Textual Warfare and the Making of Methodism

Textual Warfare and the Making of Methodism PDF Author: Brett C. McInelly
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198708947
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
This study examines the satirical and polemical literature written in response to the 18th-century Methodist revival and the ways Methodists, who were acutely aware of the antagonism that tailed the revival, responded to this literature, both in public and in the ways they expressed and practiced their faith.

Textual Warfare and the Making of Methodism

Textual Warfare and the Making of Methodism PDF Author: Brett C. McInelly
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198708947
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book Here

Book Description
This study examines the satirical and polemical literature written in response to the 18th-century Methodist revival and the ways Methodists, who were acutely aware of the antagonism that tailed the revival, responded to this literature, both in public and in the ways they expressed and practiced their faith.

Methodism and the Rise of Popular Literary Criticism

Methodism and the Rise of Popular Literary Criticism PDF Author: Brett McInelly
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000888452
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 173

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Book Description
This book examines how Methodism and popular review criticism intersected with and informed each other in the eighteenth century. Methodism emerged at a time when the idea of a ‘public square’ was taking shape, a process facilitated by the periodical press. Perhaps more so than any previous religious movement, Methodism, and the publications associated with it, received greater scrutiny largely because of periodical literature and the emergence of popular review criticism. The book considers in particular how works addressing Methodism were discussed and critiqued in the era’s two leading literary periodicals – The Monthly Review and The Critical Review. Focusing on the period between 1749 and 1789, the study encompasses the formative years of popular review criticism and some of the more dramatic moments in the textual culture of early Methodism. The author illustrates some of the specific ways these review journals diverged in their critical approaches and sensibilities as well as their politics and religious opinions. The Monthly’s and the Critical’s responses to the Methodists’ own publishing efforts as well as the anti-Methodist critique are shown to be both multifaceted and complex. The book critically reflects on the pretended neutrality, reasonableness, and objectivity of reviewers, who at times found themselves negotiating between the desire to regulate literary tastes and the impulse to undermine the Methodist revival. It will be relevant to scholars of religion, history and literary studies with an interest in Methodism, print culture, and the eighteenth century.

Eighteenth-Century Women's Writing and the Methodist Media Revolution

Eighteenth-Century Women's Writing and the Methodist Media Revolution PDF Author: Andrew O. Winckles
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 1789624355
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
This book traces specific cases of how evangelical and Methodist discourse practices interacted with major cultural and literary events during the long eighteenth century, from the rise of the novel to the Revolution controversy of the 1790s to the shifting ground for women writers leading up to the Reform era in the 1830s.

Sex and the Church in the Long Eighteenth Century

Sex and the Church in the Long Eighteenth Century PDF Author: William Gibson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786721570
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 446

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Book Description
The Long Eighteenth Century was the Age of Revolutions, including the first sexual revolution. In this era, sexual toleration began and there was a marked increase in the discussion of morality, extra-marital sex, pornography and same-sex relationships in both print and visual culture media. William Gibson and Joanne Begiato here consider the ways in which the Church of England dealt with sex and sexuality in this period. Despite the backdrop of an increasingly secularising society, religion continued to play a key role in politics, family life and wider society and the eighteenth-century Church was still therefore a considerable force, especially in questions of morality. This book integrates themes of gender and sexuality into a broader understanding of the Church of England in the eighteenth century. It shows that, rather than distancing itself from sex through diminishing teaching, regulation and punishment, the Church not only paid attention to it, but its attitudes to sex and sexuality were at the core of society's reactions to the first sexual revolution.

Anti-Methodism and Theological Controversy in Eighteenth-Century England

Anti-Methodism and Theological Controversy in Eighteenth-Century England PDF Author: Simon Lewis
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192855751
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
John Wesley and George Whitefield are remembered as founders of Methodism, one of the most influential movements in the history of modern Christianity. Characterized by open-air and itinerant preaching, eighteenth-century Methodism was a divisive phenomenon, which attracted a torrent of printed opposition, especially from Anglican clergymen. Yet, most of these opponents have been virtually forgotten. Anti-Methodism and Theological Controversy in Eighteenth-Century England is the first large-scale examination of the theological ideas of early anti-Methodist authors. By illuminating a very different perspective on Methodism, Simon Lewis provides a fundamental reappraisal of the eighteenth-century Church of England and its doctrinal priorities. For anti-Methodist authors, attacking Wesley and Whitefield was part of a wider defence of 'true religion', which demonstrates the theological vitality of the much-derided Georgian Church. This book, therefore, places Methodism firmly in its contemporary theological context, as part of the Church of England's continuing struggle to define itself theologically.

Sensing Salvation in Early British Methodism

Sensing Salvation in Early British Methodism PDF Author: Erika K.R. Stalcup
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000988791
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description
This book examines the spiritual experiences of the first British Methodist lay people and the language used to describe those experiences. It reflects on physical manifestations such as shouting, weeping, groaning, visions, and out-of-body experiences and their role in the process of spiritual development. These experiences offer an intimate perspective on the surprisingly holistic origins of the evangelical revival. The study features autobiographical narratives and other first-hand manuscripts in which “ordinary” lay people recount their first impressions of Methodism, their conflicted feelings throughout the conversion process, their approach toward death and dying, and their mixed attitudes toward the task of writing itself. The book will be relevant to scholars of Methodism, evangelicalism and religious history as well as those interested in emotions and religious experience.

Romantic Fiction and Literary Excess in the Minerva Press Era

Romantic Fiction and Literary Excess in the Minerva Press Era PDF Author: Hannah Doherty Hudson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009321919
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
Jane Austen's ironic reference to 'the trash with which the press now groans' is only one of innumerable Romantic complaints about fiction's newly overwhelming presence. This book draws on evidence from over one hundred Romantic novels to explore the changes in publishing, reviewing, reading, and writing that accompanied the unprecedented growth in novel publication during the Romantic period. With particular focus on the infamous Minerva Press, the most prolific fiction-producer of the age, Hannah Hudson puts its popular authors in dialogue with writers such as Walter Scott, Ann Radcliffe, Maria Edgeworth, and William Godwin. Using paratextual materials including reviews, advertisements, and authorial prefaces, this book establishes the ubiquity of Romantic anxieties about literary 'excess', showing how beliefs about fictional overproduction created new literary hierarchies. Ultimately, Hudson argues that this so-called excess was a driving force in fictional experimentation and the advertising and publication practices that shaped the genre's reception. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

Wesley, Whitefield and the 'Free Grace' Controversy

Wesley, Whitefield and the 'Free Grace' Controversy PDF Author: Joel Houston
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 042984817X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
When approaching the most public disagreement over predestination in the eighteenth century, the ‘Free Grace’ controversy between John Wesley and George Whitefield, the tendency can be to simply review the event as a row over the same old issues. This assumption pervades much of the scholarly literature that deals with early Methodism. Moreover, much of that same literature addresses the dispute from John Wesley’s vantage point, often harbouring a bias towards his Evangelical Arminianism. Yet the question must be asked: was there more to the ‘Free Grace’ controversy than a simple rehashing of old arguments? This book answers this complex question by setting out the definitive account of the ‘Free Grace’ controversy in first decade of the Evangelical Revival (1739-49). Centred around the key players in the fracas, John Wesley and George Whitefield, it is a close analysis of the way in which the doctrine of predestination was instrumental in differentiating the early Methodist societies from one another. It recounts the controversy through the lens of doctrinal analysis and from two distinct perspectives: the propositional content of a given doctrine and how that doctrine exerts formative pressure upon the assenting individual(s). What emerges from this study is a clearer picture of the formative years of early Methodism and the vital role that doctrinal pronouncement played in giving a shape to early Methodist identity. It will, therefore, be of great interest to scholars of Methodism, Evangelicalism, Theology and Church History.

John Wesley's Political World

John Wesley's Political World PDF Author: Glen O’Brien
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000761479
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
This book employs a global history approach to John Wesley’s (1703–1791) political and social tracts. It stresses the personal element in Wesley’s political thought, focusing on the twin themes of ‘liberty and loyalty’. Wesley’s political writings reflect on the impact of global conflicts on Britain and provide insight into the political responses of the broader religious world of the eighteenth century. They cover such topics as the nature and origin of political power, economy, taxes, trade, opposition to slavery and to smuggling, British rule in Ireland, relaxation of anti-Catholic Acts, and the American Revolution. Glen O’Brien argues that Wesley’s political foundations were less theological than they were social and personal. Political engagement was exercised as part of a social contract held together by a compact of trust. The book contributes to eighteenth-century religious history, and to Wesley Studies in particular, through a fresh engagement with primary sources and recent secondary literature in order to place Wesley’s writings in their global political context.

The Limits of a Catholic Spirit

The Limits of a Catholic Spirit PDF Author: Kelly Diehl Yates
Publisher: Lutterworth Press
ISBN: 0718896599
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
The Limits of a Catholic Spirit presents an extraordinary, in-depth study of John Wesley's relationship with Catholicism, examining the limits to which Wesley, as an evangelical Protestant, practiced his ideal of a Catholic spirit. Through the use of rare primary sources from the National Archives, Kelly Diehl Yates provides a refreshing investigation of Wesley's interaction and strained relationship with Catholicism, taking the path less trodden in studies of his theology. While revisionist scholars argue that Wesley proposed principles of religious tolerance in his sermon, Catholic Spirit, Yates argues that he did not expect unity between Protestants and Catholics, remaining wedded to anti-Catholic beliefs himself. By paying attention to this previously unfilled gap in Wesley studies, Yates' exemplary historical and critical study tackles questions which have beset Wesley scholars for decades, including Wesley's relationship with the Jesuits, Jacobitism, the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots of 1780, and his time in Ireland. Grounded in historical case studies, Yates explores these questions from a fresh perspective, providing answers to these questions, and more.