Wesley and the Wesleyans: Religion in Eighteenth-Century Britain

by: John Kent (Author)

Publisher: Cambridge University Press (11 July 2002)

Language: English

Print length: 236 pages

ISBN-10: 0521455324

ISBN-13: 9780521455329

Book Description

Wesley and the Wesleyans challenges the cherished myth that at the moment when the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution were threatening the soul of eighteenth-century England, an evangelical revival – led by the Wesleys – saved it. It will interest anyone conceed with the history of Methodism and the Church of England, the Evangelical tradition, and eighteenth-century religious thought and experience. The book starts from the assumption that there was no large-scale religious revival during the eighteenth century. Instead, the role of what is called ‘primary religion’ – the normal human search for ways of drawing supeatural power into the private life of the individual – is analysed in terms of the emergence of the Wesleyan societies from the Church of England. The Wesleys’ achievements are reassessed; there is fresh, unsentimental description of the role of women in the movement, and an unexpectedly sympathetic picture emerges of Hanoverian Anglicanism.