Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: ssc-bee!ssc-vax!carroll@cs.washington.edu (Jeff Carroll) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Wesleyan Church Message-ID: Date: 25 Jun 91 07:43:19 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Boeing Aerospace & Electronics Lines: 39 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article rb65@prism.gatech.edu (Butera, Robert J.) writes: >What is the Wesleyan Church? I've seen a few here in Atlanta and in >listings in the newspapers. How does it differ from the United Methodist >Church in terms of things like organizational structure, baptism, liturgy, >etc? Is it another church that approaches christianity based upon the >teachings of Wesley but didn't want to affiliate with the UMC (just as >there are various Baptist Conventions)? As Mr. Hedrick pointed out, the Wesleyan Church is the descendant of a couple of 19th century Methodist splinter groups. Other Methodist splinter groups include the Primitive Methodists (which, ironically, is today rather closely affiliated with the remnant of the United Brethren that didn't wind up in the UMC), the Free Methodists, and the Church of the Nazarene. The UMC was formed in 1968 as a merger of The Methodist Church (whose post-Civil War reunion took place in 1939), and the Evangelical United Brethren (or EUB), itself the result of the 1945 merger of the Evangelical Association (?) and most of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ (which, as indicated above, split over the merger issue). The Wesleyans and Free Methodists publish a common hymnal which contains the liturgies used by both churches; they are similar to the official Order of Service published in the United Methodist hymnal but used by practically no United Methodist congregation today. Whether any of these groups can be said to be truly "Wesleyan" is subject to some debate; certainly the splinter groups are more like Wesley's practice, and more like the British Methodists, than is the UMC. Strong Calvinist influences came to Methodism early, though, in the person of George Whitefield and others, and IMO the most Wesley-like of contemporary personalities is the Rt. Rev. Mr. Michael Marshall, former Anglican bishop of Woolwich (the diocese which John A. T. Robinson once served), who now tours America as an evangelist from his base in St. Louis. -- Jeff Carroll carroll@ssc-vax.boeing.com