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The populist roots of methodism
By J. Steven O'Malley

A review of Riley B. Case's Evangelical and Methodist;
A Popular History (Abingdon, 2003)

Of the many historical interpretations of American Methodism, we now have one that tells the story of the populist, evangelical mainstream within a denomination that was long distinguished as the largest in the United States. The reason why this story has not been told earlier is probably to be found within the domain of ecclesiastical politics, but both the author and Abingdon are to be commended for making it available at last. The fact that it appears now is likely a tribute to the sheer weight of the evangelical presence within current United Methodism, as measured in terms of the increasing population within congregations, conferences, and educational institutions which own that allegiance.

Using the research of scholars such as Ernst Troeltsch and Reinhold Niebuhr, and, more recently, that of Rodney Stark and Roger Finke (The Churching of America), Riley B. Case seeks to answer important questions. Can a reverse-movement from "low intensity" back to "high intensity" religion occur in United Methodism-if not through official institutional channels, then by the route of a populist movement in the pews? To what extent has the grassroots renewal encompassing Good News and the Confessing Movement represented a successful means of realizing that outcome?

Case's narrative begins with the situation he found as a young pastor in his home conference (North Indiana), that serves to define the problem of the study. The chapters that follow seek to answer these questions. They do so by laying out a historical review of how "two Methodisms" emerged in America, and by tracing the grassroots efforts of the evangelical renewal movement in United Methodism that arose in the 1960s.

The author, being an insider in the unfolding of this story, is well qualified to understand and interpret the phenomenon and its detractors with empathy and insight. He also takes care to frame his discussion with a delineation of what is an evangelical Methodist, as distinct from other uses of that term (e.g., as in the German context, where "evangelical" has served as a synonym for "Protestant," or in the context of the dispensationalist movement of the nineteenth century). Rather, it is the populist wing of Methodism, which he characterizes as "unmediated" Christianity-not in the usual sense of mystical contemplation, but as democratic religion at the grassroots level, unfettered by the formalities of clerical or liturgical mediation. It was Scriptural Christianity lived out. In the post Civil War era, it rallied around the Wesleyan doctrine of holiness, amid challenges from an emerging bourgeoisie Methodism.

Case's historical introduction identifies evangelical, populist Methodism as the major force energizing and defining that denomination in the nineteenth century-the era of its definitive rise as the most geographically widespread, demographically numerous, and politically influential church body in the land. It was an era when the gospel-endued lay preacher-not the academy-set the pace. It was when the spiritual quality of lives contagiously caught up in living grace exceeded the intellectual articulation of their message. The author's judicious interpretation of his case, replete with appropriate documentation, makes clear to the reader that we are not dealing here in sentimental nostalgia or myopic illusion.

The case is made by the sheer weight of demographics. And those early Methodists were apparently not taking themselves or their achievements with undue seriousness. After all, they were being impelled by the weight of authentic, life-changing revival. They were more participants in a sovereign movement of grace than self-conscious instigators of social change. In short, their story is preeminently a witness to the finality of Jesus Christ in human affairs. Populist Methodism was preeminently a united Methodism that made family prayers in log cabins, frontier camp meetings, and church conferences into a seamless fabric and a contagious effusion of the life of God in human affairs.

Yet, when official interpretations of that story and official revisions of the church hymnal were commissioned after 1865, they increasingly featured Methodism not in terms of spirit and fervor so much as respectability and stability. This perceptual shift is convincingly demonstrated to have been both fabricated and self-serving. It opened the door for Methodism to go through other, and more troubling, makeovers in the years that followed. Such revisionism is especially apparent when considering the growing dominance of our colleges and seminaries.

The first venue to feel the impact of theological revisionism was the Sunday school curriculum, whereby Horace Bushnell's philosophy of "religious nurture" took full precedence over a biblical curriculum grounded in the Wesleyan theological distinctives of sin and atoning grace in Christ. Likewise, evidence is marshaled to demonstrate how Methodist schools that initially were charged with upholding the main business of the Church, the preaching of the gospel, shifted to a progressive view of education, presented under the guise of "freedom of inquiry," in which "belief would be seen as prejudice" and "doctrine as sectarian" (p. 145).

The ecclesiology of this "Gilded Age" perceived the Church to be less the unspotted bride of Christ and more the agent for creating a new social order that would be congruent with the canons of modern science, especially the social sciences, and an anthropology reflecting the optimism of the Enlightenment. In that context, popular Methodism was denigrated for its emotionalism and anti-intellectualism. 

However, the new outlook was not really seeking to moderate the excesses of popular Methodism as much as to redefine the core of the faith itself. Case convincingly shows how, by the early twentieth century, "official" Methodism, as defined by a regnant "mediating elite" of academicians and bishops (151), had succeeded in refashioning its public persona, although the old populist religion would persist within the grassroots culture of rural Methodism, where it now functioned as a "silent minority." The effect of that makeover was an eventual downturn in Sunday (now "church") school and church membership, reflecting the lesser appeal of its increasingly lifeless brand of religion.

This historical introduction sets the stage for Case's well-documented and straightforward narration of the major renewal movements in twentieth-century Methodism, beginning with the "Forum for Scriptural Christianity," later known as the "Good News" movement, which developed with an Asbury College connection, and whose account occupies the core of the study. The spiritual crisis of Methodism, provoked by these long-term developments, coincided with the era of church union (1968-1972), a quadrennium that also marked the first stirrings of evangelical renewal.

The multi-faceted contribution of Charles Keysor, the Illinois pastor who became the strategic catalyst for this awakening, is placed within the context of several factors. He stood in a succession of earlier and less consequential renewal efforts from the first half of the twentieth century, to which the reader is introduced. Keysor was encouraged by the post World War II "neo-evangelical" renaissance (e.g., Billy Graham, Campus Crusade) that was apparently bypassing United Methodism. He was alarmed by the recent action to restructure the Board of Missions, which was the last area to feel the impact of the revisionists, as the concern for evangelism, understood as personal salvation in Jesus Christ, was removed from its portfolio. He acutely felt the pressing need to define the "core of doctrine" in the aftermath of church union. Finally, his training and experience as a professional journalist informed his passion for church renewal from within.

In this first "inside" account of Methodist renewal history, starting with Good News, our author traces with empathy the pains and triumphs of its first three decades of ministry, noting how its original task of promoting spiritual growth and doctrinal integrity-chiefly by reforming Sunday school curricula and offering a range of evangelical publications-expanded in the early 1980s to incorporate other concerns, including involvement in social and political issues.

Recognizing that the world of international politics was far afield from their populist, evangelical world, they nevertheless were pulled in this direction by a startling discovery. A United Methodist layman disclosed that funds given by populist Methodists for "missions" were in fact being used to promote a leftist political agenda, including involvement with organizations "fronting for Marxist, communist, and even revolutionary political activity" (110). Consequently, a conversation was begun in 1981 that included Good News leaders, and which led to the formation of the Institute for Religion and Democracy. Its growing stature in offering "responsible but religious-based ideological balance" to such mainline groups as the National Council of Churches (115) rapidly evolved, being cited by such national media as Time magazine and "60 Minutes" in 1983.

As Case explains, the task of spiritual renewal was indeed becoming a multifaceted operation, as the ministry of Good News was further extended in 1983 to address the crisis in missions in the Church. After ten years of discussion between the Good News' Evangelical Missions Council and the General Board of Global Ministries, the continuing and critical decline in the number of missionaries sponsored by the General Board prompted another group of evangelical pastors and theologians to open conversation on the subject of an alternative missions agency. The result was the formation of The Mission Society for United Methodists. Its intent, to work in tandem with the General Board, has not been realized, although its work has continued its global expansion.

This ministry was followed several years later by a women's coalition, initially known as the Evangelical Coalition for United Methodist Women. It later became the Renew Network for women, the official women's program arm of Good News. The name Renew is an acronym for "Renewing, Enabling, Network for Evangelical Women." The ministry-led by President L. Faye Short in Cornelia, Georgia-seeks renewal in women's ministry at the local church level and accountability on the part of the Women's Division nationally. Renew and Good News were key evangelical voices responding to the controversial "Re-Imagining Conference," of 1993, which was supported (and later strongly defended) by the Women's Division of the General Board of Global Ministries.

Recognizing that a critical arena for the soul of the church lay with the direction of theological education, in April, 1974, the Good News Board appointed a Theology and Doctrine Task Force to prepare an affirmative statement of Scriptural Christianity for Good News. In July, 1975, the statement was adopted by Good News at its summer board meeting in Lake Junaluska, giving the document the title "The Junaluska Affirmation."

The Junaluska Affirmation was then presented publicly at the Good News national convocation following the board meeting in July of 1975, with the hope of presenting Good News' theological concerns to the Association of Deans and Presidents of United Methodist Seminaries. They sought the inclusion of an evangelical witness within the diversity granted by the 1972 Book of Discipline. This effort, the results of which were mixed, came in the wake of an era when a sizable percentage of students in United Methodist seminaries were on record as rejecting the apostolic tenets of the faith, and when campaigns for sexual freedom and political radicalism were disrupting the tranquility of chapels and classrooms.

Although the appeal fell largely on deaf ears, a substantial outcome eventually came in the form of A Foundation for Theological Education (AFTE), which secured the blessing of the dean of Methodist theologians, Albert Outler. Thus, while the accrediting body of the UM Church, the University Senate, was moving to disapprove thirty seminaries for their lack of conformity with institutional Methodist identity, AFTE was launching the successful John Wesley Scholars Program, which would help meet the deficit of trained Wesley scholars to offer critical evangelical balance for the denomination's seminaries.

The narrative Case weaves indicates how evangelical gains in the struggle for the soul of the church were repeatedly counterbalanced by new challenges, taking the "frontline" of confrontation from one agenda to another. Faced with setbacks for Good News in the General Conferences of 1972-1980, and confronted with a diagnosis of cancer, Keysor felt compelled to resign his leadership in late 1980. He had long urged evangelicals to stay with the denomination because a brighter future was coming. He was right, in the long-term. But in the short-term, the picture looked bleak.

This was the hour when a militant "pluralism" that excluded evangelicals was touted as true Methodism, and the lineup of a solid front of boards and caucuses had begun an intensive effort to reverse the language of the statement of the "Social Principles" that spoke of homosexuality as being contrary to Christian teaching. Yet, it was also an hour when increasing numbers of churches and individuals were willing to identify themselves as "evangelical," and Good News magazine had become the only journal related to United Methodism which had a general readership (219). Energized by these trends, the period from 1984-2000 would become a time of evangelical advance on the issues of same-sex marriage and a fair formula for representation in church conferences that would not under-represent growing evangelical sectors of the church.

Dr. James V. Heidinger II, Good News' new leader, observed in 1988 that United Methodism was now moving toward a more "centrist" position. A new face for populist Methodism would appear in the 1980s in the form of a wider consultation of large, urban church pastors (before, popular Methodism was rural Methodism!) leading to declarations and a consultation on the future of the church. This gave birth to a wider coalition of evangelicals in the denomination than those who adhered to the Good News movement-the Confessing Movement, which grew to embrace over 600,000 adherents by 2003.

Case concludes his study by revisiting the situation in his home conference (North Indiana), the place where the story began. Here he responds to the question, can we really return to an earlier populist Methodism, as understood in nineteenth century terms, or does that experience need to be reconstituted, through grace, in the context of contemporary models for effective church growth? He cites evidence from five struggling congregations that realized significant rebirth of life by finding God's vision and then connecting with people and new technologies to implement that vision. The effectiveness of evangelical renewal in his conference is measured not so much by impacting official conference priorities as by a groundswell of change in the less measurable area of attitudes and spirit. That change is being reflected in the documented growth of vitality and strength among numerous pastors and congregations who have been impacted by an Evangelical Pastors' Fellowship, linked to Good News.

The reader leaves this lucid study with the clear perception and hope that there is a legacy of vitality in the future of United Methodism, and that, as before, it will be a movement of God's people.     

J. Steven O'Malley is the John T. Seamands Professor of Methodist Holiness History at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky



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