Questions about Wesleyan Denominations

[Duvduv]

I have been reading and watching alot about John Wesley and the different churches. It seems to me that Wesley and Whitfield were teaching in a way that did not emphasize structure, ritual, hierarchies of authority, etc. but rather simple faith and moved away from the Anglican system that resembled the Roman Catholic/Orthodox one. If the Methodists initiated camp preaching in the fields and traveling preachers, etc., how is it that the Methodist church has bishops, Anglican style rituals, structures, etc., ? I think it is the case that the Wesleyan and Nazarene church have not taken on all the structures of the Anglican church.

Also, I am not sure I understand exactly the differences between the Wesleyan Church, the Nazarene Church and the regular Methodist Church today. Do they disagree on what some might call subtle and obscure questions of theology or church structure?

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

John Wesley did not set out to create a new Church, but to reform Anglicanism. By allowing lay-preachers and eventually ordaining preachers for frontier regions with a lack of ministers, his movement parted ways with the Anglicans, but never repudiated episcopalianism therefore.

Methodism has always had a loose structure, in that most Churches are essentially on their own, except combined with each other in Connexion (spelled that way as before the later spelling was standardised) for mutual support. As such, while Schisms and the like did occur now and then, many Methodists churches with different names and the like, mesh seamlessly - as the World Methodist Council shows. It is not a ready mark of disagreement or disunity then, but rather the loose federated nature that Methodism has always adopted. Methodism never attempted to create an overarching united Denomination, so new groups fissioned as the need arose.

*with the caveat that I am not a Methodist, so based on my understanding of them and their history.

 

[Duvduv]

How did it happen that the "Holiness" movement was considered a separate church from the "Wesleyan" Methodist church if the Holiness idea was one of the teachings of Wesley himself? And why did the Anglican church not accept the ideas of Wesley?

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Wesley never left the Anglicans himself, so as far as I can see, Anglicanism never strenuously objected to Methodism. They even have Wesley in their cycle of commemorations. It was more a divorce lead by the Methodist societies feeling constrained by the Institutionalism of the Anglicans, by insistance on the Book of Common Prayer, and their tendency to develop parallel structures when the sanctioned Church failed to spread sufficiently or quickly enough into colonial and marginal areas, where Methodism thrived.

The Holiness movement is a different animal. It is not solely Methodist, although often of Methodist sprung. Non-Methodist Calvinists, Anabaptists and the Perfectionism of the Friends also played a part. It cut somewhat across denomination, so most Holiness groups arose out of other denominations, while many proponents remained within the loose Methodist structure. The border is blurry, not a clear one.

 

[Duvduv]

I thought it was John Wesley or Wesley and Whitefield who originally incorporated the Holiness idea into their more spiritual path.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

I thought it was John Wesley or Wesley and Whitefield who originally incorporated the Holiness idea into their more spiritual path.

While Wesley did stress Sanctification, and Arminianism has always been strong in Methodism, the Holiness Movement is a later 19th century offshoot partially from Methodism. The Perfectionism of the Quakers is quite similar, and this arose in a 17th century context. In many ways, this idea goes back even further to Pelagianism, that we can somehow choose to be good in contravention of our natures, though the Holiness crowd at least acknowledges it as secondary to Salvation via Grace. It is a species of the dispute between Grace and Works in Western Christianity in some way. Regardless, the Holiness Movement arose from Methodism as well as other groups, and the ideas inherent therein are old ones in Christianity - Wesley was not an innovator, but a Reformer, just drawing on other parts of his Christian legacy - just as Calvin and Luther hark back to Augustine and Jerome.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

@Duvduv a relevant thread, perhaps sparked by this one.

John Wesley and Holiness.

 

[Duvduv]

I know there was a direct influence into the Pentacostal denominations, but to what extent did John Wesley and George Whitefield etc. and the original Methodists influence the subsequent denominations of the Baptists and Restorationist churches, especially in the area of outreach to the less privileged elements of society?