Media: BOOK - paperback, 424 pages
Author: B, Chalmers
Year: 2024
ISBN: 9781923068940
Other: b&w photos, appendix
Publisher: Australian Scholarly Publishing

FROM THE PREFACE

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Methodism was the most vogorous religious group in South Australia with the largest body of regular church attenders and Sunday school enrolments. A handful of Methodists were present at the commencement of the colony in 1836. By 1900, self-described Methodists comprised 25 per cent of the state’s population, and hovered around the same figure through to 1939. This study explores the contribution of revivalism to conversionary growth and institutional expansion in the period from 1838, with the first recorded religious revival to 1939. It results from a conviction that the study of revivalism within Methodism has received too little attention from historians. It is argued that revivalism provided the Methodist churches with an effective methodology for conversionary growth in the quest for ‘vital refigion’ - a religion of the heart.

Methodists emphasised an experiential faith, grounded in knowledge of the gospel and a personal experience of Jesus Christ, which led the believer to an active life of service. Conversion marked the beginning of a ‘vital’ as opposed to a ‘nominal’ religious orientation and outlook. Methodist piety at its best, had striven for both personal conversion and social concern, seeking to align the values of the Kingdom of God with public morality. Inherently reformist, Methodists engaged with society, seeking to make public life and culture ‘more Christian’. This study traces Methodism’s advocacy of temperance, Sabbath (Sunday) observance, and philanthropy, aspects of its reformist agenda. The study also identifies that by the time of the inter-war period, Methodist identity moved toward a social Christianity, and away from its revivalist heritage. Some Methodists began to insist that narrow individualistic understandings of sin and salvation were inadequate dal reform.

This study, based on meticulous scholarship, well-crafted examples and a mastery of existing scholarship, is written with crisp clarity with confidently presented conclusions that significantly advance our understanding of Methodism in South Australia in its first century. I commend it to the attention of scholars and general readers alike. - Brian Dickey, formerly Associate Professor of History, Flinders University

Brian Chalmers explores for the first time in depth a central strand in the history of Methodism in South Australia. This invigorating work clearly demonstrates the importance of revivalism and the expectation of personal conversions as the main source of Methodist energy and numerical growth until the early twentieth century. Then the impetus faded. This is a significant contribution to the religious history of South Australia. - David Hilliard OAM, formerly Associate Professor of History, Flinders University

Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction

Part 1 1838-1865

1. Methodist Foundations and Revivalism
2. Sowing the Seeds of Colonial Revivalism
3. Social reform, 1836-1865
4. Counting Methodists
5. Burra and Central Hill Country Revivals 1858-1860

Part 2 1866-1913

6. Evangelists and Revivalism
7. Intellectual Challenges to Revivalism
8. Social Reform 1866-1913 ‘Making Men Sober and Godly’
9. Democratisation of Revivalism
10. Missions, Conventions, and More Missions 1902-1912

Part 3 1914-1939

11. Revivalism in Transformation, 1912-1921
12. Revivalists, Pentecostals, and Healers, 1922-1923
13. Revivalism Falters, 1920s
14. Revivalism Re-examined, 1930s
15. Social Reform, 1914-1939 ‘It’s a Long Way to Prohibition’

Conclusion

Appendix
Bibliography
Index