The Origins of Primitive Methodism - Couverture rigide

Calder, Sandy

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1783270810 ISBN 13 : 9781783270811

Editeur : The Boydell Press, 2016

Synopsis

The Primitive Methodist Connexion's mature social character may have been working-class, but this did not reflect its social origins.

This book shows that while the Primitive Methodist Connexion's mature social character was working-class, this did not reflect its social origins. It was never the church of the working class, the great majority of whose churchgoers went elsewhere: rather it was the church whose commitment to its emotional witness was increasingly incompatible with middle-class pretensions. Sandy Calder shows that the Primitive Methodist Connexion was a religious movementled by a fairly prosperous elite of middle-class preachers and lay officials appealing to a respectable working-class constituency. This reality has been obscured by the movement's self-image as a persecuted community of humble Christians, an image crafted by Hugh Bourne, and accepted by later historians, whether Methodists with a denominational agenda to promote or scholars in search of working-class radicals. Primitive Methodists exaggerated their hardships and deliberately under-played their social status and financial success. Primitive Methodism in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries became the victim of its own founding mythology, because the legend of a community of persecuted outcasts, concealing its actual respectability, deterred potential recruits.

SANDY CALDER graduated with a PhD in Religious Studies from the Open University and has previously worked in the private sector.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

This book shows that while the Primitive Methodist Connexion's mature social character was working-class, this did not reflect its social origins. It was never the church of the working class, the great majority of whose churchgoers went elsewhere: rather it was the church whose commitment to its emotional witness was increasingly incompatible with middle-class pretensions. Sandy Calder shows that the Primitive Methodist Connexion was a religious movement led by a fairly prosperous elite of middle-class preachers and lay officials appealing to a respectable working-class constituency. This reality has been obscured by the movement's self-image as a persecuted community of humble Christians, an image crafted by Hugh Bourne, and accepted by later historians, whether Methodists with a denominational agenda to promote or scholars in search of working-class radicals. Primitive Methodists exaggerated their hardships and deliberately under-played their social status and financial success. Primitive Methodism in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries became the victim of its own founding mythology, because the legend of a community of persecuted outcasts, concealing its actual respectability, deterred potential recruits.

Biographie de l'auteur

SANDY CALDER graduated with a PhD in Religious Studies from the Open University and has previously worked in the private sector.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: The Boydell Press
• Date d'édition: 2016
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1783270810
• ISBN 13: 9781783270811
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 316
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible