Encoding Methodism: Telling and Retelling Narratives of Wesleyan Origins

Methodists love to tell the story and Methodist churches have consistently told and re-told the narrative of their eighteenth-century founding by John (and sometimes Charles) Wesley as a way of describing the distinctive identity of their religious communities. This book offers a comprehensive and critically documented account of the development of these narratives of Wesleyan origins and the ways in which they attempted to describe or encode the identity of Wesleyan/Methodist communities. This is not a cynical account of how interpreters have simply written their own agenda into the narrative (and that has happened); rather it shows in many cases how the unique position and contexts of narrators have enabled them to see things that really happened in the eighteenth-century Wesleyan movement. How do communities transmit their identities across generations? One way is to tell narratives of their origins. This book examines how Wesleyan and Methodist communities have told and re-told narratives of their origins to encode and transmit their communal identities across generations.

About the Author :
Ted A. Campbell is Professor of Church History, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas.

Review :
Ted Campbell's Encoding Methodism is a brilliantly imaginative way of examining Methodist identity from the Wesleys to the present day. It is consistently readable, interesting, and thought-provoking, and will be essential reading for those interested in Methodism in the USA and Britain. --William Gibson, Director of the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History, Oxford Brookes University, UK A central task of each generation is to assess the adequacy and fruitfulness of the dominant narrative passed down to them, often reshaping that narrative in the process. Ted Campbell here sheds helpful light on this process in general, and on the broad trajectory in which the process played out in North American Methodism. Highly recommended. --Randy L. Maddox, William Kellon Quick Professor of Wesleyan and Methodist Studies, Duke Divinity School Beginning with Wesley's own narratives, Ted Campbell invites the reader into the successive retellings of the Methodist story, identifies recurrent narrative purposive themes, and so makes historical accounts into a fresh and highly readable study of Methodism's evolution. --Russell E. Richey, William R. Cannon Distinguished Professor of Church History Emeritus, Emory University Asking the question, "Who owns John Wesley?" Ted Campbell uses the metaphor of re-usable computer code to show the ways in which people have construed the narrative of Methodist origins. Campbell puts into perspective many of the key authors whose ideas have shaped Methodist self-understanding since 1739. This is a very helpful narrative of Methodism in its own right. --Scott J. Jones, Bishop of the Texas Annual Conference, The United Methodist Church Ted Campbell's broad overview of continuity and change in the main historical narratives about Methodism both enlightens and provokes reflection. He demonstrates how these narratives range widely from triumphalism, on one end of the spectrum, to quests for objectivity and critical reflection, on the other. --Ulrike Schuler, Professor of Church History, Methodism, and Ecumenism at the Reutlingen School of Theology, Germany