Issue 114 Francis Asbury: Pioneer of Methodism

What's inside

Francis Asbury, Did you know?

Without Francis Asbury, the American landscape would look very different

the editors

Editor's note: Francis Asbury

Methodism’s beginning in America was many things I had not expected

Jennifer Woodruff Tait

The unexpected leader

How a rural English metalworker transformed American religion

John Wigger

One noisy mouse

Asbury knew how to relieve tense situations with humor

John Wigger

Methodists and their stuff

Methodists have collected thousands of documents, objects, records, and artifacts

Christopher J. Anderson

Asbury’s simple message

Asbury never aspired to be a professional theologian

Kenneth C. Kinghorn

The “Church of the Horse”

What was it like to be an American Methodist when Francis Asbury was alive?

Lester Ruth

Camp meetings: a Methodist invention?

Revival elements people experienced in 1801 had been part of Methodist life for several decades

Lester Ruth

The bishop and his mentor

The saintly German leader who influenced and frustrated Asbury

J. Steven O’Malley

Christian History Timeline: Methodists on the move

How Methodism transformed in America from a small immigrant sect to a leading Protestant denomination

the editors

A new kind of Methodism and a new kind of bishop


Scott Kisker

From John Wesley to Ben-Hur


Candy Gunther Brown

The Damnation of Theron Ware


Harold Frederic

Doing “more beyond”


Priscilla Pope-Levison

Preachers, fighters, and crusaders

Here are the stories of some other Methodists who helped settle—and then transform—a continent

Gary Panetta and Kenneth Cain Kinghorn

The patriarch broods over his family’s future

Asbury warned Methodists against settling down like other churches

Francis Asbury

The continent was their parish

Christian History talked with historian Russell Richey about who Methodists have been and how Asbury made them that way

Russell Richey

Francis Asbury: Recommended resources

Where should you go to understand Methodists? Here are some recommendations from CH editorial staff and this issue’s authors

the editors
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