Primitive Methodists
The Primitive Methodists ( Original Methodists , also Primitive Methodist Connexion or Primitive Methodist Church ) were a Methodist Free Church that existed in Great Britain from 1807/1812 until the end of 1932 . The Church still exists in the United States today.
founding
The separation of the Primitive Methodists from the Methodist mainstream was not the result of theological differences, but an expression of conflicts on organizational and cultural differences within the membership. The leadership of the Original Connexion rejected the camp meetings organized by the later founders of the Primitive Methodists , Hugh Bourne and William Clowes - all-day open-air evangelism with a relatively large space for spontaneity of the participants and enthusiastic elements - as well as those with reference a religious group of the 17th century called “ranting” the style of preaching of the future Primitive Methodists as “not respectable”. On the part of the group around Bourne, the Methodist mainstream was mainly accused of the lack of internal organizational democracy in the original Connexion - especially with regard to the participation of lay people - and a striving for respectability associated with an adaptation to the Anglican establishment. The Primitive Methodists also initially advocated lay preaching by women. The origin of most of the later Primitive Methodists from the working class continued to play an important role in this conflict , whereas the national and local leadership of the Original Connexion was recruited from the middle class ; On the part of the Primitive Methodists this was accused of neglecting the mission in poor regions.
history
The Primitive Methodists grew from 200 members in 1811 to 106,074 in more than 5,000 churches in 1851. The main focus of the church was on regions shaped by the structural change of the industrial revolution such as Durham , Staffordshire , Derbyshire , Norfolk or the north of Wiltshire . In some places like Rockland / Norfolk or Brinkworth / Wiltshire the Primitive Methodists were the numerically dominant religious community. The majority of the members were recruited from workers living in villages, often torn from their previous social contexts by social developments, who were mostly employed in agriculture, mining or fishing; in the cities, with the exception of Sheffield , the Primitive Methodists were less successful. In many cases, the individual communities did not have their own buildings, but rented rooms or met in the homes of members. In the early years up to 1843, the Primitive Methodists were often hindered by government agencies, for example preachers were often referred to as rebels, arrested and sometimes sentenced (mostly to relatively low sentences).
The Primitive Methodists were among the first churches to adopt an official position on tobacco and alcohol consumption, so they forbade their preachers to smoke in 1822 - unless required for medical reasons (!) - and in 1832 they decided to support the emerging temperance movement .
Since the 1840s, tendencies towards institutionalization and adaptation to the social and religious mainstream have also been recorded among the Primitive Methodists , which is noticeable in the sharp decline in the activity of women, the tendency to build their own churches (chapels) and the establishment of theological training centers made. The position in front of the Official Connexion also weakened .
In the second half of the 19th century, members of the Primitive Methodists , many of them lay preachers, played an important role in the formation phase of the British trade unions, for example Georg Edwards (1850-1933), who headed the Norfolk Agricultural Workers' Union from 1919 to 1924 lower house deputy of the Labor Party was. In this region in particular, the structures of the Primitive Methodists often overlapped with those of the agricultural workers' union and the Labor Party.
The Primitive Methodists in Great Britain merged with the Original Connexion and the United Methodist Church to form the Methodist Church of Great Britain in 1932 .
The Primitive Methodist Church in the USA , founded in 1829, exists to this day and in 2000 had about 4,500 members in 79 congregations.
Membership development
- 1811: 200
- 1821: 16.394
- 1836: 62.306
- 1851: 106.074
- 1856: 104.178
- 1876: 160.737
- 1891: 180.518
- 1906: 203.103
- 1911: 202.479
- 1914: 202.420
literature
- Eric J. Hobsbawm : Social Rebels. Archaic social movements in the 19th and 20th centuries. Focus-Verlag, Giessen 1979, ISBN 3-88349-202-7 (v. AS 177-196: texts on social history and everyday life ).
- Geoffrey Milburn: Primitive Methodism. Epworth Press, Peterborough 2002, ISBN 0-7162-0554-8 .
- Edward P. Thompson : The Origin of the English Working Class . 2 volumes. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1987, ISBN 3-518-11170-1 .
- Deborah M. Valenze: Prophetic Sons and Daughters. Female Preaching and Popular Religion in Industrial England. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1985, ISBN 0-691-05455-X .
- David Yarham: The Influence of Primitive Methodism on rural life in East Anglia. In: ES Leedham-Green (ed.): Religious Dissent in East Anglia. Cambridge Antiquarian Society, Cambridge 1991, ISBN 0-9513596-1-4 , pp. 95-112
Web links
- Homepage of the Primitive Methodist Church in the USA
- History of the Primitive Methodist Connexion by HB Kendall (1888)
- Information in Census on Religious worship, England and Wales, 1851 on the Primitive Methodists , pp. Lxxxi-lxxxiii
- Englesea Brook Chapel and Museum of Primitive Methodism in Cheshire