These days, when outsiders consider Methodism, they tend to quickly assume that it is just withering away on its deathbed. But before checking for a pulse, observers ought to call to mind its history, particularly its vigorous beginnings. John Wesley preached to thousands from his fatherâ??s grave after being muzzled by the Anglican Church, and when the movement he spearheaded crossed the Atlantic, American Methodism spread on horseback as its dedicated circuit-riders expanded their territory along with the young nation. According to Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, in 1776, Methodists made up only a sliver of the religious pie, just some 2.5 percent of worshipers. By 1850, however, Methodism was by far the largest expression of Christianity in the United States, claiming over a third of all the nationâ??s religious adherents.
The faith, despite the splinters of the Civil War, would carry on with major place in American life for the next hundred years. But Prohibition would be Methodismâ??s last unified public triumphâ??and a short-lived one at thatâ??before internal disputes would begin to muddy its evangelistic and social witness. In 2007, Religion and American Politics rightly called the now ironically named United Methodist denomination â??the church of the large standard deviation.â?
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