English Methodists and Irish Presbyterians in the American Revolution
For Independence Day, Christianity Today republished two online articles by Mark Noll on Christians in the American Revolution. In Tory Believers: Which Higher Loyalty Noll discusses the loyalism of the early Methodists. It is not surprising that Loyalism existed among Methodists, who at the time of the Revolution were still a fledgling body in America. From England, American Methodists received word of Charles Wesley's openly stated belief in the doctrines of divine right and passive obedience. John Wesley, for his part, expressed public sympathy for the inequities inflicted upon the colonies. But he also criticized American Whigs for their highly exaggerated prattle about the "slavery" resulting from British policies and for their disobedience of the clear scriptural injunction to be subject to the powers that be. In seeking to put British wrongs in their proper light, Wesley reminded his American friends that the true slaves in the colonies were the Negroes. He also ...