TY - JOUR
T1 - From Abolitionists to Fundamentalists: The transformation of the Wesleyan Methodists in the nineteenth and twentieth Centuries
AU - Stephens, Randall
PY - 2015/10/16
Y1 - 2015/10/16
N2 - This article analyzes the cultural trajectory of a small, but influential denomination that formed in 1843. Wesleyan Methodism first emerged as an abolitionist protest against the Methodist compromise with slavery. It drew in members who championed a range of antebellum social reforms, including abolitionism, pacifism, women’s rights, and temperance. By the early 20th century Wesleyans would become closely identified with fundamentalism, waging war against modernism, championing personal holiness, and maintaining a militant brand of protestant orthodoxy. This article places Wesleyans within a larger religious and cultural context of the Civil War era and the late 19th century disenchantment of the Gilded Age and Progressive Eras. It also traces the reasons for the Wesleyans shifting focus away from social reform and toward matters of personal holiness.
AB - This article analyzes the cultural trajectory of a small, but influential denomination that formed in 1843. Wesleyan Methodism first emerged as an abolitionist protest against the Methodist compromise with slavery. It drew in members who championed a range of antebellum social reforms, including abolitionism, pacifism, women’s rights, and temperance. By the early 20th century Wesleyans would become closely identified with fundamentalism, waging war against modernism, championing personal holiness, and maintaining a militant brand of protestant orthodoxy. This article places Wesleyans within a larger religious and cultural context of the Civil War era and the late 19th century disenchantment of the Gilded Age and Progressive Eras. It also traces the reasons for the Wesleyans shifting focus away from social reform and toward matters of personal holiness.
KW - Abolitionism
KW - fundamentalism
KW - holiness movement
KW - Wesleyan Methodist Connection
KW - religion and the Civil War
U2 - 10.1080/14664658.2015.1078141
DO - 10.1080/14664658.2015.1078141
M3 - Article
VL - 16
SP - 159
EP - 191
JO - American Nineteenth Century History
JF - American Nineteenth Century History
SN - 1466-4658
IS - 2
ER -