THE NEXT METHODISM AND CHURCH GROWTH
By Dr. Riley Case
Roland Lowell Bryant writes a blog later reprinted in United Methodist Insight entitled "The Next Methodism." It is a response to David Watson's earlier article on "The Next Methodism." Bryant, of course, is unhappy with evangelicals whom he characterizes as "doe-eyed dreamers planning to build their white-as-snow, re-reformed church from scratch out of the sexually corrupt, doctrinally impure, scripturally misreading dregs now known as the United Methodist Church." He expands on that and then opines: "any institution created on foundations of ideological purity can be emotionally manipulative and dangerous." He cites as examples fascism in Europe, apartheid in Africa, and Islamist movements throughout southwest Asia. One supposes this is Methodism's fate if evangelicals have their way.
I respond with a history lesson taken from the Western frontier, particularly from the story of Methodism in Indiana. The first Methodists in America were nothing if not ideologically visionary. Following Wesley's instructions, they had nothing to do but save souls. Their message might be described as ideologically pure: sin, the blood, and salvation by faith. When America was at a low point spiritually (only 10% of Americans were church members following the Revolutionary War) Asbury declared in his journal: "America, America, God will make it the glory of the world for religion." Methodists declared their purpose was to reform the nation.
While Methodism had early success along the Atlantic seaboard, it was in the West, that is beyond the Appalachian Mountains, where Methodists could well be characterized as (if we want to use Bryant's words) "doe-eyed dreamers planning to build their re-formed church from scratch." Methodism in the East had to be superimposed upon existing religious cultures; in the west Methodism could write on a religiously cultural blank page; they intended to "build from scratch." And so they did.
By today's standards the process was messy and sometimes ugly. Methodists in those days did not obsess with "unity," "inclusiveness," "diversity" and missional focuses on the poor. Methodists were the poor. As for diversity, Methodism by 1820 would count 20% of its members as African-American despite the loss of persons who left to form the A.M.E. and A.M.E. Zion churches. There is an interesting theory that the word "Hoosier" (people from Indiana) was originally a reference to Indiana settlers who had been converted by the black Methodist evangelist, Harry Hosier. Methodists of that day would have flunked the inclusivity test of today's progressives. They really did not welcome all persons regardless of beliefs and practices. Methodists believed in conversion and that meant separation from the world--from alcohol, gambling, frills, heretical beliefs, and (at least in the north), from slavery. They also, if the truth be known, did not assume that if a person were a Presbyterian or a Catholic or even a Baptist they were converted. In short, they were accused of "sheep-stealing."
This then led them into the sectarian wars that characterized the West in the first 50 years of the 19th century. There is no glossing over the word "war." We today might not like the militaristic imagery that the word "war" suggests, but Methodists saw themselves in battle against sin, against the devil, against the tavern, against uppity politicians and then, for good measure, against Baptists and Presbyterians.
The Baptists fought back, when, that is, they were not fighting among themselves, mostly over the finer points of Calvinism. By 1850 in Indiana, there were at least ten Baptist groups in existence: Separate Baptists, United Baptists, Regular Baptists, Primitive Baptists, Missionary Baptists, Anti-missionary Baptists, Free Will Baptists, Particular Baptists and Hardshell Baptists.
Methodists in Indiana were primarily M.E.s (Methodist Episcopal) but there were also Methodist Protestants, M.E. South (for southern sympathizers), Republican Methodists, Free Methodists (later), Evangelicals and the United Brethren. The biggest challenge was from the Wesleyan Methodists who gathered adherents because of their claim the M.E.s were soft on the stance against slavery.
The most aggressive non-sectarian sectarian group may have been the Christian Church, Churches of Christ, Christian Union, Churches of Christ in Christian Union, or the New Lights who accused everyone else of sectarianism but ended up more sectarian than anyone. By mid-century 12 Christian Union groups in Ohio and Indiana were trying to find a common basis for "unity."
The Methodists debated them all: The Western Christian Advocate in the 1840s ran a 28-week serial expose of the "Cambellites." Methodists argued with Shakers, Universalists, Millerites, atheists and Catholics. After the Presbyterians had founded two colleges in Indiana (Hanover and Franklin) and were dominate in the founding of Indiana University the Methodists cried "sectarian" and demanded a Methodist should join the faculty of the new Indiana University. A trustee remarked something like: "That might be possible but I do not know of a single Methodist who is qualified to teach" (Methodists had 24,000 members in the state at the time and the Presbyterians 5,000). At that time, there were four different Presbyterian groups alone in Bloomington, Indiana.
One would suppose that with all of the disarray and fighting the Christian faith would be in decline and disrepute. On the contrary, there has probably never been in the history of the church such a spiritual revival as the Second great Awakening (the Western Revival). From 1800 to 1850 the population of Indiana grew 3,924%; Methodism grew 9,176%. By 1860 43% of all the churches in Indiana were Methodist churches. In the United States during the same period (1800-1850) the population increased 437%; Methodists increased 1,939%. In 1800 Methodists represented 1.2% of the church population; in 1850 they represented 5.4%. After the Revolutionary War it took over 1,000 persons in the U.S. population to support one church. By 1850 it took under 500 persons to support a church. The heaviest concentration of churches by that time was in Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois and Alabama. If a finger would be placed on the map at the geographical center of those states it would rest on Cane Ridge, Kentucky, south of Cincinnati and the location of the first camp meeting dating 1801. The camp meeting, which was primarily a Methodist phenomenon, would offer to the world the altar call, the gospel song, a new understanding of being "born again" and an emphasis on the Holy Spirit that would later lead to Pentecostalism, the fastest growing segment of Christianity in the world today.
There were, of course, denominations which were appalled by all of this. The Congregationalists, who dominated colonial America, found the west quite much too unrefined for their liking. In 1850 when the Methodists recorded 434 churches in the federal census for Indiana, the Congregational Church recorded two.
Methodism accomplished this growth with beliefs and a mindset which persons like Roland Bryant would characterize as "ideological purity" which can be "emotionally manipulative and dangerous." But the Lord blessed. Methodism accomplished this growth without calls for unity, inclusiveness, or diversity. It accomplished this without seminaries or boards and agencies.
If progressives have a vision and a dream and a theology of diversity and inclusivity they wish to try out in the modern world, let them be about it. But they are the ones who need to build from "scratch" upon some foundation of their own choosing. We ask they not seek to impose an alien ideology on what has been Methodist belief and practice through the years. Methodist doctrine does not need to be "re-reformed;" it needs rather to be believed, proclaimed, and practiced. That is the evangelical agenda.
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