Francis Asbury

Francis Asbury, statue in Wilmore, Kentucky

Francis Asbury (born August 20 or 21, 1745 in Handsworth near Birmingham , England , † March 31, 1816 in Spotsylvania County, Virginia ) was one of the first two Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States .

Francis Asbury was born into a simple family. At the age of 16 he converted to Methodism and became a local preacher. From 1766 he was a traveling preacher in Bedfordshire , Colchester and Wiltshire , England. In 1771 he offered to go to America.

There he was also a traveling preacher (" district rider ") in New York, Philadelphia and Delaware. After the War of Independence , he was the only Methodist preacher from England who was still active in the United States. He extended his travels to the Appalachians .

In 1784, Asbury was one of the central figures of the so-called Christmas Conference in Baltimore, which is considered the founding assembly of the Methodist Episcopal Church . John Wesley had him ordained deacon, elder and superintendent in 1784 by Thomas Coke . Later Coke and Asbury were named bishops. For the next thirty years, Asbury tirelessly led the rapidly growing Methodist Episcopal Church, practically always on the move.

When he arrived in America there were 550 Methodists in New York and Philadelphia; when he died there were 250,000 with 700 ordained preachers.

Asbury died in Virginia and was buried in Baltimore.

literature

Kenneth C. Kinghorn: The Heritage of American Methodism. Édition du Signe, Strasbourg 1999, ISBN 2-87718-870-1
Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz : Asbury, Francis. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 1, Bautz, Hamm 1975. 2nd, unchanged edition Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-013-1 , Sp. 251. ( Article / beginning of article in the Internet archive )

Web links

Website with a short biography and index of his diaries (English)

Individual evidence

^ J. Gordon Melton: Asbury, Francis (1745-1816) . first bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In: Encyclopedia of World Religions . Encyclopedia of Protestantism, No. 6 . Facts of File, New York 2005, ISBN 0-8160-5456-8 , pp. 49 (English).
↑ Randall Herbert Balmer: Asbury, Francis (1745-1816) . In: Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism . Baylor University Press, Waco 2004, ISBN 1-932792-04-X , pp. 34 (English).

personal data
SURNAME	Asbury, Francis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American Methodist minister and bishop
DATE OF BIRTH	August 20, 1745 or August 21, 1745
PLACE OF BIRTH	Handsworth near Birmingham, England
DATE OF DEATH	March 31, 1816
Place of death	Spotsylvania County, Virginia

[1] J. Gordon Melton: Asbury, Francis (1745-1816) . first bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In: Encyclopedia of World Religions . Encyclopedia of Protestantism, No. 6 . Facts of File, New York 2005, ISBN 0-8160-5456-8 , pp. 49 (English).

[2] Randall Herbert Balmer: Asbury, Francis (1745-1816) . In: Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism . Baylor University Press, Waco 2004, ISBN 1-932792-04-X , pp. 34 (English).