2010/01/02 by Lester Ruth · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · #History #Reformation and Early Modern Christianity
paper · doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199696116.013.0018
openalex publication_date 2010/01/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2025/11/06
This article focuses on Methodist worship. The worship of early Methodists helped shape the future of English-speaking Protestant worship, especially in America. Looking at Methodist worship in that region is useful as a case study to see how Methodists worshipped when free from the immediate oversight of John Wesley, free from the pervasive backdrop of an established church, and in contact with a non-European ethnic group (i.e., African Americans). As the first independent Methodist church (the Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in 1784) – and a hugely successful one at that (Methodists expanded from 2 per cent of the total church population in 1775 to 34 per cent in 1850) – American Methodism brought many practices to the mainstream of English-speaking Protestantism.