Methodism: A Very Short Introduction

Introduction

1: John Wesley and the origins of Methodism

2: Supporting background music

3: The people called methodists

4: The message of Methodism

5: The search for credible alternatives

6: The practices of Methodism

7: The impact of Methodism

8: The decline of Methodism

9: The future prospects of Methodism

References

Further Reading

Index

William J. Abraham is the Albert Cook Outler Professor of Wesley Studies, and an Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas. He grew up in Methodism in Ireland, knows Methodism intimately in its diverse forms within the USA, and has had extensive experience of Methodism in Europe, Central America, and Malaysia. As a scholar he has worked as a philosophical and systematic theologian in conversation with the Methodist tradition from Wesley to the present. Aside from various papers on various historical aspects of Methodist theology, he has co-edited with James E. Kirby, The Oxford Handbook of Methodist Studies (OUP, 2011) , and written a popular introduction to the theology of John Wesley, Wesley for Armchair Theologians (Westminster John Knox Press, 2005).