Thread: Methodism Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by HCH (# 14313) on :
 
I am curious about what differences may exist between Methodism in the United States and Methodism in Britain. I suspect there are few doctrinal differences, but there may be differences in (for instance) liturgy.
 
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
I'm a former Methodist church steward (do you have those in the USA?) so my thoughts are from a layperson's perspective. There are probably lots of liturgical differences, but never having experienced American Methodist worship I wouldn't know much about that. I think we're probably more liturgical as a group than you are, but that's just a hunch.

I've read that the class meeting died out in the USA before (practically) dying out in the UK. I'm in early middle age, and there were at least two functioning class meetings at my former church over the past 20 years.

I've also been told that American Methodism makes far less use of local lay preachers. British Methodism wouldn't function without lay preachers. The lack of money and clergy means that many circuits (do you have circuits?) have merged over time. For the person in the pew, this basically means that the number of different (mostly lay) preachers passing through the pulpit gets greater and greater.

British and North American Methodism have both experienced gentrification and overexpansion over the past 150-odd years. They've had difficulty responding to modern conditions, and from a position of dominance they've declined considerably in the face of more dynamic denominations (+ secularisation, in the case of the UK). They both seem to be strong on social justice issues. British Methodism is usually on the centre left culturally, politically and theologically, although our most famous right wing Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, was raised a Methodist. We never really 'claimed' her - just as American Methodists never seemed to claim the right wing Methodist President, George W. Bush!
 
Posted by Rowen (# 1194) on :
 
There is a very small Wesleyan Methodist Church in Oz. I don't know how it works.
In the seventies, the Methodists joined in the formation of the Uniting Church here.
Then, everything changed, I guess.
 
Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I'm a former Methodist church steward (do you have those in the USA?) so my thoughts are from a layperson's perspective. There are probably lots of liturgical differences, but never having experienced American Methodist worship I wouldn't know much about that. I think we're probably more liturgical as a group than you are, but that's just a hunch.

...

I've also been told that American Methodism makes far less use of local lay preachers. British Methodism wouldn't function without lay preachers. The lack of money and clergy means that many circuits (do you have circuits?) have merged over time. For the person in the pew, this basically means that the number of different (mostly lay) preachers passing through the pulpit gets greater and greater.

British and North American Methodism have both experienced gentrification and overexpansion over the past 150-odd years. They've had difficulty responding to modern conditions, and from a position of dominance they've declined considerably in the face of more dynamic denominations (+ secularisation, in the case of the UK). They both seem to be strong on social justice issues. British Methodism is usually on the centre left culturally, politically and theologically, although our most famous right wing Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, was raised a Methodist. We never really 'claimed' her - just as American Methodists never seemed to claim the right wing Methodist President, George W. Bush!

There is no such thing is North American Methodism!!!

There is American Methodism and Canadian Methodism and both are very different. American Methodism has Bishops and is in fact more liturgical than British Methodism. Due to the American Revolution, American Methodists occupy the same niche that Low Church Anglicanism does in England. It's also why TEC is almost universally High.

After 1783 there were two choices: adhere to Mr. Wesley's Methodist interpretation with his bishops, or join the remnant Anglican faction which sought a "genuine" Anglican bishop. It wasn't clear that such would be provided until Sam Seabury called the Archbishop of Canterbury's cards by being ordained Bishop by the Scottish Episcopalians. Until then Canterbury had refused to ordain an American unless that person took an Oath of Loyalty to the Crown, which was an impossible position in the aftermath of the Revolutionary War.

Canadian Methodism was very different. Essentially there was an agreement in the 1840's to give Lower Canada (Quebec) to the Methodist Episcopalians (American-style) and Upper Canada (Ontario) to the Wesleyan Methodists (British and Bishopless). Lower Canada contained a French Catholic majority and so wasn't fertile ground; Upper Canada was English and Protestant and grew much faster, thus the Wesleyan Methodists got the upper hand.

"Methodist Reunion" happened in Canada in 1885. In 1925 the Methodist Church of Canada, Newfoundland & Bermuda agreed to merge with the Presbyterian Church in Canada and the Congregationalist Union of Canada to form the United Church of Canada. 30% of Presbyterians dissented and stayed out.

Oz copied us in 1977.

Canadian Methodism was always much more British than American Methodism. Per my sig, the United Church of Canada has always been proudly Leftist, you can pry the Social Gospel from our cold, dead hands! The Left in Canada got its start from the Social Gospel. The United Church of Canada is known as the NDP-at-Prayer for a reason.
 
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
Thank you for your history lesson!

I wasn't claiming that Canadian and American Methodism were one and the same thing. I had in mind a general sense that Methodism in the USA and in Canada share some of the same problems as British Methodism. My source is the work of the historian David Hempton.

[ 01. March 2013, 00:49: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
 
Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :
 
I haven't heard of the historian, but Canada formed the first United Church* in 1925 and I can tell you from experience here on the Ship that that's a fact that just doesn't compute in England or in the US.

Which is why I sound like a Methodist who ate one to many oatcakes and turned Presbyterian or a Presbyterian who went to one to many Methodist tea party. The blank stares, I tell you....

The United Church ditched Circuits in 1925. The Presbyterians didn't have them and the Methodists felt the system was turning into a farce. Rich, large churches always got their pick and rural, small churches always got the dregs. So we went to a Call system, except you had to be Settled on ordination.

Sure, the United Church has shrunk, but maybe it has just boiled down to its firm base. Before the Baby Boom, the suburbs and post-war prosperity, our membership numbers and those of our predecessor churches were decidedly choppy.

The United Church IS Hymn Sandwich Protestantism. I'm the Elder in charge of the Worship Committee and I know that people come to our church because we have a good Sunday School, a decent Minister who is a good Preacher and the hymns that people remember and therefore make them feel comfortable. We're a family church and proud of it. It works for us. There are lots of churches like us.

*Prussia doesn't count, they didn't have a single confession and there were confessional barriers between various parishes. The United Church of Canada has a single confession and no barriers.
 
Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :
 
quote:
I've also been told that American Methodism makes far less use of local lay preachers.
A few are rumored to exist. Much more common is the "lay speaker" who is by virtue of one 12-hour course is authorized to give a sermon (run the whole Sunday morning show) in his/her own church (if the pastor invites), or by taking another 12 hour course is authorized to be invited to do the sermon (whole morning show) in any church in the district.

In real life, pastors invite whoever they want to fill in if pastor will be gone, "lay speaker" status not needed, and the few I've chatted with discourage seeking lay speaker status, "we don't need that."
quote:
They've had difficulty responding to modern conditions, and from a position of dominance they've declined considerably
some outspokenly want to go back to the 1950s, others want to modernize but aren't sure what that means
quote:
the face of more dynamic denominations
music director thinks if we had drums in the band people would come. i.e. they're not understanding the loss and groping for reasons.
quote:
British Methodism is usually on the centre left culturally, politically and theologically,
theologically yes, but politically & culturally? Maybe depends where you live. In this Texas town, Republican; and national or was it international recently voted against ordaining gays.
 
Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:

After 1783 there were two choices: adhere to Mr. Wesley's Methodist interpretation with his bishops, or join the remnant Anglican faction which sought a "genuine" Anglican bishop. It wasn't clear that such would be provided until Sam Seabury called the Archbishop of Canterbury's cards by being ordained Bishop by the Scottish Episcopalians. Until then Canterbury had refused to ordain an American unless that person took an Oath of Loyalty to the Crown, which was an impossible position in the aftermath of the Revolutionary War.

I think it was the bishop of London who ordained foreign and colonial clergy, not Canterbury. And the unsurmountable problem wasn't so much the oath of loyalty to the crown - they at least sometimes ordained priests who were not British subjects and no doubt could have stretched a point, maybe by waiting a few months for the treaty that formally ended the war, or finding some other workaround - it was that the bishop had no legal right to invent new bishoprics, or appoint men to existing ones, whether in England or abroad, whether loyal or not. In the rather Erastian 18th century it was the government that did things like that, not the Church of England itself. One of the bad things about having an established church.

The wheels of government grind even slower than the church and they didn't come round to the idea of American bishops till 1787, when they set up the diocese of Nova Scotia. And by that time the British government no longer claimed the legal right to appoint bishops in the USA because it now recognised them as independent.
 
Posted by Phin Aaronson (# 16721) on :
 
This is my first reply but I couldn't resist the topic. I am a UMC member (clergy), and in the USA south east. In the more rural parts of the UMC we do have lay preachers, called local pastors and many of these serve circuits. In fact in our area, we are beginning to follow a model that sounds much more like the British style with a senior, ordained clergy and multiple lay preachers. A lay speaker is a lay person who regularly does not speak in churches, but fills in at times. A local preacher/pastor is a lay person with training who is licensed and appointed by the bishop. Still most churches are served by a single, ordained clergy.

Our churches are all over the board liturgically. Some have weekly communion (like mine), some opt for monthly or even quarterly communion. Some use hymns and organs, some use only piano, some use a band of some type and more modern music. Increasingly, churches do all of the above musically (this is what my church does in two Sunday morning services).

Theologically, we all over the board, too. In my part of the US, the church tends to be conservative--and the majority of the UMC is to be found in the south east and south central parts of the US. Other parts of the US are more moderate to liberal in theology. But there is a strong commitment to mission that runs through the church. Our bishop (curent bishop is female, previous bishop was African American male)is leading the drive for our conference to raise $1 million for malaria relief.

From about 1800 till 1900 the Methodist Church was the largest church in the US. With the influx of immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries the Roman Catholic Church grew quite large, and Methodism is now in 3rd place over all in size.
 
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
The wheels of government grind even slower than the church and they didn't come round to the idea of American bishops till 1787, when they set up the diocese of Nova Scotia. And by that time the British government no longer claimed the legal right to appoint bishops in the USA because it now recognised them as independent.

Didn't they try sending over a bishop before the Revolution? The Congregationalists gathered at the dock to put on a riot and he simply got back on the ship and went home.
 
Posted by Angel Wrestler (# 13673) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I'm a former Methodist church steward (do you have those in the USA?) so my thoughts are from a layperson's perspective. ... snip ...
...

I've also been told that American Methodism makes far less use of local lay preachers. British Methodism wouldn't function without lay preachers. The lack of money and clergy means that many circuits (do you have circuits?) have merged over time. ... snip ...

British and North American Methodism have both experienced gentrification and overexpansion over the past 150-odd years. They've had difficulty responding to modern conditions, and from a position of dominance they've declined considerably in the face of more dynamic denominations (+ secularisation, in the case of the UK). They both seem to be strong on social justice issues. British Methodism is usually on the centre left culturally, politically and theologically, although our most famous right wing Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, was raised a Methodist. We never really 'claimed' her - just as American Methodists never seemed to claim the right wing Methodist President, George W. Bush!

There is no such thing is North American Methodism!!!

There is American Methodism and Canadian Methodism and both are very different. American Methodism has Bishops and is in fact more liturgical than British Methodism. Due to the American Revolution, American Methodists occupy the same niche that Low Church Anglicanism does in England. It's also why TEC is almost universally High.

After 1783 there were two choices: adhere to Mr. Wesley's Methodist interpretation with his bishops, or join the remnant Anglican faction which sought a "genuine" Anglican bishop. It wasn't clear that such would be provided until Sam Seabury called the Archbishop of Canterbury's cards by being ordained Bishop by the Scottish Episcopalians. Until then Canterbury had refused to ordain an American unless that person took an Oath of Loyalty to the Crown, which was an impossible position in the aftermath of the Revolutionary War.

Canadian Methodism was very different. Essentially there was an agreement in the 1840's to give Lower Canada (Quebec) to the Methodist Episcopalians (American-style) and Upper Canada (Ontario) to the Wesleyan Methodists (British and Bishopless). Lower Canada contained a French Catholic majority and so wasn't fertile ground; Upper Canada was English and Protestant and grew much faster, thus the Wesleyan Methodists got the upper hand.

"Methodist Reunion" happened in Canada in 1885. In 1925 the Methodist Church of Canada, Newfoundland & Bermuda agreed to merge with the Presbyterian Church in Canada and the Congregationalist Union of Canada to form the United Church of Canada. 30% of Presbyterians dissented and stayed out.

Oz copied us in 1977.

Canadian Methodism was always much more British than American Methodism. Per my sig, the United Church of Canada has always been proudly Leftist, you can pry the Social Gospel from our cold, dead hands! The Left in Canada got its start from the Social Gospel. The United Church of Canada is known as the NDP-at-Prayer for a reason.

I have only a few minutes, but I'm going to take a stab at responding:

I disagree that American Methodism is more liturgical. Perhaps some in urban areas are, but there are lots of country churches who are as catholophobic as can be and find liturgical practices at best unnecessary and, at worst, unholy. I served a circuit (yes, we have circuits in the US, though fewer and fewer as them as the number of part-time licensed pastors is on the rise) way out in the country and when I asked them what they usually did for Palm Sunday, they didn't even know what Palm Sunday was and grumbled about doing anything at all.

In the US, the Methodist movement spread through Sunday schools rather than "classes." Sunday schools were able to meet weekly or every other week. There were yearly camp meetings, too, that helped spread the movement and the focus on evangelism that was prevalent during that time. It was for lack of enough ordained clergy that celebrating communion was rare (quarterly).

The church started dividing relatively parallel to American history, especially around the issue of slavery. The church (then called The Methodist Episcopal Church) officially stood against slavery, but laypeople in the South owned slaves and/or advocated for so-called states' rights, which also meant they wanted their Southern churches to be sort of states' rights, or self-governing along state lines.

and it goes on from there. The churches are different because our national histories are different.
 
Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :
 
American Methodist services I have seen on Youtube feature acolytes in albs and crucifers. The United Church of Canada doesn't run to crucifers and the only people in robes are Ministers of Word & Sacrament.

But yes, Methodism also also invented the Camp Revival and other delights.
 
Posted by Circuit Rider (# 13088) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Phin Aaronson:
This is my first reply but I couldn't resist the topic. I am a UMC member (clergy), and in the USA south east. In the more rural parts of the UMC we do have lay preachers, called local pastors and many of these serve circuits. In fact in our area, we are beginning to follow a model that sounds much more like the British style with a senior, ordained clergy and multiple lay preachers. A lay speaker is a lay person who regularly does not speak in churches, but fills in at times. A local preacher/pastor is a lay person with training who is licensed and appointed by the bishop. Still most churches are served by a single, ordained clergy.

Our churches are all over the board liturgically. Some have weekly communion (like mine), some opt for monthly or even quarterly communion. Some use hymns and organs, some use only piano, some use a band of some type and more modern music. Increasingly, churches do all of the above musically (this is what my church does in two Sunday morning services).

Theologically, we all over the board, too. In my part of the US, the church tends to be conservative--and the majority of the UMC is to be found in the south east and south central parts of the US. Other parts of the US are more moderate to liberal in theology. But there is a strong commitment to mission that runs through the church. Our bishop (curent bishop is female, previous bishop was African American male)is leading the drive for our conference to raise $1 million for malaria relief.

From about 1800 till 1900 the Methodist Church was the largest church in the US. With the influx of immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries the Roman Catholic Church grew quite large, and Methodism is now in 3rd place over all in size.

Welcome to the Ship, Phin Aaronson. Your description of your bishops tells me you are not very far from me. Watch for an announcement of a Shipmeet in Nashville and meet us some time.

We are indeed all over the board, liturgically and theologically. Personally I would like to see just a little more consistency at least in liturgy. I heard Dick Heitzenrater say we are the only church with a prescribed liturgy no one is required to use. I believe it.

The biggest difference I have observed between British Methodism and American Methodism is that the American church has bishops who ordain clergy and appoint them to their charges.

Wesley never intended for us to have bishops, but when he ordained Coke a superintendent of the work in America, and sent him to so ordain Asbury to the same, Asbury began calling himself bishop, and named the new church the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Charles Wesley was furious that John had taken it on himself to ordain Coke, and wrote the following lines in protest:

quote:
How easily are bishops made,
by men's and women's whim.
Wesley on Coke his hands hath laid,
but who hath laid hands on him?

For his part, John Wesley did what he did very reluctantly, and only after the bishop of London refused to ordain priests for the work in America, and elders were needed to celebrate the sacraments in the new church.

The other difference is the use of circuits in Britain. I think we need to get back to that here. Some conferences are experimenting with that, and in my conference we have two districts with some form of the circuit system.
 
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Circuit Rider:

The biggest difference I have observed between British Methodism and American Methodism is that the American church has bishops who ordain clergy and appoint them to their charges.

Wesley never intended for us to have bishops, but when he ordained Coke a superintendent of the work in America, and sent him to so ordain Asbury to the same, Asbury began calling himself bishop, and named the new church the Methodist Episcopal Church.

I live not too far from where Francis Asbury's childhood home still stands! He's not well-known in the UK, but his local, transatlantic and Methodist connections make him a character I'd love to know more about.

quote:

The other difference is the use of circuits in Britain. I think we need to get back to that here. Some conferences are experimenting with that, and in my conference we have two districts with some form of the circuit system.

Can you say what you think you'd gain from adopting the use of circuits?
 
Posted by daisymay (# 1480) on :
 
And are both areas of Methodism still not allowing alcohol? My grandad was Wesley and always told us not to have alcohol, at home, with friends, as well as for communion.
 
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on :
 
The ban is still in effect on Church premises. That includes the communion wine and individual glasses.

Which is a pity. The common cup makes more theological sense.

But what individuals do off-site is their business / conviction. UK Methodism that is.

[ 03. March 2013, 08:10: Message edited by: shamwari ]
 
Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
SPK

Actually the camp revival predates Methodism. It is an take on the old Scottish Communion season under the influence of revival. The week preceding communion was taken up with a meeting, often in the open air when preachers would preach to people to prepare their souls to take communion. People typically also fasted on the Friday. It is not very hard to get from that to a camp revival.

You also need to remember that the Evangelical Revival in America was centred on the New England Puritans not the Methodists.

Jengie
 
Posted by seasick (# 48) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
The ban is still in effect on Church premises. That includes the communion wine and individual glasses.

Which is a pity. The common cup makes more theological sense.

But what individuals do off-site is their business / conviction. UK Methodism that is.

It doesn't require individual glasses though - they are just custom. I have been to several communion services using non-alcoholic wine/grape juice from a common cup. The infection risks are minimal compared to all the other ones encounter in travelling to and from church and sitting in a room with a crowd of people for an hour (or so).
 
Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
The ban is still in effect on Church premises. That includes the communion wine and individual glasses.

Which is a pity. The common cup makes more theological sense.

But what individuals do off-site is their business / conviction. UK Methodism that is.

Methodist church parties I've been to have ample wine. (Surprised me, when I was a kid Methodists were known for no alcohol, no card playing etc.) Local church is working hard to ditch the separate glasses; as a kid I was taught common cup is OK because wine is a germ killer and silver is a germ killer. But local TEC is using pottery cup instead of silver in some services, and local Methodist church is using pottery cup with juice. I have a weak immune system so I usually don't do communion anymore.

If we aren't supposed to share a water bottle with a friend, why is it OK to share with 50 strangers?
 
Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :
 
Bloor St. United Church in Toronto has the option of wine and grape juice, but most of our shacks do grape juice.

There is a wonderful old Methodist place in the far Toronto suburbs called Temperanceville United Church.
 
Posted by Merchant Trader (# 9007) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
I am curious about what differences may exist between Methodism in the United States and Methodism in Britain. I suspect there are few doctrinal differences, but there may be differences in (for instance) liturgy.

Although numbers are declining in the US, there are still about 7.5 million members and it is one of the major influential Protestant denominations with large churches in most communities. In contrast it has less the quarter a million members in the UK and are a much smaller proportion of the population and of church going folk. The church I attend when visiting Houston has a large membership and operation budget , so the look and feel of the Methodist church in the community is very different. On gets a sense of a confident vibrant community who are fully engaged with the local community enjoying a status in society only matched in the UK by the Anglican church many moons ago.

In addition the services are more liturgical than many Cof E services in the UK and I suspect more comfortable for English Anglicans than our domestic variety.

Although these may not be doctrinal differences the whole character of the church feels different to this observer from the outside.
 
Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :
 
Methodism here was very strongly temperance, and that continued into the Uniting Church. (The Presbyterian strand took an entirely different stance and you could always tell the UC congregations which had a strong element of transferring Presbyterians).
 
Posted by lowlands_boy (# 12497) on :
 
What Merchant Trader said. I'm a UK Methodist heavily involved in my local church and circuit. A few years ago I was in New York city for work for a couple of weeks, and attended a service at Park Avenue Methodist Church . I was quite surprised to find the service opening with a robed choir processing in behind the cross with the minister and others. Quite "high Anglican" by UK Methodist standards.

It was a very pleasant service though - I could recognise it as being quite Methodist once it got going.
 
Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
SPK

Actually the camp revival predates Methodism. It is an take on the old Scottish Communion season under the influence of revival. The week preceding communion was taken up with a meeting, often in the open air when preachers would preach to people to prepare their souls to take communion. People typically also fasted on the Friday. It is not very hard to get from that to a camp revival.

You also need to remember that the Evangelical Revival in America was centred on the New England Puritans not the Methodists.

Jengie

New England Puritans and their Congegrationalist descendants were very rare on the ground in Canada. There were only 500 Congregational churches in 1925, compared to 1500+ each for the Presbyterians and the Methodists.

The First Revival in the US also had minimal impact in Canada. Methodism was the favoured "enthusiast" strain in Upper Canada and Lower Canada's French population were Catholic, period. 50% of the settlers 1795 - 1830 in Upper Canada were Methodist. I live in the Bay of Quinte Tract, which had more Methodist churches then was really called for.
 
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lowlands_boy:
What Merchant Trader said. I'm a UK Methodist heavily involved in my local church and circuit. A few years ago I was in New York city for work for a couple of weeks, and attended a service at Park Avenue Methodist Church . I was quite surprised to find the service opening with a robed choir processing in behind the cross with the minister and others. Quite "high Anglican" by UK Methodist standards.

It was a very pleasant service though - I could recognise it as being quite Methodist once it got going.

That's interesting.

Some commentators find that the British circuit system, which requires a fairly high degree of interdependence among Methodist churches in a given region, acts as a break on individual congregations, preventing them from veering off into seriously high church or effervescent charismatic territory. A congregation has to be quite self-confident, and probably well-stocked with its own lay preachers, to seek to develop a worshipping culture that's significantly different from the Methodist churches in the rest of the circuit.

In the USA, by contrast, it seems that an individual Methodsit church can develop in a 'high Anglican' direction or in a very charismatic-evangelical direction without presenting so much of a challenge to other local Methodist churches. Maybe the greater distances involved in the USA also makes churches more distinct from each other.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
The Camp Revival thing is interesting ... Jengie's right (as ever), the antecedents of it predate Methodism and there were Scottish examples. In fact, the Cambuslang Revival (or the Cambuslang Wark (Work)) seems to have been kicked off when revivalism ignited from one of the traditional Scottish outdoor communion services.

The Camp Meeting thing took on a particularly 'frontier' feel in America and was imported back to the UK by Lorenzo Dow, a rather eccentric figure and was adopted by Hugh Bourne and William Clowes up on the slopes of Mow Cop - not five miles from where I'm typing. The Primitive Methodist connexion derived from those early camp meetings in 1807.

The local Wesleyans wanted nothing to do with these innovations and thought that 'much mischief would derive' from the practice.

This is still quite a strongly Methodist area, although congregations are ageing alarmingly.
 
Posted by LQ (# 11596) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
"Methodist Reunion" happened in Canada in 1885.

Indeed, the merger of Victoria and Albert Universities into the former's campus at Cobourg happened at that time. Albert, the Methodist Episcopal college, remained in Belleville as a private high school. The move to Toronto wouldn't come until the following decade, after Vic opted to enter the provincial university federation.

SPK is right about the brand: apart from certain Holiness sects, the only "Methodist" churches as such are those of historically black denominations such as the British Methodist Episcopal Church. Their Toronto congregation's old church building burned down in mysterious circumstances, in one of the city's oddest crimes, never solved. Frankly, I'm surprised it hasn't yet been a made-for-CTV Sunday night movie.
 
Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :
 
The only Methodists around here who stayed out of the Methodist Church of Canada, Newfoundland & Bermuda merger in 1885 were the Free Methodists and the BME's. I have Freem relatives in my family, my great-great grandfather was a Free Methodist preacher.

I love the British Methodist Episcopals, there is another one of their churches outside of Orillia. The BME's are historically an Ontario-based church catering to fugitive slaves and their descendants.

The other large Black population in Canada before the 1960's was in Nova Scotia. These were Black Loyalists and their descendants are mainly Baptist and Seventh-Day Adventist.

Fugitive Slaves were an important part of Ontario's history but their physical legacy is fleeting, unfortunately. Churches were by far the greatest physical testament left by the community. The majority of refugee slaves returned to the US during the Civil War & Reconstruction, though 30% stayed here.

Amazingly, it wasn't until 1985 that archaeologists confirmed an Underground Railroad site in Canada, prior to then there was no physical legacy of that movement. The lead archaeologist wrote "I've Got a Home in Glory Land", a biography of Thornton & Lucy Blackburn, runaways from Kentucky. It's the first full biography of an enslaved Black American published since the Civil War.
 


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