Transatlantic Methodists

Methodists in nineteenth-century Ontario and Quebec, like all British subjects, existed as satellites of an influential empire. Transatlantic Methodists uncovers how the Methodist ministry and laity in these colonies, whether they were British, American, or native-born, came to define themselves as transplanted Britons and Wesleyans, in response to their changing, often contentious relationship with the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Britain. Revising the nationalist framework that has dominated much of the scholarship on Methodism in central Canada, Todd Webb argues that a transatlantic perspective is necessary to understand the process of cultural formation among nineteenth-century Methodists. He shows that the Wesleyan Methodists in Britain played a key role in determining the identities of their colonial counterparts through disputes over the meaning of political loyalty, how Methodism should be governed, who should control church finances, and the nature and value of religious revivalism. At the same time, Methodists in Ontario and Quebec threatened to disrupt the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Britain and helped to trigger the largest division in its history. Methodists on both sides of the Atlantic shaped - and were shaped by - the larger British world in which they lived. Drawing on insights from new research in British, Atlantic, and imperial history, Transatlantic Methodists is a comprehensive study of how the nineteenth-century British world operated and of Methodism's place within it.

Methodists in nineteenth-century Ontario and Quebec, like all British subjects, existed as satellites of an influential empire. Transatlantic Methodists uncovers how the Methodist ministry and laity in these colonies, whether they were British, American, or native-born, came to define themselves as transplanted Britons and Wesleyans, in response to their changing, often contentious relationship with the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Britain. Revising the nationalist framework that has dominated much of the scholarship on Methodism in central Canada, Todd Webb argues that a transatlantic perspective is necessary to understand the process of cultural formation among nineteenth-century Methodists. He shows that the Wesleyan Methodists in Britain played a key role in determining the identities of their colonial counterparts through disputes over the meaning of political loyalty, how Methodism should be governed, who should control church finances, and the nature and value of religious revivalism. At the same time, Methodists in Ontario and Quebec threatened to disrupt the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Britain and helped to trigger the largest division in its history. Methodists on both sides of the Atlantic shaped - and were shaped by - the larger British world in which they lived. Drawing on insights from new research in British, Atlantic, and imperial history, Transatlantic Methodists is a comprehensive study of how the nineteenth-century British world operated and of Methodism's place within it.

Transatlantic Subjects dissents from four decades of scholarly writing on colonial Canada by taking the British imperial context - rather than the North American environment - as a conceptual framework for interpreting patterns of social and cultural life in the colonies prior to the 1850s. Anchored in "the new British history" advanced by J.G.A. Pocock, David Armitage, and Kathleen Wilson, this collective work explores ideas, institutions, and social practices that were adapted and changed through the process of migration from the British archipelago to the new settlement societies. Contributors discuss a broad range of institutional and social practices, including education, religion, radical politics, and family life. Transatlantic Subjects offers a new perspective for the writing of Canada's history. A self-conscious response to the plea for a broader British history that includes the overseas settlement colonies, it makes a significant contribution to the new cultural history of the British Empire. Contributors include Bruce Curtis (Carleton), Michael Eamon (Queen's), Darren Ferry (McMaster), Donald Fyson (Laval), Michael Gauvreau (McMaster), Jeffrey McNairn (Queen's), Bryan Palmer (Queen's), J.G.A. Pocock (Johns Hopkins), Michelle Vosburgh (Brock), Todd Webb (Laurentian), and Brian Young (McGill)."

When American Methodist preachers first arrived to Upper Canada they brought more than a contagious religious faith. They also brought saddlebags stuffed with books published by the New York Methodist Book Concern - North America's first denominational publisher - to sell along their preaching circuits. Pulpit, Press, and Politics traces the expansion of this remarkable transnational market from its earliest days to the mid-nineteenth century during a period of intense religious struggle in Upper Canada marked by fiery revivals, political betrayals, and bitter church schisms. The Methodist Book Concern occupied a central place in all this conflict as it powerfully shaped and subverted the religious and political identities of Canadian Methodists, bankrolled the bulk of Methodist preaching and missionary activities, enabled and constrained evangelistic efforts among the colony's Native groups, and clouded Methodist dealings with the British Wesleyans and other religious competitors north of the border. Even more importantly, as Methodists went on to assume a preeminent place in the province's religious, cultural, and educational life, their ongoing reliance on the Methodist Book Concern played a crucial part in opening the way for what would later become the lasting acceptance and widespread use of American books and periodicals across the province as a whole.

This book is the first critical biography of William Taylor, a nineteenth-century American missionary who worked on six continents. Following Taylor’s global odyssey, the volume maps the contours of the Methodist missionary tradition and illumines key historical foundations of contemporary world Christianity. A work of social history that places a leading Methodist missionary in the foreground, this narrative illustrates distinctive aspects and tensions within Methodist missions such as the importance of doctrines like universal atonement and entire sanctification, a deeply pragmatic orientation rooted in God’s providence, an embrace of both entrepreneurial initiatives and networked connection, and the use of revivalism for missionary outreach and leadership development. A Virginia native, Taylor became a Methodist preacher and missionary in California. This volume provides an important narrative account of Taylor’s career as an itinerant revivalist and popular author, in which he toured the eastern United States, the British Isles, and Australasia. Taylor’s participation in the South African revival made him an evangelical celebrity. The author also follows Taylor’s important visits to India and South America, where he initiated new Methodist missions in those contexts and pioneered the concept of “tentmaking” missions. In 1884, Taylor was elected missionary bishop of Africa by his church. By the end of his life, Taylor had recruited or inspired hundreds of Methodists to become foreign missionaries.

John Wesley and George Whitefield are remembered as founders of Methodism, one of the most influential movements in the history of modern Christianity. Characterized by open-air and itinerant preaching, eighteenth-century Methodism was a divisive phenomenon, which attracted a torrent of printed opposition, especially from Anglican clergymen. Yet, most of these opponents have been virtually forgotten. Anti-Methodism and Theological Controversy in Eighteenth-Century England is the first large-scale examination of the theological ideas of early anti-Methodist authors. By illuminating a very different perspective on Methodism, Simon Lewis provides a fundamental reappraisal of the eighteenth-century Church of England and its doctrinal priorities. For anti-Methodist authors, attacking Wesley and Whitefield was part of a wider defence of 'true religion', which demonstrates the theological vitality of the much-derided Georgian Church. This book, therefore, places Methodism firmly in its contemporary theological context, as part of the Church of England's continuing struggle to define itself theologically.

Originally a sect within the Anglican church, Methodism blossomed into a dominant mainstream religion in America during the nineteenth century. At the beginning, though, Methodists constituted a dissenting religious group whose ideas about sexuality, marriage, and family were very different from those of their contemporaries. Focusing on the Methodist notion of family that cut across biological ties, One Family Under God speaks to historical debates over the meaning of family and how the nuclear family model developed over the eighteenth century. Historian Anna M. Lawrence demonstrates that Methodists adopted flexible definitions of affection and allegiance and emphasized extended communal associations that enabled them to incorporate people outside the traditional boundaries of family. They used the language of romantic, ecstatic love to describe their religious feelings and the language of the nuclear family to describe their bonds to one another. In this way, early Methodism provides a useful lens for exploring eighteenth-century modes of family, love, and authority, as Methodists grappled with the limits of familial and social authority in their extended religious family. Methodists also married and formed conjugal families within this larger spiritual framework. Evangelical modes of marriage called for careful, slow courtships, and often marriages happened later in life and produced fewer children. Religious views of the family offered alternatives to traditional coupling and marriage—through celibacy, spiritual service, and the idea of finding one's true spiritual match, which both challenged the role of parental authority within marriage-making and accelerated the turn within the larger society toward romantic marriage. By examining the language and practice of evangelical sexuality and family, One Family Under God highlights how the Methodist movement in the eighteenth century was central to the rise of romantic marriage and the formation of the modern family.

Tensions between Protestantism and Catholicism dominated politics in nineteenth-century Canada, occasionally erupting into violence. While some liberal politicians and community leaders believed that equal treatment of Protestants and Catholics would defuse these ancient quarrels, other Protestant liberals perceived a battle for the soul of the nation. Protestant Liberty offers a new interpretation of nineteenth-century liberalism by re-examining the role of religion in Canadian politics. While this era’s liberal thought is often characterized as being neutral toward religion, James Forbes argues that the origins of Canadian liberalism were firmly rooted in the British tradition of Protestantism and were based on the premise of guarding against the advance of supposedly illiberal faiths, especially Catholicism. After the union of Upper Canada with predominantly French-Catholic Lower Canada in 1840, this Protestant ideal of liberty came into conflict with a more neutral alternative that sought to strip liberalism of its religious associations in order to appeal to Catholic voters and allies. In a decisive break from their Protestant heritage, these liberals redefined their ideology in secular-materialist terms by emphasizing free trade and private property over faith and culture. In tracing how the Confederation generation competed to establish a unifying vision for the nation, Protestant Liberty reveals religion and religious differences at the centre of this story.