Methodism began as renewal movement within Anglicanism in the eighteenth century, dominated the Protestant landscape of the USA in the nineteenth, and continues to be one of the most vibrant forms of Christianity worldwide today. William J Abraham traces its history, describes its particular identity and emphases, and looks to its future prospects.

Hempton explores the rise of Methodism from its unpromising origins as a religious society within the Church of England in the 1730s to a major international religious movement by the 1880s.

The evangelical, or Methodist, revival in the eighteenth century had a major impact on Welsh religion, society, and culture. One of its outcomes was the unprecedented growth of Nonconformity by the nineteenth century, which established a very clear difference between Wales and England in religious terms. Since the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist movement did not split from the Church to form a separate denomination until 1811, it existed in its early years solely as a collection of local society meetings. Focusing on those early societies in southwest Wales, this study examines the grass roots of the Methodist movement, identifying the features that led to its subsequent remarkable success. At the heart of the book lie the experiences of the men and women who were members of the societies, along with explorations of their social and economic background and the factors that attracted them to the Methodist cause.

Wesley and Methodist Studies (WMS) publishes peer-reviewed essays that examine the life and work of John and Charles Wesley, their contemporaries (proponents or opponents) in the eighteenth-century Evangelical Revival, their historical and theological antecedents, their successors in the Wesleyan tradition, and studies of the Wesleyan and Evangelical traditions today. Its primary historical scope is the eighteenth century to the present; however, WMS will publish essays that explore the historical and theological antecedents of the Wesleys (including work on Samuel and Susanna Wesley), Methodism, and the Evangelical Revival. WMS has a dual and broad focus on both history and theology. Its aim is to present significant scholarly contributions that shed light on historical and theological understandings of Methodism broadly conceived. Essays within the thematic scope of WMS from the disciplinary perspectives of literature, philosophy, education and cognate disciplines are welcome. WMS is a collaborative project of the Manchester Wesley Research Centre and The Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History, Oxford Brookes University.

Methodism played an important part in the spread of Christianity from its European heartlands to the Americas, Asia, Africa and the Pacific. From John Wesley’s initial reluctance, via haphazard ventures and over-ambitious targets, a well-organized and supported Wesleyan Society developed. Smaller branches of British Methodism undertook their own foreign missions. This book, together with a companion volume on the 20th century, offers an account of the overseas mission activity of British and Irish Methodists, its roots and fruits. John Pritchard explores many aspects of mission, ranging from Labrador to New Zealand and from Sierra Leone to Sri Lanka, from open air preaching to political engagement, from the isolation of early pioneers to the creation of self-governing churches. Tracing the nineteenth-century missionary work of the Churches with Wesleyan roots which went on to unite in 1932, Pritchard explores the shifting theologies and attitudes of missionaries who crossed cultural and geographical frontiers as well as those at home who sent and supported them. Necessarily selective in the personalities and events it describes, this book offers a comprehensive overview of a world-changing movement - a story packed with heroism, mistakes, achievements, frustrations, arguments, personalities, rascals and saints.

In early 1963, twenty-eight white Methodist ministers caused a firestorm of controversy by publishing a statement of support for race relations change. Born of Conviction explores the statement's resulting influences on their lives, their reasons for signing the statement, and the various interpretations and legacies of the document.