Born in Crisis and Shaped by Controversy, Volume 1

The Relevant History of Methodism, Volume 1: Born in Crisis

John R. Tyson

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781725281325, 9781725281332
• eBook ISBN: 9781725281349
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

Methodism was Born in Crisis. It was a religious response to political polarization, ecclesiastical lethargy, classism and privilege, wage slavery and economic disparity, as well as to prejudice, inequality, and exclusion based on gender and race. Among the crises that convulsed Georgian England were: 1) the debilitating effects of the political use of religious authority; 2) the challenges of keeping faith in an age of science and reason; 3) the decline of "main line" religion; 4) the painful and oppressive impact of class privilege; 5) the inequities caused by dramatic economic disparity; 6) the hopelessness of wage slavery; 7) the devaluing and structural exclusion of women; 8) racial prejudice, and the systematic oppression non-white people; 9) the social crisis caused by religious prejudice; and 10) the debilitating effects of popular culture and its pastimes. The current volume traces how each of these historic crises drew from the early Methodists theological, spiritual, moral, and organizational impulses that became part of their spiritual DNA and left them with family traits that have come down to us in this very day. In a subsequent volume, Shaped by Controversy, eight of the main internal struggles that caused familial strife within the Methodist tradition will be examined and assessed. Taken together, these volumes are like a "distant mirror" with which Methodists and other modern Christians might take a good look at themselves. As such this is an invitation to hope anew and for Methodists as well as Christians of all backgrounds to consider who they are and what they intend be for Jesus Christ in the world.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: “Don’t Let Them Pull the Wool over Your Eyes”
• Chapter 2: “A Reasonable Enthusiast”
• Chapter 3: “Awake Thou That Sleepest”
• Chapter 4: “The Most Class-ridden Country under the Sun”
• Chapter 5: “Help Me Make the Poor My Friends”
• Chapter 6: “The Methodists Are a Low, Insignificant People”
• Chapter 7: “Like a Mother in Israel”
• Chapter 8: “Give Liberty to Whom Liberty Is Due”
• Chapter 9: “Just Enough Religion to Make Us Hate”
• Chapter 10: “The Pursuit of Happiness”
• Conclusion
• Bibliography