The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism · Chapter
C. Methodism explained
This chapter examines Methodism as an Anglo-American movement parallel to Continental Pietism, characterized by a methodical, systematic approach to religious conduct aimed at attaining certitudo salutis.
What happens
This chapter examines Methodism as an Anglo-American movement parallel to Continental Pietism, characterized by a methodical, systematic approach to religious conduct aimed at attaining certitudo salutis. It highlights the emotional conversion experience, the doctrine of sanctification, and the alliance between emotional religion and ascetic ethics. The chapter discusses the tensions within Methodism regarding predestination, the role of works, and the influence of Lutheran and Moravian ideas, ultimately concluding that Methodism added little new to the development of the calling.
Themes in this chapter
Asceticism and Worldly Conduct
Methodism's methodical, systematic conduct aimed at attaining certitudo salutis exemplifies the ascetic rationalization of life, though with an emotional twist.
Predestination and Anxiety
The chapter discusses how Methodism, while moving away from strict Calvinist predestination, still grappled with the anxiety of assurance, substituting emotional conversion and sanctification for the doctrine of predestination.
The Calling and Duty
The chapter concludes that Methodism added nothing new to the development of the idea of the calling, indicating its continuity with earlier ascetic Protestantism.
Characters to notice
- John Wesley
Central figure; his emphasis on feeling and conversion shaped Methodism's emotional character, and his doctrine of sanctification provided a basis for certitudo salutis.
- Nikolaus von Zinzendorf
Mentioned as a contrast; Methodism's emotional piety did not lead to the spiritualized religion of feeling characteristic of Zinzendorf's Pietism.
- Matthias Schneckenburger
Cited for his observation that Methodism's emotional character was connected to a less intensive development of the sense of sin.
Key passages
“The combination of an emotional but still ascetic type of religion with increasing indifference to or repudiation of the dogmatic basis of Calvinistic asceticism is characteristic also of the Anglo-American movement corresponding to Continental Pietism, namely Methodism.”
Methodism, like Continental Pietism, blended emotional religiosity with ascetic discipline, while moving away from Calvinist doctrinal foundations.
This sets the stage for the chapter's analysis of Methodism's unique character.
“The name in itself shows what impressed contemporaries as characteristic of its adherents: the methodical, systematic nature of conduct for the purpose of attaining the certitudo salutis.”
The term 'Methodism' reflects the movement's emphasis on a systematic, methodical approach to conduct aimed at achieving assurance of salvation.
Highlights the centrality of methodical conduct in Methodist practice.
“The emotional act of conversion was methodically induced. And after it was attained there did not follow a pious enjoyment of community with God, after the manner of the emotional Pietism of Zinzendorf, but the emotion, once awakened, was directed into a rational struggle for perfection.”
Methodism deliberately induced emotional conversion, but unlike Zinzendorf's Pietism, it channeled that emotion into a rational pursuit of holiness rather than passive communion with God.
Contrasts Methodism's emotional yet rational asceticism with other Pietist movements.