Anglicanism and Methodism

This chapter examines the complex relationship between Anglicanism and Methodism. Revising the view that Methodism was an ever-separating movement, this chapter contends that the eighteenth-century Church of England was a varied body, with myriad challenges which it confronted through the maintenance of a pastoral ideal, lived out ‘on the ground’ by the parish clergy. The industrializing parish of Madeley, Shropshire (where the incumbent from 1760 to 1785 was the Revd John William Fletcher), is used as a case study. Together with Madeley, other examples of dutiful and evangelically minded clergy who utilized the experimental religion and religious irregularities often associated with Methodists or Dissenters, are surveyed. The chapter concludes that Fletcher and many evangelically minded Anglican-Methodist clergy found the Church of England sufficiently strong and flexible enough to do the work of the Church rigorously and creatively, and that Methodism could serve as a means of Anglican pastoral success.