sometimes by design and sometimes by accident.

A key figure initially in this was John Wesley's colleague Thomas Cook, who we've already mentioned in connection with America. he set up a kind of a Methodist missionary society and wanted to take missionaries to India but was encouraged by Wesley instead to send them to Scotland, believe it or not, but also to Nova Scotia. They were blown off course to Antigua and set up Methodist churches among the slaves in Antigua. That spread throughout the West Indies

and then subsequently there were Methodists among the groups that settled in Sierra Leone and basically the whole thing exploded but often in an uneasy relationship, partly critical and partly in collaboration with the whole colonial project. Thank you. Erin, what do you think Wesley's longer legacy has been? Well, as Stephen in a way has been explaining, of course, we have that global spread of Methodism. But perhaps, you know, in addition, there is the legacy of that period of the evangelical revival, where we have this sort of brand of religion which was organised and disciplined

but also had this spark of emotion attached to it as well and a broader sort of legacy in terms of some of the political influences that would come in increasingly by the 19th century in certain campaigns such as the anti-slavery campaign and in addition to that of course there was a certain emphasis on communal hym singing which began in this period and as we're coming up towards Christmas Hark the Herald Angel sing by Charles Wessley is going to be sung countless times. So some of the legacy is sort of leaven in the mix that we don't always notice and realise is there. Before we finish, can I ask one of you to take on a big subject that we can't miss

is that the influence that preaching in Methodist churches had on people was a big factor in creating the energy in the Trans-Union movement. Methodism was very powerful in the early trades union movement, and indeed the Toll Puddle Martyrs were Methodists. And there certainly seems to be a connection with the Armenian sense of egalitarianism that motivated Methodists particularly towards radical politics. E.P. Thompson certainly sees Methodism as one of the motors of radical political engagement. Do you know? Yes. I just talked to add to that really

one of the impacts, one of the legacies to amplify what Erin was just saying was Wesley's and the later Wesleyan's impulse towards social activity and political engagement. So the largest UK charity provider for the elderly

Methodist charity, the second largest children's charity in the UK, a Methodist Foundation, trade union movements as we've heard, but all kinds of things, youth clubs that led to Everton Football Club or Aston Villa Football Club, an endless kind of amounts of youth work and education and Sunday schools, which had a huge impact on English society in particular,

less so in Scotland. Erin, is Methodism in Wales where it was very powerful? Is it declining? Has it still got power and authority? It's declining, as all the non-conformist denominations in Wales are. I mean, it went through its period of substantial influence by the mid-19th century and through to the mid-20th century. And, of course, you know, the growth of Methodism in Wales was remarkable, particularly Calvinistic Methodism, because by 1851, the religious census, it was the largest group of worshippers and had outstripped Anglicanism,

which is why, of course, in Wales there were the campaigns for disestablishment, and there is no state church in Wales as a result. but from really mid-20th century onwards there has been a steep and dramatic decline in the fortunes of all the non-conformist denominations in Wales. Well, thank you all very much for getting through that mighty task. Thanks to Erin White, Stephen Plant and William Gibson. Next week, it's Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution in China in the 1960s

after the great leap forward and the great Chinese famine. Thank you for listening. And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now with a few minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests. Well, I think, you know, coming back to the Welsh example, one of the things that perhaps we didn't discuss was the fact that Wesley's influence was inevitably very much limited in the 18th century because of the whole issue of language. He spoke about the confusion of tongues when he came to Wales because he could not get, he was often failing to be understood. So he had the biggest impact in places like Cardiff where there was more anglicised influence. And there were accounts of him, of course, going through Wales to try to reach Ireland and getting stuck on the Menai Straits because he couldn't find the ferry

and couldn't get anybody to understand him when he was trying to ask the way. And in a way, Wesleyan Methodism became rebranded in Wales when it was reintroduced around 1800 with a concerted effort, really, to bring in Welsh media missionaries. And once they did that, there was a remarkable growth. But it took really that period in the 19th century for it to re-emerge as a force in Wales. Because, of course, of the alliance between the Welsh Methodists and the Calvinist Methodists, the Wesleyes didn't have the luxury that George Whitfield had

of having Welsh medium Methodists escorting him around and preaching alongside him to compensate for the language issue. Well, do you want to say anything? and then she? Yes, a couple of things really. First about Methodism and Trade Unionism and the Labour movement. I mean, clearly there is a very strong connection between Methodism and the Labour movement. And a number of Labour ministers in the 20th century ascribe their success as speakers to their involvement in Methodist meetings.

But we shouldn't forget also that Margaret Thatcher came from a Methodist family. And therefore, Methodism didn't just influence the, Labour Party, it also had an influence in the Conservative Party as well. The other thing I'd like to say is just a little bit about the way in which often Methodist historians describe Methodism in the 18th century. There's a language which refers to revival and awakening. And this is clearly partly to heighten John Wesley's achievement. But I think historians, as Stephen mentioned earlier, today historians tend to see the 18th century church as much more vibrant and powerful than they used to do. And indeed, Wesley is seen as an example of its success

rather than its failure. So we shouldn't think of the 18th century church as a slumbering sleeping church, as Hogarth depicted it. We should see it as successful and as Wesley is part of that success. I think I'd like to say just to add something really about Wesley's theology. Yes. I'm not sure I really got to grips with this in the broadcast, but I think it's important to say that Wesley had a kind of big idea. And the big idea was God's absolute love and mercy. He was also, of course, committed to speaking of God's justice, but basically, and this is at root, at the root really of his disagreement with predestination, he had the idea that God loved people. And for this reason, he thought that when you read scripture, if you read the whole of scripture with this

idea in your head, God's love and God's mercy, those passages in scripture about predestination obviously need to be interpreted in a different way. And then the second thing about him is his emphasis on the cooperation of believers with divine grace. He sometimes talks of co-operant grace. So there's never any question that salvation or people's renewal in faith, as a consequence of God's initiative. But for Wesley, there was also a renewed emphasis, which is in its way quite un-Anglican in some respects, of the cooperation of the believer in that process of being saved.

We never said anything about how Wesleyism and Methodism fitted into the English class system. How did the Methodist church, the Wesleyan Church, fit into the class system? Well, in some respects, the caricature of Wesley and Methodists as below the salt is not entirely accurate. There were a number of aristocratic evangelicals. Erin's already mentioned Lady Huntington, but there were others like the Earl of Dartmouth who were very strong supporters of Methodism. And Wesley also made a point of ensuring that his wealthier backers had some status in the Methodist Church.

he referred to wealthy women who made donations to the Methodist Church as mothers in Israel. So it would be too much of a caricature to suggest that Methodism was a working class movement and only attracted the working classes. It certainly had appeals to the middle classes and to the aristocracy. It's also a bit of a moving target, isn't it? Because as Methodists grew older and older as a denomination, and they became more or more middle class, and that's reflected, for instance,

in the wonderful Methodist novel, if I can call it that, by George Eliot, Adam Bede. She starts that out by describing early Methodism as a time in which people had dreams and visions and a lively faith, and it's become, as she puts it, her faith of pillared porticos

and sleek green grocers. So she kind of contrasts or describes this pattern of bourgeoisification, if I can use a grand term. Adam Bede is centered around George Eliot's, the real story of George Eliot's aunt, who was an early Methodist preacher who'd been converted having heard John Wesley as a small child. And the story centres around an event that actually happened to her aunt, which was a keep accompanying a convicted

child murderer on the way to her, on the way to the gallows. So it's a book which is in some rather sympathetic to early Methodism. Of all the novels which treat Methodism, it's probably the one which is most sympathetic. Can we say a little bit more about Charles Wesley? I mean, his hymns brought in a lot of the income, and he supported his brother in most things and was a powerful figure in his own right. Well, Charles, of course, had the good sense to marry a Welsh woman, Sarah Gwyn, and was therefore, you know, very happily married as compared to some of the other Methodist leaders. And, you know, there were some snide remarks that, of course, you can't get Charles out to preach anymore now because he's happily married at home, which wasn't the case with John Wesley

as much. But yeah, he's often, of course, viewed in the shadow of his brother, which is perhaps a little bit unfair. He's often sometimes called as well, of course, the first Methodist, which again is slightly misleading, but he did, of course, go through that experience, that conversion experience a few days before John. So he's an interesting character in his own right. And because there are also suggestions that he was a little bit more reluctant than John Wesley to undergo, you know, to carry on with some of the early ordinations. So they didn't always see eye to eye on everything. But do you have favourite hymns? Are the hymns still song as Lusdily? Yes and no. So increasingly worship songs are coming into some Methodist churches.

It's an interesting issue about in the UK whether Methodism can survive the departure of Charles Wesley's hymns, which have been sort of as such a major, bit of social glue and theological glue in the movement. And the advent of new hymnody of a non-Methadist kind as sort of, maybe is ungluing some of it. But his chief achievement, he wrote something like 10,000 poems or hymns. It's hard sometimes to tell which is which. Most of them are forgettable,

but a small number are the best verse, really, of the 18th century. He wasn't the first to do this. Isaac Watts, for example, had been doing similar things, a bit of about 20 years earlier, but Charles was the first really to use popular tunes and popular patterns of tune to get people really feeling this sense of feeling scriptural texts. I mean, if you get a concordance and work out how many biblical texts there are allusions to in his hymns, it's astonishing. They're richly saturated with scriptural language, and I think that's

their strength. Thank you all very much indeed, thank you. with Melvin Bragg is produced by Simon Tillotson.