The Wesleys’ Methodism was robustly Arminian, combining an Arminianism of the head with an Arminianism of the heart. Trenchantly expressed in John Wesley’s writings and given lyrical and polemical voice in Charles Wesley’s hymns, this provided the movement with a distinctive and sometimes controversial theological identity within the broader community of the Evangelical Revival, where many leant towards moderate Calvinism. Arminian assumptions underpinned the Wesleys’ evangelism, making the offer of the Gospel ‘for all’ both hopeful and urgent, and also influenced their shaping of a movement designed to nurture Scriptural holiness.
In the nineteenth century the fractured segments of British Methodism continued to affirm an Arminian soteriology. Wesleyan systematic theologians like Richard Watson and William Burt Pope expounded evangelical Arminianism as ‘the truly Catholic doctrine’, while Methodist preachers and pamphleteers engaged in energetic debate in pulpit and print with the advocates of Calvinism, including Evangelical Anglicans, Irish and Scottish Presbyterians, and Strict Baptists. At the same time, Wesleyans rebutted accusations that Arminianism implied universalism and they challenged proponents of the ‘larger hope’ as the theological current turned against traditional notions of eternal punishment.
By the end of the nineteenth century, strict Calvinism was in retreat in the mainstream Nonconformist denominations (Congregationalists and Baptists) and British Methodists were moving into a closer alignment with these groups in a broad Free Church movement. A generation later, Henry Bett could write in The Spirit of Methodism (1937), ‘Today Calvinism is practically extinct. It only survives among a few small sects like the Strict Baptists and the Plymouth Brethren, and in a few separatist Presbyterian Churches in the remoter parts of Scotland.’
From the middle of the twentieth century, however, Reformed theology grew in strength and influence, both in the independent evangelical churches and in the Church of England. At the same time, Methodist theology and pastoral and evangelistic practice came to place less emphasis on explicit Arminianism and more on breadth, tolerance, and inclusivity. The classic Wesleyan affirmation that ‘all can be saved by grace through faith’, expressed by W.B. Fitzgerald in The Roots of Methodism (1903) gave way to ‘All are welcome in this place’, in the refrain of one of the most popular hymns in Singing the Faith, the hymnal authorised by the Methodist Church of Great Britain in 2010. Meanwhile, the Common Statement of the Formal Conversations between the Methodist Church of Great Britain and the Church of England, published in 2001 and adopted as the basis for the Covenant signed by the two Churches in 2004, described Arminianism and Christian Perfection as merely ‘remaining tensions’ inherited from the denominations’ historic formularies.
This paper will track the trajectory of Arminianism in British Methodism from the Wesleys to the present-day. The era of the Wesley brothers and George Whitefield has been thoroughly studied, so this presentation will look particularly at subsequent developments in British Methodism, including the reframing or replacement of Arminianism over the past century and the presence or absence of this doctrinal emphasis in ecumenical dialogues.
‘Another Gospel’ or ‘A remaining tension’? Methodist Arminianism in Great Britain from the Free Grace Controversy to the Anglican-Methodist Covenant, 1740-2004
From its origins in the eighteenth-century Evangelical Revival, Methodism in the tradition of the Wesleys has defined itself as confidently and robustly Arminian. This has been a marker of Methodist identity, and it has influenced evangelistic and pastoral practice. After a century of vigorous debate with the proponents of Reformed theology, Calvinist/Arminian polemics diminished from the latter part of the nineteenth century, while from the mid-twentieth century Methodism’s evangelical Arminianism was gradually re-cast into an emphasis on breadth, tolerance, and inclusivity. This paper will track the trajectory of Arminianism in British Methodism from the Wesleys to the present-day, looking particularly at post-Wesley developments, including the reframing or replacement of Arminianism over the past century and the presence or absence of this doctrinal emphasis in ecumenical dialogues.