Time Tables of History for Students of Methodism - Softcover

Matthews, Rex D.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0687333873 ISBN 13: 9780687333875

Publisher: Abingdon Press, 2007

Synopsis

Winner of the 2007 Saddlebag Selection Award from the Historical Society of The United Methodist Church as "the best book published during the year on the history, biography, polity or theology of United Methodism or its predecessors."

Understanding history rests largely on a grasp of two things: sequence and context. Know which events came earlier and which later, and you've gone a long way toward understanding influence and causation. Know what was going on in the wider world at the same time a historical event occurred, and you'll better grasp the meaning and significance of that event for the people who experienced it. Yet even with the best history textbooks students have difficulty in gaining an immediate sense of sequence and context. Hence the purpose of this book: To lay out the most important events in the history of the Wesleyan/Methodist movement, to show them in their proper order, and to include the most important occurrences taking place on the national and international stages at the same time. Matthews presents his material in an easy to comprehend and visually appealing layout, enumerating the major trends and developments in Methodist history from 1700 to 2004.

Rex D. Matthews is Assistant Professor in the Practice of Historical Theology at Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. He currently serves as co-chair of the Wesleyan Studies Group of the American Academy of Religion, as General Editor of the Kingswood Books series, and as Managing Editor of the new electronic academic journal Methodist Review.

An excerpt from the Circuit Rider review: "This is a book for college and seminary professors, for high school teachers of religion, for Sunday School teachers of children, youth and adults. It is a book for preachers and church musicians. It should be in every church library. This is a book for people who think history is boring as well as for those who delight in rich historical detail and story. It is a book to be savored and returned to again and again. And this is a book for all who love the church and yearn to be part of perfecting its mission and its life." (Click here to read the entire review.)

About this title

About the Author

Rex D. Matthews is Visiting Assistant Professor of Historical Theology, Candler School of Theology, Emory University.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Timetables of History for Students of Methodism

By Rex D. Matthews

Abingdon Press

Copyright © 2007 Abingdon Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-687-33387-5

PREFACE

Timetables of History for Students of Methodism intends to help its readers more readily and fully understand the significance of important events and developments in the history of Methodism by putting those events and developments into their context and showing their relationship to one another as well as to other happenings in human history. The volume places major events of every year across the period from 1700 to 2005 into eight parallel columns:

A. World History & Politics

B. American History & Politics

C. Science, Medicine & Technology

D. Daily Life, Popular Culture & Entertainment

E. Education, Literature & the Fine Arts

F. Religion, Theology, Philosophy & Psychology

G American & United Methodism

H. British & World Methodism

This tabular arrangement of information enables students to gain a sweeping overview of the past three centuries, allowing them to discern something of what was happening simultaneously in all these different areas of human life and activity at any given point. It helps them "contextualize" significant events, movements, and developments in the history of Methodism, both in North America and in the rest of the world, by placing them into relationship with other historical, political, cultural, intellectual, artistic, and literary currents.

Through the use of this volume, students with a particular interest in the historical development of Methodism can readily see that development taking place in the context of other major trends and developments in human culture and social life. Those who are interested, for example, in the struggle of Methodist women to achieve lay representation and clergy rights can easily perceive how that struggle is related to the larger series of developments involving women's rights and women's suffrage, both in the United States and elsewhere. Major milestones concerning the abolition of slavery and the development of the civil rights movement help to illumine the relationships between racial and ethnic groups within Methodism. The spread of Methodism around the world through the activities and influence of missionaries from Britain and America can be seen to result in the emergence of autonomous Methodist churches in many countries, just as European and American colonialism ultimately led to the formation of numerous independent nation-states.

Sometimes it is both interesting and instructive simply to observe the conjunction of seemingly unrelated events occurring in a given year. For example, The United Methodist Church came into being in 1968. The delegates to the Uniting Conference that year in Dallas lived through a year that also witnessed and experienced all of the following:

• The signature of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty by the US, the USSR, and the UK

• The crushing of the "Prague Spring" democratic movement in Czechoslovakia by Soviet troops

• The capture by North Korea of the USS Pueblo, an American intelligence-gathering vessel

• The surprise of the Tet Offensive by the North Vietnamese army

• The rise to power in Iraq of an obscure general named Saddam Hussein

• The report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (often called the Kerner Commission) saying that "our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal"

• The assassinations of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy

• The founding of the American Indian Movement

• The journey of the Apollo 8 astronauts around the moon and safely back to earth

• The premiere of the rock musical Hair on Broadway

• The posthumous release of "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding, his last and biggest hit record

• The imposition of restrictions on the mail-order sale of rifles and shotguns by the 1968 Gun Control Act

• The surprise announcement by President Johnson that he will not seek reelection, due in large measure to increasing protests over the Vietnam War

• The advent of the television news magazine 60 Minutes on CBS

• The introduction by McDonald's of the double-decker Big Mac hamburger

• The issuance by Pope Paul VI of the encyclical Humanae Vitae (On the Regulation of Birth), which reasserted traditional Roman Catholic opposition to birth control

• The US Supreme Court decision invalidating an Arkansas state law that had prohibited the teaching of evolution in public schools

• The publication of Mary Daly's The Church and the Second Sex, Jürgen Habermas's Knowledge and Human Interests, Norman Mailer's Armies of the Night, and John Updike's Couples

• The release of the movies 2001: A Space Odyssey, Romeo & Juliet, Yellow Submarine, The Lion in Winter, and Rosemary's Baby

• The violent confrontations between protesters and police at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago

• The discovery of oil on the North Slope of Alaska

• The ruling of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that sex-segregated help-wanted ads in newspapers are illegal

• The signature by President Johnson of the landmark 1968 Civil Rights Act (also known as the Housing Rights Act), which outlawed discrimination in the sale, rental, or financing of housing

• The first public demonstration of a networked computer system at the Stanford Research Institute, marking the public debut of the computer mouse, hypertext, and video teleconferencing

• The election of Richard Nixon to the presidency of the United States

As any historian knows well, the simple conjunction of events does not demonstrate causality, and none of those events, perhaps, had any direct bearing or any specific influence on the establishment of The United Methodist Church. However, that list of events does serve to give the reader some sense of the complicated nature and character of the world into which The United Methodist Church was born. That list of events does help to describe the historical, political, scientific, technological, and cultural context within which The United Methodist Church came into existence and provides some important clues about the texture of the lives and experiences of the people who brought it into being and to whom it endeavored to be in ministry.

This volume takes its inspiration in large part from Bernard Grun's classic Timetables of History: A Horizontal Linkage of People and Events, now in its fourth edition, which is in turn based on Werner Stein's Kulturfahrplan, first published in 1946. This important reference work provides a guide to well over 2,000 years of history, enabling its readers to gain some sense of the complexity of human experience and endeavor during those years. As valuable as this massive volume is, it provides relatively little attention to religion in general, even less attention to Christianity in particular, and has no specific concern with or focus on Methodism in any of its incarnations. The same is true of other more recent volumes similar to or inspired by Grun's work, such as Laurence Urdang's The Timetables of American History or John B. Teeple's Timelines of World History.

Timetables of History for Students of Methodism is much more limited it its scope and ambition and makes no attempt to compete with volumes such as those just mentioned. This work instead takes as its particular focus the historical development of Methodism from its origins in the life and work of John Wesley, including the history of the British Methodist Church and The United Methodist Church and their direct predecessor bodies. It is concerned, however, to present key events and happenings of that history in their larger context and to place them into relationship with relevant developments in other branches of the Methodist and Wesleyan family, both in America and around the world. Despite its particular attention to United Methodism, from its origins through its growth into a denomination that spans much of the globe, the volume should also be of some interest and relevance for those whose primary concern is with other branches of the Methodist family tree.

This volume is, by design and intention, illustrative rather than comprehensive in nature and scope. Due to limitations of time and space, it makes no attempt to include every significant happening that might possibly be mentioned under each category for each year. It is necessarily selective, and sometimes perhaps even idiosyncratic, in its choices of which events or developments it records. As Daniel Boorstin writes in his foreword to the third edition of Grun's work, "except for the more familiar and more obvious items in politics and the arts, the authors' choice has been personal" because "there really is no such thing as a 'correct' or complete selection of items for inclusion in such a volume as this."

The information presented in this volume is drawn from a wide range of readily available standard reference works and resources, a partial list of which is provided at the end of the volume. Limitations of space preclude the citation of specific sources for individual entries. No claim of originality is made for anything other than the selection, organization, arrangement, and form of presentation of this information. While every attempt has been made to ensure the accuracy of this information, is it likely that other scholars may find good reason to question certain dates or quarrel with certain explanatory comments. And it is virtually certain that most readers of this volume will at some point find themselves saying, "Why is that included?" or perhaps even more likely, "Why is that not included?" or "If that is included, then why in the world is this omitted?"

To questions or objections about the inclusion or omission of particular entries—whether relating to historical events or scientific discoveries or technological achievements or works of art or "notable publications" or popular culture—the only honest response is that something is or isn't found here because of the assumptions, perspectives, judgments, biases, and perhaps inexplicable whims that have shaped and informed my work on the project and have necessarily influenced my selections and decisions. Other individuals, in preparing such a volume, would certainly have made other choices at certain points about what should and should not be included. The volume is intended to be starting point for further exploration rather than a destination and should be regarded as a resource for beginning historical research rather than concluding it.

The following comments about some of the major features of the volume, and about the editorial principles or conventions observed in it, may be helpful to the reader.

The categories used in this volume have a degree of fluidity. It is virtually impossible to maintain a rigid separation between religious history and political, social, or cultural history, or between political or cultural history and scientific or technological achievements—or failures. Readers may sometimes find certain events listed under one category that they might expect to find under another category. For example, the 1719 entry noting that "Tsar Peter the Great expels the Jesuit Order from Russia" will be found under the category of Religion, Theology, Philosophy & Psychology rather than under World History & Politics. The 1942 entry noting that "The Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River in central Washington, begun in 1931, is completed; it is the largest concrete structure and the largest single producer of electricity in the US" will be found under the category of Science, Medicine & Technology rather than under American History & Politics. The same is true of the 2003 entry noting that "The space shuttle Columbia disintegrates on reentry into the earth's atmosphere, killing everyone on board." But the 1832 entry noting that "Public street-car service begins in New York City with horse-drawn trolleys" is placed under the category of Daily Life, Popular Culture & Entertainment.

The titles of major publications, works of art, or musical compositions are generally given in their English forms only unless there seems to be a compelling reason to do otherwise. Works first appearing in languages other than English are noted under the date of completion or first publication unless otherwise indicated. Occasionally the original title of a major work may be given followed by the English title and the date of its English translation when that information is deemed particularly significant or helpful to the reader.

Personal or place names originating in non-Western languages are transliterated using the style recommended in the 15th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, for example, Sergey Prokofiev rather than the older Sergei, Mao Zedong rather than Mao Tse-tung, Beijing rather than Peking. Geographic designations can be tricky because political and military changes sometimes alter the names of states as well as their borders. To avoid the appearance of anachronism, countries or regions are generally given in their modern designations, for example, Tasmania instead of Van Dieman's Land or Tonga instead of the Friendly Islands. Occasionally a parenthetical explanation is provided when an older designation seems necessary or helpful, for example, Bechuanaland (modern Botswana) or Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso).

The births and deaths of individuals are not generally noted except for a few particularly prominent figures from the "founding era," such as John Wesley, Francis Asbury, and Richard Allen in regard to Methodist history; or Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson in relation to American history; or Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in relation to the arts. When the death of a particular person is a matter of national or international significance, such as the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. or the death of President Franklin Roosevelt, Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong, or Rosa Parks, the "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement," then it is included.

Unless there is serious risk of confusion, famous individuals are generally identified by last name only after the first occurrence; for example, Napoleon or Stalin in politics, Hegel or Wittgenstein in philosophy, Mozart or Mendelssohn in music, Barth or Bonhoeffer in theology, Wesley or Asbury in Methodist history. When it appears alone, Wesley always means John Wesley; other members of the Wesley family are always identified by first name when reference to them is intended.

The elections of all U.S. presidents and vice presidents are noted along with their political party affiliation, as are important changes of reign or rule in the major European countries. The accession of a new monarch to the British throne, for example, is always noted, but not every change in the office of prime minister. Other major changes in government around the world are noted when they seem particularly significant, for example the French Revolution of 1789, the Russian Revolution of 1917, the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the independence from colonial rule of many African nations in the late 1950s and early 1960s (such as the Belgian Congo, now Zaire, in 1960), the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the election of Nelson Mandela as the first black president of South Africa in 1994.

A brief summary is provided of the major decisions or actions of every General Conference of The United Methodist Church and of all the major Methodist bodies that constitute its direct ancestry since the formation of The Methodist Episcopal Church in 1784. Due to limitations of time and space, coverage of comparable decisions and actions taken by the governing bodies of other members of the worldwide Wesleyan and Methodist family of churches is necessarily much more selective.

Events related to the missionary or other overseas activities of various American Methodist church bodies are generally noted in connection with the locus of those activities. For example, the 1856 entry noting that "Clementina Rowe Butler and William Butler establish the first MEC mission work in India" will be found under the category of British & World Methodism rather than under American & United Methodism, even though the Butlers were Americans and were sent to India by the Methodist Episcopal Church in America.

Informational or editorial comments relating to later history are occasionally made in connection with particular entries. Such comments are placed inside square brackets, as in the following example from 1794: "African Zoar Church in Philadelphia, first formed by black Methodists from St. George's Church in 1792, is formally established as a separate congregation; Harry Hosier is its founding pastor [it is now the oldest continuous historically black congregation in the United Methodist tradition]."

Certain benchmark data have been included regularly throughout the volume. For example, population data from the decennial U.S. Census is provided under the American History & Politics category for every decade from 1790 to 2000. Under the same category the increase or (rarely) decrease of the U.S. national debt is regularly noted, as are increases in the level of the U.S. minimum wage after its establishment in 1938. Under the category of Daily Life, Popular Culture & Entertainment, readers can, if they wish, track the changing cost of a U.S. first-class postage stamp beginning in 1863.

In cases where standard sources disagree about the dating or details of particular events, which happens with surprising frequency, the Encyclopedia of World Methodism has generally been regarded as authoritative for events related to Methodist history (at least through 1974, the date of its publication), corrected and supplemented by John A. Vickers, ed., A Dictionary of Methodism in Britain and Ireland, and Charles Yrigoyen Jr. and Susan E. Warrick, eds., Historical Dictionary of Methodism. For other dates, the Encyclopedia Britannica is generally regarded as authoritative.

After careful consideration, a decision was reached not to provide a printed index for the volume due to the additional time that would be required to prepare such an index, the additional space that would be required to print it, and the additional cost of the volume that would inevitably be the result. Instead, the full text is provided in searchable electronic form on the CD-ROM that is included with the volume. While this will not take the place of a true subject index, readers will be able to use the electronic form of the volume to search for entries containing specific names or terms in which they may have an interest, for example, (Francis) Asbury, or (Georgia) Harkness, or apartheid, or prohibition, or lay representation, or ordination.

To facilitate easy reference to particular events recorded in this volume, the column heads use capital letters. Readers may find it convenient to employ the following style of citation, combining the row (year) with the column (letter), which will work equally well for both the print and electronic editions:

• The Irish Methodist Conference bans women from preaching as "contrary to the Scriptures and prudence" and expels the very popular and effective evangelist Alice Cambridge when she refuses to quit preaching (Timetables, 1802H).

• The Woman's Home Missionary Society (WHMS) is formed by MEC women; Lucy Webb Hayes (wife of former president Rutherford B. Hayes) is elected president (Timetables, 1882G).

• The UMC establishes the Baltic Methodist Theological Seminary in Tallinn, Estonia, with instruction in Estonian, Russian, and English (Timetables, 1994H).

Despite the effort that has been expended to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this volume, it will no doubt be found to contain errors. As errors requiring correction are discovered, they will be added to the "List of Errata and Corrections," which will be regularly updated and may be freely accessed at the following URL: https://webdrive.service.emory.edu/users/rmatthe/Timetables/ Timetables_Errata.pdf

Much of the initial work on this project was completed during the Summer Wesley Seminar at Duke Divinity School in the summer of 2004, graciously hosted and creatively directed by Richard P. Heitzenrater, William Kellon Quick Professor of Church History and Wesley Studies. The rich resources of the Duke Divinity School Library and in particular the superb collection of the Baker Methodist Research Center, along with collegial engagement with fellow Seminar participants, helped to get the project off the ground, and a return engagement with the Seminar in the summer of 2005 helped to move it toward completion. I greatly appreciate the assistance and support provided through the Seminar, both directly and indirectly. Thanks are due as well to Roger L. Loyd, Director of the Duke Divinity School Library, to M. Patrick Graham, Director of the Pitts Theology Library at Candler School of Theology, and to the superbly helpful staff members of both institutions. Academics all too often take for granted the services and the holdings of such remarkable libraries.

A number of individuals have provided assistance and encouragement to persist in what has seemed at times to be an impossible and endless undertaking. I greatly appreciate and thankfully acknowledge the helpful comments and suggestions made by numerous friends and colleagues, especially Kenneth Cracknell, W. Harrison "Bill" Daniel, Morris L. Davis, Thomas E. Frank, Richard P. Heitzenrater, Randy L. Maddox, Russell E. Richey, and Charles Yrigoyen, Jr. Both Robert A. Ratcliff, a friend of many years and an erstwhile editorial colleague who now has the dubious privilege of serving as my editor, and Susan L. Cornell, who tackled the task of copyediting a very complicated manuscript with cheerful competence and careful attention to its myriad details, have my sincere thanks for their efforts to purge this volume of factual errors, questionable judgments, and infelicities of expression. Any that remain are entirely my responsibility.

My largest measure of appreciation and thanks, however, must be reserved for the students in my classes on Methodist theology and history at Candler School of Theology, Emory University. Their positive, even enthusiastic, response to earlier drafts of this work helped convince me that the project might be something more than a curious personal preoccupation and indeed could have some real pedagogical value, and their numerous criticisms, comments, and suggestions for improvement through a series of drafts have greatly strengthened and enriched the volume. For all that they have taught me about Methodist history, I am deeply grateful.

Rex D. Matthews

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Timetables of History for Students of Methodism by Rex D. Matthews. Copyright © 2007 Abingdon Press. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Abingdon Press
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0687333873
• ISBN 13: 9780687333875
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240