'That thy house may be filled': A study of earliest American Methodist lay worship leaders between 1766 and 1773: Philip Embury, Robert Strawbridge, Joseph Pilmore, and Francis Asbury.

摘要

Identifying worship concerns in the founding documents of two early nineteenth century seceders from the Methodist Episcopal Church, in New England (1814) and Philadelphia (1801), generated questions about the roots of these issues. A substantial portion of the answer to these questions lay in better understanding how the challenges and choices of America's first Methodists, some forty years earlier, might have affected the development of Methodist worship in America. The present work is limited to an examination of four of American Methodism's earliest worship leaders: Philip Embury, Robert Strawbridge, Joseph Pilmore, and Francis Asbury. It is intended to re-open a discussion of the lives, work, and words of these men in order to analyze their values, attitudes, and practices concerning worship and the sacraments between 1766 and 1773.;A re-examination of available oral history, some contemporaneous letters and documents, plus the published journals of Asbury and Pilmore have formed the basis for the work. What is known of the stories of these four worship leaders has been researched, studied, compared, and contrasted in order to create a historical narrative concerning their experiences during these years. Reviewing and rethinking the work and words of each have suggested revisions to their well accepted portraits which challenge the broad characterizations that have, in some cases, hardened into stereotypes.;These revisions suggest rather, that Embury, not officially sent by John Wesley, was a stronger and more influential leader of the first Methodist congregation in New York City than previously understood. Furthermore, the apparently radical choice of Strawbridge (also an unofficial Methodist representative) to preside at the sacraments may have been rooted in the struggle for sacramental rights among the Irish Methodists of the 1750s. Of Wesley's first official missionaries, Pilmore was a loyal Methodist who was neither on a personal quest for ordination, nor was he anti-itinerancy. Finally, Francis Asbury had a more positive and respectful view of the sacraments than has been previously understood. By suggesting the possibility of altering traditional interpretations, new avenues for conversation about the development of worship among American Methodists may be opened to future historians.