By Josh Harbour
Methodism was brought to the new world originally by the Rev. John Wesley, an Anglican minister. He and his brother Charles embarked from England to Georgia in 1735 as pastors to the colonists and, they had hoped, missionaries to the Native Americans.[i] Their mission was largely a failure. John and Charles retreated back to England where they were very successful. Methodism would eventually come to America. The next time it would arrive farther north and begin in already established cites. It would reach Georgia again while it was still a frontier state. In some ways the rise of Methodism in Georgia is a microcosm of its rise elsewhere nationally. In other ways, it was markedly different. The differences probably have more to do with the time period and setting than any doctrine differences. By the time it made its second foray into Georgia, the War for Independence had already ended. There had been much strife between Methodists and many colonists who advocated independence; some of it was justified while most of it was not. Also, Athens and most of the rest of Georgia was still a frontier when Methodism came to it. Methodism had a way of prospering in a frontier setting that sometimes eluded it in a more city-like area.
John Wesley journeyed through Georgia very early in its history. He “led a mission to this newly founded colony embracing the doctrine of Justification of Faith.”[ii] John Wesley and his brother tried to establish themselves in the community as soon as they got to Georgia. Charles positioned himself as the secretary to Gov. James Oglethorpe[iii]; a post he had to resign in 1737 because he was totally unfit for it. John Wesley was very rigid in his teachings and expectations of others. He kept a very tight schedule and chastised any who did not follow his views. He ended up alienating the majority of the colonists. He objected to “hunting and fishing on Sundays… and stood against slavery and the use of spirituous liquors.”[iv] John Wesley also had a scandal erupt around him that ended up making him also retreat back to England. He had an infatuation with a Sophy Hopkey, who was the niece of the chief magistrate. One day he refused communion to her. He was arrested for defamation of character.[v] He never had to go to trial but his attempts to bring Methodism to the new world came to a dramatic standstill as he was forced to flee the colony. But this was not to be the last time that John Wesley alienated American colonists.
Probably one of Wesley’s most beneficial contributions to American Methodism was appointing a young assistant named Francis Asbury in 1771 to be his new lead minister in America.[vi] Up to that point Methodism had come to a virtual standstill in the colonies. Asbury would be the one to oversee the spread of Methodism across America. When he came to the New World, there were 316 Methodists already there, and even they could see a decline on the horizon. By the time of his death, there were more that 214,235 practicing Methodists in America; more than in England.[vii] Asbury was very dedicated to his preaching with a firm grasp on the principles and discipline of Methodism. He proved to be just what was needed to jumpstart the movement in America. He was a born leader and felt no qualms about pointing out what he felt was being done wrong. The first thing he set out to fix was the fact that Methodists were mostly confining themselves to Philadelphia and New York. He wanted to spread out as far as he could. This would prove the beginning of a long practice of Methodists reaching out into the frontier. This was crucial because for a time, the frontier would be where they found the greatest success.
Probably one of the biggest reasons that Asbury succeeded where Wesley had failed was his identification with America. Wesley did not understand the Americans and would end up siding with the British in the Revolutionary War. Asbury yearned to leave England and preach to the new world. While on the boat only three days removed from England he exclaimed, “I feel my spirit bound to the New World, and my heart united to the people, though unknown.”[viii] Asbury quickly went to fixing the practice of pastors localizing themselves to certain cities. He recognized that there simply weren’t enough pastors to do that and the rural folk were being neglected. He wanted a “circulation of preachers”[ix] to spread over most of the colonies.
Methodism proved to be especially popular in the South. This was aided by the Methodists distinctions between “godly” and “worldly” things. This seemed to be an easy analogy to the powerless and the powerful of the South. It proved immensely popular with “slaves, white women, and poor or struggling white men.”[x] But, as would be the case later throughout the colonies, many white elitists viewed them with suspicion. The Southern Methodists were a close-knit group that met in small groups, called classes, outside of the traditional service.[xi] These classes usually had a dozen members divided by such things as sex, age, race, and marital status. Church leaders felt that members would get more out of the meetings if they shared similar concerns. These meetings were places for members to sing hymns and give devotions but mainly they were for sharing religious experiences. They did so very openly. They used these meetings to confess their sins to each other. The leaders asked “searching questions” and made a “free inquiry into the state of the heart”[xii] The idea was to develop a kinship between each other. In theory, they knew everything about someone and senses of trust and community were built.
Things changed for the Methodists as the rift between the colonies and England grew towards separation. By coincidence, in 1775, Philadelphia was host to both the third Annual Conference for Methodists and the Second Continental Congress.[xiii] Though it was forty years after he tried to bring Methodism into the New World, John Wesley still had a great amount of influence over them. He never intended for them to become a separatist group and had always considered them part of the Anglican Church. He himself had never left the Church of England. His views on the colonial desire for independence were very clear. He called it a “rebellion against legitimate monarchy.”[xiv] He even went so far as to publish “A Calm Address to Our American Colonies” widely to make his Tory allegiance certain. Because of it and how far it was distributed, Methodists were under suspicion during the entire Revolution of following the thoughts of John Wesley.
Now there were many Methodists who did not fit the category of the fighting revolutionary. Most Methodist preachers viewed the Revolutionary War as a distraction from God rather than the virtue of gaining independence. In 1776, Francis Asbury noted how “many had so imbibed a martial spirit that they had lost the spirit of pure and undefiled religion. Basically most of the Methodist preachers sidestepped the war in their sermons. They usually did not take an active stance for the colonists or against the monarchy. Instead they preached the salvation of souls and holy living. Of course some followed the lead of John Wesley. Thomas Rankin, who for a time was in charge of the American Methodists, “declared from the pulpit of St. George’s (a Methodist church in Philadelphia) that he believed God’s work would not revive until the people submitted to King George. It was speeches such as this that began a rift between the Methodists and other Americans that in some ways would continue throughout the Antebellum period. After the War, America grew rapidly; both in area explored and in population. And though this would seem to be a perfect opportunity for the Methodists and others to reach out to the lost, they weren’t able to keep up at first. “Probably at no period in American history has Christianity been at such a low ebb.”[xv] Georgia was no exception. By 1795, membership had decreased to half the amount it had been five years prior. At this point, many Methodist preachers considered themselves somewhat as pioneers and acted as such. Having met with hostility in some cities, they decided to expand outwards too much more rural areas. What they found in Georgia were people in need of help. Most of the people they encountered were “rough, uncouth, uneducated” and “poverty, grueling poverty, was the lot of the mass.”[xvi] In Georgia and in other places, Methodists were at the forefront of the frontier. Their attitude matched their determination. James Lee, a Methodist minister, proclaimed that, “Methodism can live wherever men can live.[xvii] They felt that if the pioneers could face danger for the hope of bettering their personal welfare then they could face the same dangers for the hope of saving human souls.
While at the Annual Methodist Conference in 1785, Francis Asbury met Hope Hull, the future of Georgia Methodism. “Hope Hull, of not the father of Georgia Methodism, yet was the man who was second to no other in fostering it.”[xviii] He did not always think the same way as other Methodist preachers, and maybe because of this he was extremely successful. He was also man who valued education. But Hull was not merely a preacher and a teacher. He had served as a soldier against the British in the Revolutionary War. He was not a minister at the time of the War, but the fact that he had supported and fought in it differentiated him from many other Methodist preachers. Shortly after the War, he was ordained and received into the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Church in 1785.[xix] Asbury immediately recognized the potential for good work in Hull. They were very close friends and after traveling together for a long time, Hull came to Georgia as Bishop Asbury’s personal representative.[xx]
Hull initially came to Wilkes County, Georgia in the late 1780’s before moving permanently to the Athens area in about 1802. Athens had not yet grown into a formal city although a state university had been chartered there in 1785. Hull’s arrival in the Athens area coincided with the time that the University actually opened for classes. “This religious dynamo happened on Athens before it was out of its swaddling clothes and immediately became identified with the University in 1802 as a trustee and remained so until his death in 1818.”[xxi] Next to religion, Hull considered education the most important thing to pursue. He was very involved in the infant stage of the University. He preached often on campus and was responsible for the building of the first chapel on campus.[xxii] The chapel was also the first religious building of any kind within the town of Athens. There were already several churches serving the are (Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian) but there were outside of the city limits. When he first began his formal ministry, Hull preached primarily from a log cabin specifically built for that purpose in 1804 outside of Athens. It was a very simple structure without even a chimney. This suggests the “Methodism in Athens in those days went into Winter Quarters.”[xxiii] This building served until 1810 when Hull’s Meeting House was constructed. It was located on Hull’s property on the eastern side of present-day Limpkin Street. It was just south of what was called the Fair Grounds, which is where the University track is now.[xxiv] The gatherings at the Meeting House resembled those “classes” which early Methodists had. They sang hymns, did devotions and shared religious experiences.
Hull was very much involved in the University and in the community. This shows a shift from previous ministers who were supposed to be “dead to the world…(with) a single-minded focus on bringing others to Christ and keeping the converted in the narrow way of Wesleyan holiness.”[xxv] Hull showed that Methodist ministers could refrain from being so one-sided in their objectives yet still achieve a great degree of success.
But Hull was sort of a one-man-band. He had a good size following and massive influence over the town, but no organized congregation. He had no administration in place to carry on after he was gone. Reverend Hull died in 1818 and Methodism in the Athens area almost died with him. The Meeting House had served as their church but ceased to do so upon Hull’s death. It would be another seven years before a formal church was erected. “This serious condition evidently prompted Mr. Hancock to give a lot for the erection of a building which would be permanently owned by the Church.”[xxvi] This First Methodist Church was built in 1825 as it stands now on the corner of Lumpkin Street and Hancock Avenue. The property on which it stands was given to the church by Thomas Hancock; though the details of that transaction remain clouded. Church tradition says that Mr. Hancock gave the church the deed to the land but there is no record that such a deed even existed. City records indicate that Hancock held the title to the land but did not possess a deed to it. The Assembly passed an act, which gave the land to the Church with the permission of Mr. Hancock. The Methodists, however, firmly believed in the generosity of Thomas Hancock. There is a tablet in the vestibule of the church with the inscription, “To the glory of God and in the memory of Thomas Hancock.”[xxvii]
This is a deviation from the beginnings of Methodism in colonial America. No longer is there the separation between those deeply involved in the ministry and the rest of society. Hancock was a Methodist but by no means clergy. Hull was clergy, but he also felt called to devote a large amount of time to the University. Georgia was beginning to resemble the land that Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about in 1835 when he described America as such: “…the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention…in France…the spirits of religion and freedom (were) marching in opposite directions. But in America…they are intimately united.” [xxviii]
One issue that both the early Methodists and the Antebellum Georgia Methodists had to deal with was the institution of slavery. For the early colonists, it was one of the sticking points with the Whigs. Many Americans viewed the Methodists with suspicion because they advocated the freedom of blacks. One major reason is that, at the time, the British were trying to enlist slaves into their army and many colonists were trying to prevent that. Some saw early Methodists as traitors to the Southern way of life. “They meddled with slaves and spoke out against slavery.”[xxix] Methodists across America spoke out against slavery during the Antebellum period. Most notable figures, such as Asbury, George Whitfield and Thomas Coke were vehement in their curses for the institution.[xxx] The South was a little harder to convince. Most of the Antebellum preachers there were against slavery but there were some that possessed them.[xxxi] Some Methodist churches became the inadvertent aides of slaveholders. They would send their slaves to church to learn the values of obedience. But it was not long before Methodists all over the country were alike in the view that slavery was repugnant.
Methodism originally came to America through Georgia and largely failed. It began a wave through the colonies years later and, though much more successful, met with fierce opposition. Because of their concern for souls over politics and the personal political leanings of John Wesley, many of them were perceived as traitors to America. Methodism had its greatest success in the Antebellum period as it traveled the frontier. In Athens, Hope Hull was the driving force behind Methodism. He was the close personal friend of Francis Asbury, who was appointed by John Wesley. Georgia’s story of Methodism is circular. Wesley tried there and failed but ultimately, a decision of his ended up bringing a man like Hull to Athens. Methodism developed differently in Athens than in most of colonial America. But that is largely because of the time period and the rural versus urban environment.
Please visit these links for more information:
http://docsouth.unc.edu/church/phoebus/phoebus.html - UNC “Documenting the Amercian Society”
http://jsr.as.wvu.edu/jsrlink2.htm - Journal of Southern Religion
[i] McEllhenney, John G. ed., “Methodism in America” Abingdon Press, Nashville, 1992 pg 20
[ii] Banner Herald, 04/19/53
[iii] McEllhenney, John G. ed., “Methodism in America” pg 21
[iv] McEllhenney, John G. ed., “Methodism in America” pg 21
[v] McEllhenney, John G. ed., “Methodism in America” pg 21
[vi] McEllheney, John G. ed., “Methodism in America” pg 33
[vii] Bondurant, John “The First United Methodist Church, Athens, GA: Some History and Recollections” UGA Press, 1988 pg 12
[viii] Pierce, Alfred M., “A History of Methodism in Georgia” North Georgia Conference Historical Society, 1956 pg 29
[ix] Pierce, Alfred M., “A History of Methodism in Georgia” pg 31
[x] Lyerly, Cynthia Lynn “Methodism and the Southern Mind, 1710-1810” Oxford Press, 1998 pg 12
[xi] Lyerly, Cynthia Lynn “Methodism and the Southern Mind, 1710-1810” pg 14
[xii]Lyerly, Cynthia Lynn “Methodism and the Southern Mind, 1710-1810” pg 14
[xiii] Norwood, Frederick A., “The Story of American Methodism” Abingdon Press, Nashville, 1974 pg 84
[xiv] Norwood, Frederck A., “The Story of American Methodism” pg 84
[xv] Pierce, Alfred M., “A History of Methodism in Georgia” pg 56
[xvi] Pierce, Alfred M., “A History of Methodism in Georgia” pg 54
[xvii] Pierce, Alfred M., “A History of Methodism in Georgia” pg 56
[xviii] Wilson, Robert C., “Methodism in Athens – A Historical Sketch” UGA Press, Athens, 1953 pg 1
[xix] Bondurant, John “The First United Methodist Church, Athens, GA: Some History and Recollections” pg 247
[xx] Wilson, Robert C., “Methodism in Athens – A Historical Sketch” pg 1
[xxi] Hyds, Ernest C., “Antebellum Athens and Clarke County” UGA Press, Athens, 1974 pg 106
[xxii] Bondurant, John “The First United Methodist Church, Athens, GA: Some History and Recollections” pg248
[xxiii] Hyds, Ernest C., “Antebellum Athens and Clarke County” pg 106
[xxiv] Bondurant, John “The First United Methodist Church, Athens, GA: Some History and Recollections” pg11
[xxv] Lyerly, Cynthia Lynn “Methodism and the Southern Mind, 1710-1810” pg 19
[xxvi] Bondurant, John “The First United Methodist Church, Athens, GA: Some History and Recollections” pg13
[xxvii] Wilson, Robert C., “Methodism in Athens – A Historical Sketch” pg 5
[xxviii] Norwood, Frederck A., “The Story of American Methodism” pg 82
[xxix] Lyerly, Cynthia Lynn “Methodism and the Southern Mind, 1710-1810” pg 23
[xxx] Norwood, Frederck A., “The Story of American Methodism” pg 186
[xxxi] Pierce, Alfred M., “A History of Methodism in Georgia” pg 116