Wesley and the Wesleyans

Religion in Eighteenth-Century Britain

John Kent

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN:
  9780521455329
• eBook ISBN:
  9780511037665
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

Wesley and the Wesleyans challenges the cherished myth that at the moment when the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution were threatening the soul of eighteenth-century England, an evangelical revival - led by the Wesleys - saved it. It will interest anyone concerned with the history of Methodism and the Church of England, the Evangelical tradition, and eighteenth-century religious thought and experience. The book starts from the assumption that there was no large-scale religious revival during the eighteenth century. Instead, the role of what is called 'primary religion' - the normal human search for ways of drawing supernatural power into the private life of the individual - is analysed in terms of the emergence of the Wesleyan societies from the Church of England. The Wesleys' achievements are reassessed; there is fresh, unsentimental description of the role of women in the movement, and an unexpectedly sympathetic picture emerges of Hanoverian Anglicanism.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 The Protestant recovery
• 2 Early Wesleyanism: 1740–1770
• 3 Later Wesleyanism: 1770–1800
• 4 Women in Wesleyanism
• 5 Anglican responses
• 6 Conclusions
• Notes
• Select bibliography
• Index