Browse
Recent Submissions
- PublicationThe Story of Christianity and Other Religions(Cascade Books, 2024-03) Lindsay, Mark; Ryrie, A & Lamport, M.A
- PublicationSexuality(Rowman and Littlefield, 2024-12) O'Brien, Glen; Woodruff Tait, Jennifer; Anderson, Christopher J.Eighteenth-century Methodism was a religion of the affections and the displays of emotion, such as crying out, weeping, and fainting could sometimes be overlaid with an erotic energy that could attract curious onlookers as well incite the ire of critics. It was, however, largely heteronormative in its outlook. Circuit riders on the American frontier were young, celibate men who were often quite naive about sex. Francis Asbury never married and Peter Cartwright, saw the transition from celibate circuit riding to marriage and a settled pastorate as the beginning of the end for Methodism. It certainly did mark the end of American Methodism’s radical pioneering age. The idea that marriage and family were the ideal Christian state came to dominate Methodist churches. Celibacy in singleness, faithfulness in marriage, and childbearing were understood as the glue of social cohesion. Most Methodist discourse about sexuality in recent times is focused on the question of the inclusion of LGBTQI+ members and clergy. Globally, Methodism expresses a diverse range of views on human sexuality and there is no single position. The United Methodist Church has not been able to find a way to live with difference over whether it is possible to take an affirming stance. In 2020 both traditionalist and progressive caucuses created alternative ecclesial bodies to aid separation. In 2021, British Methodists voted in favor of allowing same sex marriages to be solemnised in Methodist churches. Many Methodist and Uniting/United churches have made provision for same-sex clergy couples and same-sex marriage, though in all world areas conservative voices, including those in the Holiness tradition, continue to resist the trend toward a more affirming position. Though the debates have often played out along the lines of a division between evangelical and liberal elements of Methodism, theological work is beginning to emerge that avoids such a strict binary. Methodism’s central convictions about God’s universally available, transformative grace at work in all people and its balancing of scripture and tradition with reason and experience have given rise to a Methodist community that has become gradually more affirming and embracing of its LGBTQI+ members but further schisms seem likely to eventuate as a result of this trend.
- PublicationLeigh, Samuel (1 September 1785–2 May 1852)(Rowman and Littlefield, 2024-12) O'Brien, Glen; Woodruff Tait, Jennifer; Anderson, Christopher J.Samuel Leigh (1785-1852) was the founding Wesleyan missionary in both Australia and Aotearoa / New Zealand. Born in Milton, Staffordshire he joined the Wesleyans in Portsmouth and became a circuit preacher. Arriving in New South Wales in 1815, Leigh regularly rode a 150 mile circuit covering Sydney, Parramatta, Liverpool, Windsor, Richmond, Castlereagh, and the Hawkesbury River district. He brought an organisational discipline that was absent from the work of earlier lay preachers. Leigh first visited New Zealand in 1819 at the invitation of the Anglican minister, Samuel Marsden. In 1820 he travelled to England to raise money for the mission and while there married his childhood friend Catherine Clewes. The Leighs returned to New Zealand in 1822, and established a Māori mission in Kaeo, near Whangaroa Harbour in 1823. Catherine Leigh was a genuine partner in the Wesleyan work in both NSW and New Zealand, showing courage and tenacity. Catherine died in Sydney in May 1831, and Samuel returned to England the following year, grieving and worn out. He married a widow, Elizabeth Kaye and re-entered circuit work before suffering a stroke while addressing a Missionary Meeting in 1851 and dying on 2 May 1852. Samuel and Catherine Leigh’s respect for Māori culture and love for Māori people, though paternalistic, was a signpost of the way forward in New Zealand Methodism’s bi-cultural journey, and their humanitarian work in Sydney is gratefully remembered as the foundation of Methodist social work in New South Wales.
- PublicationPapua New Guinea(Rowman and Littlefield, 2024-12) O'Brien, Glen; Woodruff Tait, Jennifer; Anderson, Christopher J.Fijian, Samoan, and Tongan missionaries made a significant contribution to the establishment of Methodism in what is now Papua New Guinea. In 1875, George Brown (1835-1917) led a team of Pasifika leaders in pioneer work in British New Guinea which was transferred in 1892 to Australian Methodists under William Bromilow (1857-1929). Throughout its history, the influence of Pasifika personnel was far more significant that European missionaries, especially at the village level. In 1936 Kelebi Toginitu and Inose Ugwalubu became the first Papuan ministry candidates. By the 1960s, Pacific Islander and Papuan ministers began to gain more autonomy. Methodist work in Bougainville was an extension of the work of John F. Goldie that had begun in the Solomon Islands in 1902 where, once again, dedicated Pasifika personnel were the key to success. In 1968, the four Methodist Districts of the Solomons, Bougainville, New Britain, and the Highlands, merged with Presbyterians and the London Missionary Society to form the United Church of Papua New Guinea. Holiness churches, including the Wesleyan Church and the Church of the Nazarene also have a presence in Papua New Guinea. Nazarene work commenced under American missionaries Wanda and Sidney Knox in 1955. The Wesleyan Church was pioneered by Australians Kingsley and Jean Ridgway and Walter and Dorothy Hotchkin in the early 1960s and remains particularly strong in the Highlands, centred in Mt Hagen and Fugwa. In the 1990s, a Wesleyan Methodist Church re-emerged in Bougainville (and The Solomon Islands), through links with the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia.
- PublicationNew Zealand(Rowman and Littlefield, 2024-12) O'Brien, Glen; Woodruff Tait, Jennifer; Anderson, Christopher J.The Methodist Church of New Zealand/Te Hāhi Weteriana o Aotearoa began with Samuel Leigh who first travelled to the Bay of Islands from Sydney in 1819 at the invitation of the Anglican missionary, Samuel Marden. In 1823, Leigh and William White established ‘Wesleydale,’ a Māori Mission in Kāeo, near Whangaroa Harbour. Unlike in the neighbouring Australian colonies, Methodism began as a missionary church, a fact which has contributed to the bi-cultural Methodist identity in which Māori and Pākehā (all others) share. An 1896 union saw Wesleyans, Bible Christians and the United Free Methodists come together, to be joined by Primitive Methodists in 1913, at which point the new church separated from the Australasian General Conference. By 1901, Methodists made up 11% of the New Zealand population, a figure which proved to be a high point, declining to the present figure of around 0.2%. Throughout the twentieth century, Methodists sought to combine personal and social holiness informed by a liberal evangelical theology, and many participated in the anti-apartheid protests sparked by the Springbok rugby tour of 1981. From the late 1990s, evangelical and liberal Methodists found it difficult to coexist while differing over sexuality. A group of more conservative members, including some prominent ministers, withdrew to establish The Wesleyan Methodist Church of New Zealand in 2000. Both churches (as well as the Church of the Nazarene) are member churches of the World Methodist Council. Significant numbers of Pasifika peoples in Fijian, Rotuman, Samoan and Tongan congregations also maintain a strong Methodist identity in New Zealand.