Brett C. McInelly, Associate Professor of English at Brigham Young University, having read widely and deeply in both Methodist and anti-Methodist materials, here provides a fresh analysis of the controversies surrounding the movement. His account of the eighteenth-century British “public sphere” and its disdain for Methodism is helpful, if not particularly new. Critics went after the movement for its perceived “enthusiasm” and all the other beliefs and practices that seemed to counter Enlightenment rationality and good order. Hymn-singing, lay-preaching (often out of doors), the prominence of people from lower social ranks and of women, erotic-sounding language which hinted at illicit sexuality all provoked them. And Methodists participated fully in the conversation: leaders in their various published apologies, and ordinary members in letters and diaries. What sets McInelly's work apart, though, is his conclusion that early Methodism was largely “constituted in the controversy it inspired; . . . [it was] defined and refined by public attacks and defences” of its basic principles (5). The “textual warfare” called forth by anti-Methodist reproach, he asserts, “contributed as much to the making of Methodism as any of Whitefield's sermons or Wesley's efforts to provide a coherent structure to the movement” (23).

The first chapter explores the Wesleys' and Whitefield's well-known publication ventures and their interest in members' literacy, alongside the critiques and caricatures aimed at the new movement. McInelly innovatively examines the revival's own textual culture, which not only converted, catechized and supported new converts, but also supplied them with an alternative hermeneutic for understanding the Bible and their own lived experience. Reading the word and the world this way, early Methodists engaged in a dialectic with their critics, in the process defining exactly what a Methodist was. For instance, they could acknowledge their criticized emotional expression, but then interpret it positively—and limit its more egregious manifestations. And overall, they could understand persecution as a mark of their counter-cultural mission and therefore a badge of honor.

This contested meaning called forth a rhetorical strategy, which McInelly in his second chapter illuminates in terms of Kenneth Burke's theory of “symbolic identification.” According to Burke, this is the perception, arising out of discourse, that one person shares “common sensations, concepts, images, ideas, [or] attitudes” with another (67). In their conversation, singing, class meetings and love feasts, as well as in their letters and publications Methodists together made compelling sense of their experiences and built strong connections with their fellow believers. In doing so, they also “tempered enthusiasm with discipline, and rugged individualism with communal accountability” (quoting David Hempton, 84).

McInelly provides four key examples of “textual warfare,” beginning with Samuel Foote's wildly successful 1760 play, The Minor, a signal instance of the theater's popular rivalry with the revival. Both sides acknowledged their marketplace competition. Wesley and Whitefield denigrated the English stage for its debauchery and general profaneness; and the theater, in turn, assumed (not incorrectly) that someone like Whitefield, who had training in their trade and produced his own pious drama, deserved whatever satirical barbs came his way. The Minor filled that bill, creating both a Whitefield caricature (“Dr. Squintum,” playing off of Whitefield's crossed eyes), spawning other anti-Methodist tracts and ballads, and generating a huge pamphlet war over the play itself. McInelly argues that this cultural event marked Methodism's coming of age as an institution that had matured over the past two decades and was not going to leave the scene. Indeed, weathering this controversy seems to have done neither side any particular damage. For Methodists, this instance of theatrical persecution seems to have strengthened their “personal commitment and communal solidarity” (119).

Methodist hymnody, one of the revival's key innovations, simultaneously played an important role in the movement and elicited criticism from its detractors. Drawing on recent work by Phyllis Mack and Joanna Cruickshank, McInelly notes that Charles Wesley's hymns were memorized and served as a powerful guide and confirmation for Methodists' spiritual experience, simultaneously initiating conversion, providing doctrinal teaching and in general explaining the Christian life. The Wesleys, well aware of the power of the lyrics and music they were employing, were also clear about regulating that power. Charles Wesley himself warned singers to be on their guard “Lest haply sense should damp our zeal,/ And music's charms bewitch and steal/ Our heart away from thee” (143). Here is another clear example of Kenneth Burke's “symbolic identification,” as hymn singing both created a strong community and, in turn, provided an ample apologia for it. According to McInelly, the regulatory role of singing epitomized the mainstreaming of Methodism—a lesson learned in part from opponents' complaints about their enthusiasm.

Accusations against Methodism's sexualized spirituality and sexual politics provided another opportunity to reshape its identity. The bodily expression of emotion, the organization of members into intense and intimate small groups, late gatherings for “love feasts” and “watch-night” services, the erotic biblical language frequently applied metaphorically to spiritual experience, the sway preachers seemed to hold over women all, unsurprisingly, left Methodists vulnerable to criticism. McInelly again employs Burkean theory, which here explains the overlap between the communication of sexual and spiritual feelings. The censure this confusion generated heightened awareness within Methodism (from Wesley on down) on the need for self-regulation of sexual irregularity. Anti-Methodists were also offended by Methodist promotion of female leadership, seeing it as a threat to social convention, by luring women from their domestic roles. McInelly explores the novelistic nervousness about the revival's impact on women in both Tobias Smollett's Humphrey Clinker (1771) and the less-well-known The Spiritual Quixote, or the Summer's Ramble of Mr. Geoffry Wildgoose (1773) by Richard Graves. In response, elements within Methodism also argued against female preaching, though early women engaged in such practices stood their ground and Wesley himself supported their “extraordinary call.” Nevertheless, by the early nineteenth century the Wesleyan side of the movement was actively discouraging female ministry, another indication that the “maturing” denomination intended to imperil neither British womanhood nor society.

Methodist infighting—the theological disputes that developed between the Wesley brothers and George Whitefield—is McInelly's final example of anti-Methodist critique and Methodist self-redefinition. While most non-Methodists had trouble disentangling the Arminian-vs.-Calvinist quarrel, each side strained to prove its position to the public not only from scripture, but also the Church of England's Articles, Homilies and liturgy. McInelly credits both Smollett and Graves with some of the more discerning and nuanced outside perspectives on these controversies. In any case Humphrey Clinker and The Spiritual Quixote are not bad indicators of how Methodism was faring culturally two-thirds through the eighteenth century. Internally, the dispute pushed both camps to a more articulate defense of their positions. Despite the competition (and contrary to leaders' fears), McInelly believes the divide “helped cultivate the spiritual lives of early Methodists” and contributed to a solidified “Methodist identity and self-understanding, at both the individual and group levels” (211).

The “warfare” McInelly so meticulously and convincingly describes “ensured that Methodists would be constituted in and through texts,” those of their own writing and the polemics of their opponents, both comprising “a symbolic world [they] came to inhabit.” In fact, the opposition they faced helped prove to themselves their status as believers: “they held fast to their convictions because of the opposition they faced at every turn” (217). This breakthrough for the understanding of early Methodism reminds us of how important literary and cultural study is to our work. And, methodologically, it exemplifies an approach that might be applied to other new and controversial religious movements striving for cultural acceptance. For instance, one could imagine people on McInelly's campus hearing echoes of the L.D.S. experience. That “new” movement also has its own print culture, its insistent critics, an ambiguous relationship with the theater, a tradition of hymnody, continuing conflict over sexuality, plenty of internal disputes—in short, an experience not unlike early Methodism's.