Methodism in Australia,A History Glen O’Brien and Hilary M. Carey,eds

Reviewed by: Robert Gribben, North Balwyn, Victoria

If anyone suspects that the arrival of this collection of essays is an exercise in Methodist recidivism, or sentimentality, forget it. In every way this is a modern and critical study of a denominational tradition in our own context, of interest not merely to those who remember some form of Methodism, but quite directly to the Uniting Church, to all Australian Christians, and to Australians interested in the influence of religion in a nation’s life. Hilary Carey’s illuminating essay on historiography traces the move from ‘providential’ history (with interesting references to the American experience), to ‘commemorative or heritage’ from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries, to ‘reflexive’ history which ‘addresses Methodism with full critical, scholarly weight’. The book claims, I think rightly, to be an independent work, not an ‘official’ church history.

It is regrettable that such a foundational book should appear nearly 40 years after union, yet there is value in its distance in time, allowing Methodism to be seen in a new context. Both the Preface and the Conclusion frankly list the difficulties in producing the book (cost, size, scope) and its omissions; but these may make a case for multi-volume history (and theology) which would do the story full justice. Dialogue with the Uniting Church’s other partners could then be encouraged, for the Reformed tradition has undergone change and loss too. ¹

Part 1 of the book consists, after an opening chapter on the period before Methodist self-government (1855), of a set of studies of the first colonial churches, concluding with the moves towards intra-Methodist union in 1902. South Australia had been well-served by a ground-breaking study by Arnold Hunt in 1985; Ian Breward’s seminal work is also acknowledged (and further included). Three further chapters place Methodism in relation to its British provenance and heritage (Troy Duncan), emerging national identity (Samantha Frappell) and the ‘Challenge of the Sixties’, Methodism’s final decade (Jennifer Clark). In her assessment of Methodism’s ability to adapt to the contemporary changes, Dr Clark strikes the optimistic note: ‘[b]attered by the intellectualism, humanism and individualism of the 60s that ultimately challenged the authority of Christianity itself, Methodism chose a way forward in the idealism of ecumenism’ (p. 164). There’s food for thought.

Part 2 follows ‘themes’. Glen O’Brien examines the changes in religious experience, from its patterns in Wesley’s societies to the revivalist movement which changed the face of evangelical Christianity, and to the charismatic movement, itself a trajectory from Wesley’s doctrine of entire sanctification. D’Arcy Wood gives an account of Methodist worship and music, a field which does not easily allow description or assessment in prose. Other essays give significant attention to missions at home and in the Pacific (David Andrew Roberts and Margaret Reeson), Methodist women (Anne O’Brien), and scholarship (Garry Trompf) up to the formation of the Uniting Church. As the editors note, ecumenism, theological education and social services await treatment. Means to do so are an urgent need.

I need to declare a personal interest. Raised in and educated for ordained ministry in Methodism, I found myself reading this book at many levels, and with many emotions. James Udy (as Emilsen and O’Brien remind us) wrote 10 years into union about the gains and losses of union to the Methodist heritage. The latter included the loss specifically of its Wesleyan roots (in John and Charles) and theologically in the characteristic offer of universal salvation, on sanctification and the experience of Christian assurance; ecclesially, in a high view of the ordained ministry and its esprit de corps (contra its blurring with lay ministries, its ‘democratisation’) and Methodist confidence in gifted leadership. Members of the Uniting Church will recognize how far we have come from these. Australian Methodism was ‘Methodism without Wesley’; it was its own church, in its own place, reflecting its gold-mining Victorian origins, marked deeply by revivalism. Apart from a few scholars, little was known prior to union, or is yet known, of the reassessment of the whole tradition since the early 1970s, sparked by the freshly edited Oxford/Abingdon series on The Works of John Wesley, by new studies on Charles Wesley as an independent figure, and on emerging Methodism in Britain, North America and the former mission fields. It remains to be seen what illumination this scholarly revolution might bring to Australians with a Methodist memory.

A recovery of Wesleyan theology (rather than ‘Methodism’ as we received it) would indeed give stimulus to recovery, but it is not necessary to search only there. If the Uniting Church continues to draw on its ecumenical vision, alongside the Wesleys’, it will thereby strengthen its hold on the catholic elements in the great Tradition, in the manner of the much-vaunted ‘receptive ecumenism’. It seems at times more determined to be a new denomination, with roots nowhere. Actually, the Uniting Church’s vision has never been merely of an ‘Australian’ Church, but a united church for South East Asia and the Pacific (see paragraphs 1 and 2 of the Basis of Union) whose migrant congregations are precisely sustaining the Methodist memory within the Uniting Church. This reprise and assessment of Australian Methodism certainly offers many relevant challenges to its successor church and beyond.