COS 412: Wesleyan Movement

Instructor: Rev. Dr. Ken Walden
Contact: revdrwalden@yahoo.com

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Course Description

This course is a critical reflection on significant individuals, decisive events, and fundamental tenets of the Christian faith as found in the development of United Methodism. Utilizing the categories of grace and faith as focusing lenses, students will appropriate particulars of the Wesleyan heritage and will enter into the church’s ongoing task of interpreting, articulating, and embodying/enacting the gospel in contemporary life.

The goal of the course is to offer an overview of the Methodist movement both in England and America, so the student can develop a deeper understanding of its development, uniqueness, and influence in our modern world.

Course Objectives

A brief review of the factors in the English Reformation, the Puritan revolution, and German Pietism that illuminate the Evangelical Revival.
Introduction to John, Charles, and Susanna and Samuel Wesley, with emphasis upon the ministry and theology of John Wesley and the development of Methodist societies within eighteenth-century Anglicanism.
Examination of the transformation that occurred in transplanting of Methodism to America.
Consideration of significant theological and historical developments in Methodism and in the Evangelical United Brethren tradition in nineteenth and twentieth-century America.
Reflection upon pressing theological and church polity issues facing contemporary United Methodism.
Appreciation for and appropriation of the contributions of historical theology.
Continued growth of the pastor’s identity as theologian.

Required Textbooks

Heitzenrator, Richard P., Wesley and The People Called Methodists; (Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1995)

Richey, Rowe, and Schmidt, The Methodist Experience in America: A History, v. 1, (Nashville, Abingdon Press, 2010)

This class requires homework to be turned in before the class starts:
Download class syllabus & pre-class assignments