Methodism

religion
Methodism, 18th-century movement founded by John
Wesley that sought to reform the Church of England from within.
The movement, however, became separate from its parent body
and developed into an autonomous church. The World Methodist
Council (WMC), an association of churches in the Methodist
tradition, comprises more than 40.5 million Methodists in 138
countries.
History
Origins
John Wesley was born in 1703, educated in London and Oxford,
and ordained a deacon in the Church of England in 1725. In 1726
he was elected a fellow of Lincoln College at Oxford, and in the
following year he left Oxford temporarily to act as curate to his
father, the rector of Epworth. Wesley was ordained a priest in
the Church of England in 1728 and returned to Oxford in 1729.
Back in Oxford, he joined his brother Charles and a group of
earnest students who were dedicated to frequent attendance
at Holy Communion, serious study of the Bible, and regular
visitations to the filthy Oxford prisons. The members of this
group, which Wesley came to lead, were known as Methodists
because of their “methodical” devotion and study.

In 1735, at the invitation of the founder of the colony of

Georgia, James Edward Oglethorpe, both John and Charles
Wesley set out for the colony to be pastors to the colonists and
missionaries (it was hoped) to the Native Americans.
Unsuccessful in their pastoral work and having done no
missionary work, the brothers returned to England conscious of
their lack of genuine Christian faith. They looked for help to
Peter Böhler and other members of the Church of the Brethren,
who were staying in England before
joining Moravian settlements in the American colonies. John
Wesley noted in his Journal that at a Moravian service on May 24,
1738, he “felt” his “heart strangely warmed”; he continued, “I
felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and
an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins,
even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” Charles
Wesley had reported a similar experience a few days previously.
Some months later, George Whitefield, also an Anglican
clergyman who had undergone a “conversion
experience,” invited his friend John Wesley to come to the city of
Bristol to preach to the colliers of Kingswood Chase, who lived
and worked in the most debased conditions. Wesley accepted the
invitation and found himself, much against his will, preaching in
the open air. This enterprise was the beginning of the Methodist
Revival. Whitefield and Wesley at first worked together but later
separated over Whitefield’s belief in double predestination (the
belief that God has determined from eternity whom he will save
and whom he will damn). Wesley regarded this as
an erroneous doctrine and insisted that the love of God was
universal.

Under the leadership of Whitefield and then of Wesley, the

movement grew rapidly among those who felt neglected by the
Church of England. Wesley differed from contemporary
Anglicans not in doctrine but in emphasis: he claimed to have
reinstated the biblical doctrines that human beings may be
assured of their salvation and that the power of the Holy
Spirit enables them to attain perfect love for God and their
fellows in this life. Wesley’s helpers included only a few ordained
clergymen and his brother Charles, who wrote more than
6,000 hymns to express the message of the revival. In spite of
Wesley’s wish that the Methodist Society would never leave the
Church of England, relations with Anglicans were often strained.

In 1784, when there was a shortage of ordained ministers in

America after the Revolution, the Bishop of London refused to
ordain a Methodist for the United States. Feeling himself forced
to act and believing that biblical principles allowed
a presbyter to ordain, Wesley ordained Thomas Coke as
superintendent and two others as presbyters. In the same year,
by a Deed of Declaration, he appointed a Conference of 100 men
to govern the Society of Methodists after his death.

Wesley’s ordinations set an important precedent for the

Methodist church, but the definite break with the Church of
England came in 1795, four years after his death. After
the schism, English Methodism, with vigorous outposts
in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, rapidly developed as a church,
even though it was reluctant to perpetuate the split from the
Church of England. Its system centred in the Annual Conference
(at first of ministers only, later thrown open to laypeople), which
controlled all its affairs. The country was divided
into districts and the districts into circuits, or groups of
congregations. Ministers were appointed to the circuits, and
each circuit was led by a superintendent, though much power
remained in the hands of the local trustees.

The Wesleyan Methodist Church grew rapidly, numbering

450,000 members by the end of the 19th century. Its growth was
largest in the expanding industrial areas, where the Methodist
faith helped workers—both men and women—to endure
economic hardship while they alleviated their poverty. Because
their faith encouraged them to live simply, their economic status
tended to rise. Consequently, Wesleyan Methodism became a
middle-class church that was not immune to the excessive stress
on the individual in material and spiritual matters that marked
the Victorian age.

At the same time, the autocratic habits of some ministers in

authority, notably Jabez Bunting, an outstanding but sometimes
ruthless leader, alienated many of the more ardent and
democratic spirits, resulting in schisms. The Methodist New
Connexion broke off in 1797, the Primitive Methodists in 1811,
the Bible Christians in 1815, and the United Methodist Free
Churches in 1857. A movement to reunite the Methodist groups
began about the turn of the century and succeeded in two stages.
In 1907 the Methodist New Connexion, the Bible Christians, and
the United Methodist Free Churches joined to form the United
Methodist Church; and in 1932 the Wesleyan Methodist Church,
the Primitive Methodist Church, and the United Methodist
Church came together to form the Methodist Church.

The Methodist Church has shared in the numerical decline that

has plagued English churches since about 1910. This decline,
together with broader social and cultural changes, inspired a
desire to express Wesley’s original ideals in a contemporary
form. The church planned new evangelical missions, developed
the Kingswood School (Wesley’s foundation) and other boarding
schools, and trained Christian teachers at Westminster and
Southlands colleges, activities that continued through the rest of
the 20th century. Its strong interest in social issues has
expanded to include a wide range of national and international
problems, especially those connected with race, poverty, and
peace.

The Methodist Church immediately became involved in

the ecumenical movement and later was a founding member of
the British Council of Churches (1942) and the World Council of
Churches (1948). Throughout the 20th century it participated in
interdenominational dialogues and sought to create unions
across denominational boundaries. Relations with the Church of
England improved so much by the 1960s that a plan for the
reunion of the two churches (in two stages) was approved in
principle by both in 1965. The final form of the plan was
approved by the Methodist Church with a very large majority in
1969, but the Church of England did not muster a large enough
majority to bring the plan into effect. The same happened in
1972, and in 1982 the Anglican church failed to ratify a proposal
for a “Covenant for Visible Unity” that was favoured by the
United Reformed Church and the Moravian Church as well as by
the Methodists. The church also engaged in official discussion
with Roman Catholics on national and world levels and found a
surprising degree of agreement while it promoted tolerance and
understanding on previously contentious issues.

The first woman was ordained to “The Ministry of Word and

Sacraments” in 1974. This was the climax of many years of
discussion and controversy. It indicated a growing appreciation
of the place of women in the life of the church. The theological
objections had been carefully considered and rejected before the
final step was taken.
Methodism was introduced into America by Irish immigrants who
had been converted by John Wesley. Wesley also sent preachers,
the most successful of whom was Francis Asbury, a blacksmith,
who arrived in 1771. He adapted Wesley’s principles to the
needs of the settled communities and of the frontier, but, unlike
Wesley, Asbury supported the American Revolution and the new
republic. Despite this difference, Wesley sent the presbyters he
ordained along with Thomas Coke as superintendent to help
Asbury in 1784. In the same year, The Methodist Episcopal
Church was organized, and Asbury and Coke allowed themselves
to be called bishops.

During the next 50 years the church made remarkable advances

led by the circuit riders who preached to the people on the
frontier in simple terms. At the same time, the church faced
schism over issues of race and slavery. The African Methodist
Episcopal Zion Church (1821) and the African Methodist
Episcopal Church (1816) were formed because of the
racial prejudice experienced by African Americans in the
Methodist Episcopal Church. The slavery issue split the
Methodist Church into two bodies: the Methodist Episcopal
Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (organized in
1845). A third church formed as a result of the slavery question,
the all-African American Colored (now “Christian”) Methodist
Episcopal Church (1870), split from the southern Methodist
church. After the Civil War the two main churches grew rapidly
and gradually became assimilated to the general pattern of
American Protestantism. When it was clear that the old issues no
longer divided them, they began to move together. But it was not
until 1939 that they formed the Methodist Church, which the
smaller Methodist Protestant Church (established 1830) also
joined.

The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, lost its African

American members before and during the Civil War. In 1939
the Central Jurisdiction was formed for all African American
members of the church. It was one of six jurisdictions—
administrative units responsible for electing bishops—of the
church and the only racial jurisdiction. Unlike the other
jurisdictions, which were determined by geography, the Central
Jurisdiction was shaped by race, which resulted in a segregated
organizational structure and kept white and black Methodists
apart. The Central Jurisdiction was also plagued by a lack of
resources and the challenge of administering an excessively
large geographic area. The Central Jurisdiction was abolished in
1968, and African American Methodists were integrated into the
larger church.

The originally German-speaking Evangelical United Brethren

Church, itself a union of the Church of the United Brethren in
Christ and the Evangelical Church, was united with The
Methodist Church in 1968 to form the United Methodist
Church. Women were given limited clergy rights in 1924 and
were accepted for full ordination in 1956. In 1980 the United
Methodist Church elected its first woman bishop, and it has
elected more since.
Canada
Methodism was introduced into Canada by preachers from the
United States and later reinforced by British Methodists. In 1874
The Methodist Church of Canada became autonomous; it went on
to negotiate a union with other Canadian nonepiscopal churches
to form the United Church of Canada in 1925. An independent
Methodist presence in Canada essentially ended with ratification
of the union; Canadian Methodists joined the new church, which
drew from the traditions of its constituent members to establish
the basic beliefs and practices of the new church.
Teachings
Methodism is marked by an acceptance of the doctrines of
historical Christianity; by an emphasis on doctrines that indicate
the power of the Holy Spirit to confirm the faith of believers and
to transform their personal lives; by an insistence that the heart
of religion lies in a personal relationship with God;
by simplicity of worship; by the partnership of ordained ministers
and laity in the worship and administration of the church; by a
concern for the underprivileged and the improvement of social
conditions; and (at least in its British form) by the formation of
small groups for mutual encouragement and edification.

All Methodist churches accept the Scriptures as the supreme

guide to faith and practice. Most welcome the findings of modern
biblical scholarship, though the fundamentalist groups among
them do not. The churches follow the historical creeds and
believe that they are part of the tradition of the
Protestant Reformation. They emphasize the teaching of
Christian perfection, interpreted as “perfect love,” which is
associated with John Wesley, who held that every Christian
should aspire to such perfection with the help of the Holy Spirit.

Methodist churches affirm infant baptism. They also regularly

receive the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, in which they
believe Christ to be truly present, though they have no precise
definition of the manner of his presence. They believe that they
are integral parts of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church
and that their ministers are true ministers of Word and
sacrament in the church of God.
Worship and organization
Patterns of service
Methodist worship everywhere is partly liturgical and partly
spontaneous. The general pattern was established by John
Wesley, who regularly used the Anglican Book of Common
Prayer (which he adapted for use in the United States) and
conducted services that included extemporaneous prayer. This
tradition continued in British Methodism into the 20th century,
when it underwent change. The practice of Anglican morning
prayer was eliminated first, and during the Liturgical Movement,
when Roman Catholic and Protestant churches revised their
liturgies, Anglican Holy Communion was dropped. The Liturgical
Movement also influenced the Methodist Service Book (1975)
and The Methodist Worship Book (1999) in Britain and, in
the United States, the Book of Worship (1965), the Ordinal (1980),
and the United Methodist Hymnal, subtitled The Book of United
Methodist Worship (1988). The reforms provided new opportunity
for congregational participation. The Sunday service, or Holy
Communion, restores the traditional fourfold pattern—the
offering of bread and wine, the thanksgiving, the breaking of the
bread, and the sharing of the elements. Nonliturgical services,
which constitute the majority, claim to be spontaneous but are
not. In British but not in American Methodism, many services are
conducted by lay preachers.

Hymns are important in all branches of Methodism. The most

important hymns of British Methodism are those of Charles
Wesley, which are mingled with many contemporary hymns as
well as those from other traditions. In Hymns and Psalms (1983),
certain changes were made to eliminate overtones that
Methodists considered sexist. American books contain fewer
hymns by Wesley.
Polity
In the churches of the British tradition, the Annual Conference is
the supreme authority for doctrine, order, and practice. All
ministers have equal status, but the president and secretary of
the Conference, the chairmen of districts, the secretaries of
divisions, and superintendents exercise special duties. District
affairs are regulated by Synods, circuits by Circuit Meetings,
local societies by Church Councils.

The American tradition is episcopal; the bishops are elected by

the Jurisdictional Conferences, which, like the General
Conference, meet every four years. Each episcopal area has an
Annual Conference and District Conferences, each with its
superintendent. The episcopal areas are combined into five
jurisdictions that cover the country. Formerly, ministers were
ordained first a deacon, then an elder. Since 1996, when the
transitional diaconate was abolished, ministers have been
ordained as either a deacon or an elder. Both are
permanent clergy orders that are distinct in character but equal
in authority.
There are Methodist churches in most European countries. Those
in Italy and Portugal are of English origin, those in Germany of
mixed English and American origin. Methodist churches in the
rest of Europe are derived from American Methodism, though
they exhibit many similarities in spirituality to the English type.

Missions
The ceaseless travels of Thomas Coke were the beginning of the
British Methodist missionary tradition. The first area where
missions took root was the West Indies; then came Sierra
Leone and southern Africa. The Gold Coast, French West Africa,
and Nigeria received missionaries not much later, though the
climate in many parts of Africa took a toll on missionary lives.

In India there were very few converts until about 1880, when
many thousand low-caste Indians in the south joined the
Methodist and other churches. In China, missionary work had a
checkered career. Although there were mass movements there,
the last missionary left China in 1949, when
the communists came to power on the mainland. In Australia the
Methodist Church began in 1815 and, like the Methodist Church
in South Africa, became independent before the end of the 19th
century. After World War II the missionary churches became
autonomous; only a few small churches remain under the control
of the Overseas Division of the British church. Most of
the autonomous churches combined with other churches in their
countries; for example, the Church of South India, which has
been in existence since 1947, includes Anglicans, Methodists,
Congregationalists, and Presbyterians.

American Methodists have been equally enthusiastic

missionaries, and their greater resources have carried them over
still larger areas of the globe. North India, Mexico, most of Latin
America, Cuba, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and many parts of Africa
possess Methodist churches of the American tradition. The
movement toward autonomy took place more slowly in these
areas than in the British sphere of influence. The General
Conference of the United Methodist Church makes plans for
fraternal relations among the newly independent churches.
John Wesley
John Wesley (born June 17, 1703, Epworth, Lincolnshire,
England—died March 2, 1791, London) was an Anglican
clergyman, evangelist, and founder, with his brother Charles, of
the Methodist movement in the Church of England.

John Wesley was the second son of Samuel, a

former Nonconformist (dissenter from the Church of England)
and rector at Epworth, and Susanna Wesley. After six years of
education at the Charterhouse, London, he entered Christ
Church, Oxford University, in 1720. Graduating in 1724, he
resolved to become ordained a priest; in 1725 he was made
a deacon by the bishop of Oxford and the following year was
elected a fellow of Lincoln College. After assisting his father at
Epworth and Wroot, he was ordained a priest on September 22,
1728.

Recalled to Oxford in October 1729 to fulfill the residential

requirements of his fellowship, John joined his brother Charles,
Robert Kirkham, and William Morgan in a religious study group
that was derisively called the “Methodists” because of
their emphasis on methodical study and devotion. Taking over
the leadership of the group from Charles, John helped the group
to grow in numbers. The “Methodists,” also called the Holy Club,
were known for their frequent communion services and
for fasting two days a week. From 1730 on, the group added
social services to their activities, visiting Oxford prisoners,
teaching them to read, paying their debts, and attempting to find
employment for them. The Methodists also extended their
activities to workhouses and poor people, distributing food,
clothes, medicine, and books and also running a school. When
the Wesleys left the Holy Club in 1735, the group disintegrated.

Following his father’s death in April 1735, John was persuaded

by an Oxford friend, John Burton, and Col. James Oglethorpe,
governor of the colony of Georgia in North America, to oversee
the spiritual lives of the colonists and to missionize the Native
Americans as an agent for the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel. Accompanied by Charles, who was ordained for this
mission, John was introduced to some Moravian emigrants who
appeared to him to possess the spiritual peace for which he had
been searching. The mission to the indigenous peoples proved
abortive, nor did Wesley succeed with most of his flock. He
served them faithfully, but his stiff high churchmanship
antagonized them. He had a naive attachment to Sophia Hopkey,
niece of the chief magistrate of Savannah, who married another
man, and Wesley unwisely courted criticism by repelling her
from Holy Communion. In December 1737 he fled from Georgia;
misunderstandings and persecution stemming from the Sophia
Hopkey episode forced him to go back to England.

In London John met a Moravian, Peter Böhler, who convinced

him that what he needed was simply faith, and he also
discovered Martin Luther’s commentary on the Letter of Paul to
the Galatians, which emphasized the scriptural doctrine
of justification by grace through faith alone. On May 24, 1738,
in Aldersgate Street, London, during a meeting composed largely
of Moravians under the auspices of the Church of England,
Wesley’s intellectual conviction was transformed into a personal
experience while Luther’s preface to the commentary to
the Letter of Paul to the Romans was being read.

From this point onward, at the age of 35, Wesley viewed his
mission in life as one of proclaiming the good news of salvation
by faith, which he did whenever a pulpit was offered him. The
congregations of the Church of England, however, soon closed
their doors to him because of his enthusiasm. He then went to
religious societies, trying to inject new spiritual vigour into them,
particularly by introducing “bands” similar to those of the
Moravians—i.e., small groups within each society that were
confined to members of the same sex and marital status who
were prepared to share intimate details of their lives with each
other and to receive mutual rebukes. For such groups Wesley
drew up Rules of the Band Societies in December 1738.

For a year he worked through existing church societies, but

resistance to his methods increased. In 1739 George Whitefield,
who later became an important preacher of the Great
Awakening in Great Britain and North America, persuaded
Wesley to go to the unchurched masses. Wesley gathered
converts into societies for continuing fellowship and spiritual
growth, and he was asked by a London group to become their
leader. Soon other such groups were formed in London, Bristol,
and elsewhere. To avoid the scandal of unworthy members,
Wesley published, in 1743, Rules for the Methodist societies. To
promote new societies he became a widely travelled itinerant
preacher. Because most ordained clergymen did not favour his
approach, Wesley was compelled to seek the services of
dedicated laymen, who also became itinerant preachers and
helped administer the Methodist societies.

Many of Wesley’s preachers had gone to the American colonies,

but after the American Revolution most returned to England.
Because the bishop of London would not ordain some of his
preachers to serve in the United States, Wesley controversially
took it upon himself, in 1784, to do so. In the same year he
pointed out that his societies operated independently of any
control by the Church of England.

Toward the end of his life, Wesley became an honoured figure in

the British Isles.

Wesleyan Church First Wesleyan Church, Huntington, W.V.

Wesleyan Church
Wesleyan Church, U.S. Protestant church, organized in 1968 by
the merger of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of America and
the Pilgrim Holiness Church. The Wesleyan Methodist Church
originated in 1843 after members of the Methodist Episcopal
Church withdrew from that church to organize a nonepiscopal,
antislavery church. The Pilgrim Holiness Church originated in
1897 by uniting several Holiness groups.

The Wesleyan Church is considered one of the Holiness

Churches. It stresses entire sanctification, a postconversion
experience that allows the person to live a sinless life. Members
of the church promise not to use, produce, or sell tobacco or
alcoholic beverages, and membership in secret societies is
forbidden.
United Methodist Church Christ United Methodist Church, Rochester, Minnesota.

United Methodist Church

United Methodist Church, in the United States, a major
Protestant church formed in 1968 in Dallas, Texas, by the union
of the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren
Church. It developed from the British Methodist revival
movement led by John Wesley that was taken to the American
colonies in the 1760s. In 2018 the church’s global membership
exceeded 12.5 million people. See alsoMethodism.
History
The autonomous Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in
1784 in Baltimore, Maryland, with Thomas Coke and Francis
Asbury as superintendents (later called bishops). The church
grew rapidly, but various schisms developed. In 1830 a
dissenting group organized the Methodist Protestant Church, a
nonepiscopal church. The slavery question caused a larger
disruption, and in 1845 in Louisville, Kentucky, southern
Methodists organized the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

Movements toward reunion of the Methodists began in the 1870s

but advanced slowly. In 1939 the Methodist Church was
organized by union of the Methodist Episcopal Church; the
Methodist Episcopal Church, South; and the Methodist
Protestant Church. The merger in 1968 that formed the United
Methodist Church brought together the Methodist Church,
primarily of British background, and the Evangelical United
Brethren Church, primarily of German background but very
similar to the Methodists.

Women were given limited clergy rights in 1924 and were

accepted for full ordination in 1956. In 1980 the United
Methodist Church elected its first woman bishop, and it has
elected more since.

In 2019, at a special session of the General Conference, leaders

voted to affirm the traditional stance against homosexuality, and
a proposal to allow individual churches autonomy in decisions
regarding gay clergy and same-sex marriage was voted down. As
a result of the significant division within the denomination
following this vote, in early 2020 church leaders proposed
splitting the church to resolve the debate.
Governance and clergy
The church is episcopally governed; the bishops are elected by
the Jurisdictional Conferences, which, like the General
Conference, meet every four years. Each episcopal area has an
Annual Conference and District Conferences, each with its
superintendent. The episcopal areas are combined into five
jurisdictions that cover the country.

Formerly, ministers were ordained first as a deacon, then as an

elder. Since 1996, when the transitional diaconate
was abolished, ministers have been ordained as either a deacon
or an elder. Both are permanent clergy orders that are distinct in
character but equal in authority.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated
by Melissa Petruzzello.
Reformation
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Last Updated: Apr 21, 2025 • Article History

Quick Facts
Also called:

Protestant Reformation
Date:
 c. 1517 - c. 1600
Location:

Europe
Context:

Anabaptist

Calvinism

Lutheranism

presbyter

Protestantism
Key People:

John Calvin

Thomas Cranmer

Henry VIII

John Knox

Martin Luther
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Top Questions
Where and when did the Reformation start?
What did the Reformation do?
Who were some of the key figures of the Reformation?
John CalvinPortrait of John Calvin by Henriette Rath; in the collection of the
Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire, Geneva.(more)

Reformation, the religious revolution that took place in the

Western church in the 16th century. Its greatest leaders
undoubtedly were Martin Luther and John Calvin. Having far-
reaching political, economic, and social effects, the Reformation
became the basis for the founding of Protestantism, one of the
three major branches of Christianity.

The world of the late medieval Roman Catholic Church from

which the 16th-century reformers emerged was a complex one.
Over the centuries the church, particularly in the office of
the papacy, had become deeply involved in the political life of
western Europe. The resulting intrigues and political
manipulations, combined with the church’s increasing power and
wealth, contributed to the bankrupting of the church as a
spiritual force. Abuses such as the sale of indulgences (or
spiritual privileges) by the clergy and other charges of corruption
undermined the church’s spiritual authority. These instances
must be seen as exceptions, however, no matter how much they
were played up by polemicists. For most people, the church
continued to offer spiritual comfort. There is some evidence
of anticlericalism, but the church at large enjoyed loyalty as it
had before. One development is clear: the political authorities
increasingly sought to curtail the public role of the church and
thereby triggered tension.

The Reformation of the 16th century was not unprecedented.

Reformers within the medieval church such as St. Francis of
Assisi, Valdes (founder of the Waldensians), Jan Hus, and John
Wycliffe addressed aspects in the life of the church in the
centuries before 1517. In the 16th century Erasmus of
Rotterdam, a great humanist scholar, was the chief proponent of
liberal Catholic reform that attacked popular superstitions in the
church and urged the imitation of Christ as the
supreme moral teacher. These figures reveal an ongoing concern
for renewal within the church in the years before Luther is said
to have posted his Ninety-five Theses on the door of the Castle
Church, Wittenberg, Germany, on October 31, 1517, the eve
of All Saints’ Day—the traditional date for the beginning of the
Reformation. (See Researcher’s Note.)

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What Very Big Thing Happened on This Day?

IndulgencesThe sale of indulgences in church; woodcut from the title page of
Luther's pamphlet On Aplas von Rom, published anonymously in Augsburg, 1525.
(more)

Martin Luther claimed that what distinguished him from

previous reformers was that while they attacked corruption in
the life of the church, he went to the theological root of the
problem—the perversion of the church’s doctrine
of redemption and grace. Luther, a pastor and professor at the
University of Wittenberg, deplored the entanglement of God’s
free gift of grace in a complex system of indulgences and good
works. In his Ninety-five Theses, he attacked
the indulgence system, insisting that the pope had no authority
over purgatory and that the doctrine of the merits of
the saints had no foundation in the gospel. Here lay the key to
Luther’s concerns for the ethical and theological reform of the
church: Scripture alone is authoritative (sola scriptura)
and justification is by faith (sola fide), not by works. While he did
not intend to break with the Catholic church, a confrontation
with the papacy was not long in coming. In 1521 Luther
was excommunicated; what began as an internal reform
movement had become a fracture in western Christendom.
Huldrych ZwingliHuldrych Zwingli, detail of an oil portrait by Hans Asper, 1531;
in the Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Switzerland.

The Reformation movement within Germany diversified almost

immediately, and other reform impulses arose independently of
Luther. Huldrych Zwingli built a Christian theocracy in Zürich in
which church and state joined for the service of God. Zwingli
agreed with Luther in the centrality of the doctrine of
justification by faith, but he espoused a different understanding
of the Holy Communion. Luther had rejected the Catholic
church’s doctrine of transubstantiation, according to which the
bread and wine in Holy Communion became the actual body and
blood of Christ. According to Luther’s notion, the body of
Christ was physically present in the elements because Christ is
present everywhere, while Zwingli claimed that entailed a
spiritual presence of Christ and a declaration of faith by the
recipients.

Another group of reformers, often though not altogether

correctly referred to as “radical reformers,” insisted
that baptism be performed not on infants but on adults who had
professed their faith in Jesus. Called Anabaptists, they remained
a marginal phenomenon in the 16th century but survived—
despite fierce persecution—as Mennonites and Hutterites into
the 21st century. Opponents of the ancient
Trinitarian dogma made their appearance as well. Known
as Socinians, after the name of their founder, they established
flourishing congregations, especially in Poland.
How Martin Luther launched the Protestant ReformationLearn more about
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Another important form of Protestantism (as those protesting

against their suppressions were designated by the Diet of Speyer
in 1529) is Calvinism, named for John Calvin, a French lawyer
who fled France after his conversion to the Protestant cause.
In Basel, Switzerland, Calvin brought out the first edition of
his Institutes of the Christian Religion in 1536, the first systematic,
theological treatise of the new reform movement. Calvin agreed
with Luther’s teaching on justification by faith. However, he
found a more positive place for law within the
Christian community than did Luther. In Geneva, Calvin was able
to experiment with his ideal of a disciplined community of the
elect. Calvin also stressed the doctrine of predestination and
interpreted Holy Communion as a spiritual partaking of the body
and blood of Christ. Calvin’s tradition merged eventually with
Zwingli’s into the Reformed tradition, which was given
theological expression by the (second) Helvetic Confession of
1561.
The Reformation spread to other European countries over the
course of the 16th century. By mid
century, Lutheranism dominated northern Europe. Eastern
Europe offered a seedbed for even more radical varieties of
Protestantism, because kings were weak, nobles strong, and
cities few, and because religious pluralism had long
existed. Spain and Italy were to be the great centres of the
Catholic Counter-Reformation, and Protestantism never gained a
strong foothold there.

Hans Holbein the Younger: portrait of Henry VIIIHenry VIII, painting by Hans
Holbein the Younger, c. 1540.

In England the Reformation’s roots were both political and

religious. Henry VIII, incensed by Pope Clement VII’s refusal to
grant him an annulment of his marriage, repudiated papal
authority and in 1534 established the Anglican church with the
king as the supreme head. In spite of its political implications,
the reorganization of the church permitted the beginning of
religious change in England, which included the preparation of a
liturgy in English, the Book of Common Prayer. In Scotland, John
Knox, who spent time in Geneva and was greatly influenced by
John Calvin, led the establishment of Presbyterianism, which
made possible the eventual union of Scotland with England. For
further treatment of the Reformation, see Protestantism, history
of. For a discussion of the religious doctrine, see Protestantism.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated
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Arminianism, a theological movement

in Protestant Christianity that arose as a liberal reaction to
the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. The movement began
early in the 17th century and asserted that
God’s sovereignty and human free will are compatible.

The movement was named for Jacobus Arminius, a Dutch

Reformed theologian of the University of Leiden (1603–09) who
became involved in a highly publicized debate with his
colleague Franciscus Gomarus, a rigid Calvinist, concerning the
Calvinist interpretation of the divine decrees
respecting election and reprobation. For Arminius, God’s will as
unceasing love was the determinative initiator and arbiter of
human destiny. The movement that became known
as Arminianism, however, tended to be more liberal than
Arminius.

Dutch Arminianism was originally articulated in the

Remonstrance (1610), a theological statement signed by 45
ministers and submitted to the Dutch States General. The Synod
of Dort (1618–19) was called by the States General to pass upon
the Remonstrance. The five points of the Remonstrance asserted
that: (1) election (and condemnation on the Day of Judgment)
was conditioned by the rational faith (or nonfaith) of each
person; (2) the Atonement, while qualitatively adequate for all
humans, was efficacious only for the person of faith; (3) unaided
by the Holy Spirit, no person is able to respond to God’s will;
(4) grace is not irresistible; and (5) believers are able to
resist sin but are not beyond the possibility of falling from grace.
The crux of Remonstrant Arminianism lay in the assertion that
human dignity requires an unimpaired freedom of the will.

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The Dutch Remonstrants were condemned by the Synod of Dort

and suffered political persecution for a time, but by 1630 they
were legally tolerated. They have continued to assert effective
liberalizing tendencies in Dutch Protestant theology.

In the 18th century John Wesley was influenced by Arminianism.

In The Arminian Magazine, edited by him, he stated that “God
willeth all men to be saved, by speaking the truth in love.”
Arminianism was an important influence in Methodism, which
developed out of the Wesleyan movement. A still more liberal
version of Arminianism went into the making of
American Unitarianism.
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Pietism
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August Hermann Francke August Hermann Francke, engraving.

Pietism
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Also known as: Pietismus
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Pietismus
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Pietism, influential religious reform movement that began

among German Lutherans in the 17th century.
It emphasized personal faith against the main Lutheran church’s
perceived stress on doctrine and theology over Christian living.
Pietism quickly spread and later became concerned with social
and educational matters. As a phenomenon of personal religious
renewal, its indirect influence has persisted in Germany and
other parts of Europe into the 21st century.

A brief treatment of Pietism follows. For full

treatment, see Protestantism.

Pietistic movements have appeared throughout Christian history

whenever religion seemed to become divorced from experience.
By the beginning of the 17th century, Lutheranism had created a
scholastic system useful for contending with Roman
Catholic and Reformed opponents but not for spiritual
nourishment. Consequently, many German Lutherans sought
an alternative expression of faith and drew from both internal
and external impulses to create one. English Puritanism reached
the European continent through the translation of works
by Richard Baxter, John Bunyan, and others. Religious exiles in
the Netherlands, among them William Ames, developed Dutch
Pietism, which soon spread into Germany as part of the
movement that had begun to take shape among Lutherans there
as “Reform Orthodoxy.” The “pectoral heart theology” of these
orthodox Lutherans found its highest expression and widest
audience in the writings of Johann Arndt (1555–1621). Lutheran
hymnody of the period contributed significantly to the
atmosphere of spiritual renewal. Notable signs of renewal,
including interest in devotional literature and the mystical
tradition, also emerged out of the devastation wrought in
Germany by the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48).

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education: The background and influence of Pietism

The various streams of the renewal movement initially converged

in the life and work of Philipp Jakob Spener (1635–1705). As a
pastor in Frankfurt am Main, Spener became distressed by the
degeneracy and the absence of piety in the city; in response, he
organized the first collegia pietatis (“assemblies of piety”), in
which Christians met regularly for devotional reading and
spiritual exchange. The practice quickly characterized the
movement, and those who attended the conventicles acquired
the name Pietists.

In his most famous work, Pia Desideria (1675; Pious Desires),

Spener assessed contemporary orthodoxy’s weaknesses and
advanced proposals for reform. His proposals included greater
private and public use of the Scriptures, greater assumption by
the laity of their priestly responsibilities as believers, greater
efforts to bear the practical fruits of a living faith, ministerial
training that emphasized piety and learning rather than
intellectuality, and edifying, spiritual preaching. The collegia
pietatis were the ideal instruments for such reforms.

From Spener the leadership of German Pietism eventually passed

to August Hermann Francke (1663–1727) of the University of
Halle. Francke’s capable leadership made Halle a thriving
institutional centre of Pietism. Among the illustrious figures sent
out from Halle was Henry Melchior Mühlenberg, the organizer of
colonial American Lutheranism.

Nikolaus Ludwig, Graf (count) von ZinzendorfNikolaus Ludwig, Graf (count)

von Zinzendorf, undated wood engraving.

Another Halle alumnus, Nikolaus Ludwig, Graf (count) von

Zinzendorf (1700–60), founded the Moravian church among
Moravian refugees on his estate in Saxony. Unlike the Halle
Pietists, who called for penitential remorse, Zinzendorf’s
followers preached that Christ’s atonement was the only
requisite for salvation. Zinzendorf’s efforts provided Pietism with
its greatest direct influence outside Germany.

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, received inspiration

among the Moravians and incorporated Pietistic elements, such
as the emphasis on saving grace, into his movement. Other
denominations felt the influence of Pietism in their pastoral
theology, mission activity, and modes of worship. Pietism
reached its zenith by the mid-18th century, but the movement
continued to exist and still survives, both explicitly in Germany
and in the Moravian church elsewhere and implicitly
in Evangelical Protestantism at large. The religious revival
movements of the 19th and 20th centuries were influenced by
Pietism and in turn influenced it.
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Methodist camp meeting Hand-coloured woodcut of a Methodist camp meeting
in Eastham, Massachusetts, c. 1850.

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revivalism, generally, renewed religious fervour within

a Christian group, church, or community, but primarily a
movement in some Protestant churches to revitalize the spiritual
ardour of their members and to win new adherents. Revivalism in
its modern form can be attributed to that shared emphasis
in Anabaptism, Puritanism, German Pietism, and Methodism in
the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries on personal religious
experience, the priesthood of all believers, and holy living, in
protest against established church systems that seemed
excessively sacramental, priestly, and worldly. Of central
importance, however, was the emphasis on personal conversion.

1 of 2

Jonathan EdwardsTheologian and philosopher Jonathan Edwards.

2 of 2

George WhitefieldGeorge Whitefield preaching to a crowd.

Among the groups that contributed to the revival tradition, the

English Puritans protested against what they saw as the
sacramentalism and ritualism of the Church of England in the
17th century, and many migrated to America, where they
continued their fervour for experiential religion and devout
living. The Puritan fervour waned toward the end of the 17th
century, but the Great Awakening (c. 1720–50), America’s first
great revival, under the leadership of Jonathan Edwards, George
Whitefield, and others, revitalized religion in the North American
colonies. The Great Awakening was a part of a larger religious
revival that was also influential in Europe. From the late 17th to
the mid-18th century, Protestantism in Germany and Scandinavia
was revitalized by the movement known as Pietism. In England a
revival led by John Wesley and others eventually resulted in
the Methodist movement.

Toward the end of the 18th century, another revival, known as

the Second Great Awakening (c. 1795–1835), began in the United
States. During this revival, meetings were held in small towns
and the large cities throughout the country, and the unique
frontier institution known as the camp meeting began. The
Second Great Awakening produced a great increase in church
membership, made soul winning the primary function of the
ministry, and stimulated several moral and philanthropic
reforms, including temperance, emancipation of women, and
foreign missions.
revival meeting on a Southern plantationRevival meeting on a Southern
plantation, illustration from Harper's Weekly, 1872.(more)

After 1835 revivalists traveled through the towns and cities of

the United States and Great Britain, organizing annual revival
meetings at the invitation of local pastors who wanted to
reinvigorate their churches. In 1857–58 a “prayer meeting
revival” swept U.S. cities following a financial panic. It indirectly
instigated a revival in Northern Ireland and England in 1859–61.

Dwight L. MoodyAmerican evangelist Dwight L. Moody, detail from a drawing by

Charles Stanley Reinhart in Harper's Weekly, March 1876.(more)

The preaching tour of the American lay evangelist Dwight L.

Moody through the British Isles in 1873–75 marked the
beginning of a new surge of Anglo-U.S. revivalism. In his
subsequent revival activity, Moody perfected efficient techniques
that characterized the urban mass evangelistic campaigns of
early 20th-century revivalists such as Reuben A. Torrey, Billy
Sunday, and others. The interdenominationally supported
revivalism of Moody and his imitators in 1875–1915 constituted,
in part, a conscious cooperative effort by the Protestant churches
to alleviate the plight of urban industrial society by evangelizing
the masses and, in part, an unconscious effort to counter the
challenge to Protestant orthodoxy—namely, an understanding of
the Bible as literal and inerrant—brought on by the new critical
methods of studying the Bible and by modern scientific ideas
concerning evolution.

Billy GrahamFamed American evangelist Billy Graham.

Although American Protestantism in general lost interest in

revivalism in the first half of the 20th century, tent revivals as
well as annual revivals in churches in the South and Midwest
continued to be an important feature of Protestant church life.
After World War II, however, a renewed interest in
mass evangelism was especially evident in
the widespread support given to the revival “crusades” of the
American evangelist Billy Graham and various regional
revivalists. Graham’s crusades, often conducted in major
metropolitan centres, were but the best known of many such
revivals.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated
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social justice
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 Introduction
 Theories of justice
  Social justice movements
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John Rawls The leading political philosopher of the 20th century, John Rawls
espoused a philosophy that equated justice with fairness.(more)

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 Bryan Stevenson

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social justice, in contemporary politics, social science,

and political philosophy, the fair treatment and equitable status
of all individuals and social groups within a state or society. The
term also is used to refer to social, political, and economic
institutions, laws, or policies that collectively afford such fairness
and equity and is commonly applied to movements that seek
fairness, equity, inclusion, self-determination, or other goals for
currently or historically oppressed, exploited,
or marginalized populations.

In theoretical terms, social justice is often understood to be

equivalent to justice itself, however that concept is defined.
Many somewhat narrower interpretations conceive of social
justice as being equivalent to or partly constitutive of distributive
justice—that is, the fair and equitable distribution of social,
political, and economic benefits and burdens. According to some
interpretations, social justice also encompasses, among other
conditions, the equal opportunity to contribute to and to benefit
from the common good, including by holding public office (such
readings are sometimes referred to as “contributive justice”).
Other interpretations promote the stronger goal of equal
participation by all individuals and groups in all major social,
political, and economic institutions.

Another set of definitions of social justice emphasizes the

institutional conditions that encourage individual self-
development and self-determination—the former being
understood as the opposite of oppression and the latter as the
opposite of domination. A related concept of justice, suggested
by the American philosopher Martha Nussbaum, is that a just
society fosters the capabilities of individuals to engage in
activities that are essential to a truly “human” life—including,
among others, the capabilities to live a life of normal length, to
use one’s mind in ways “protected by guarantees of freedom of
expression,” and to meaningfully participate in political decision-
making. Still other accounts define social justice, or justice itself,
in terms of broad categories of human rights, including the
entire range of civil and political rights (such as the rights to
personal liberty and to participation in government), economic
and social rights (such as the rights to employment and to
education), and solidarity or group rights (such as the rights to
political independence and to economic development).

Social justice is both a theoretical concept and a practical ideal—

an object of social-scientific and philosophical understanding and
debate as well as a real-world goal of social and political reform
movements. In general, practical ideals of social justice
represent an attempt to realize a certain conception of social
justice in a particular state or society. Accordingly, such ideals
tend to vary with the historical and cultural circumstances in
which they are pursued; they may also depend upon current
social-scientific understandings of the institutions to be
reformed, abolished, or created.

However the notion of social justice is understood, it is naturally

grounded in the concept of justice itself. Indeed, the notion of
social justice originated as an application of a historical theory of
justice to current social problems. Later understandings of social
justice have also drawn upon historical theories. Accordingly,
this article will discuss the major historical theories of justice
and consider their influence upon modern and contemporary
social-justice movements.
Theories of justice
The first philosophical studies of justice and political authority in
the West were undertaken in ancient Greece and Rome by
thinkers whose works combined theoretical speculation with
generally insightful empirical observations. Arguably the most
influential of these works was Plato’s Republic, a lengthy
examination, in dialogue form, of justice as both an
individual virtue and a defining characteristic of the ideal
political community. For Plato, justice in the individual soul and
in the city-state consists of the harmonious operation of the
major elements out of which each is constituted: reason, spirit,
and appetite in the soul; and rulers, guardians (or soldiers), and
producers (e.g., farmers and craftsmen) in the city-state.
Harmonious operation in both cases is realized when each
element pursues or performs the object or function appropriate
to it and does not intrude upon the proper pursuits or functions
of other elements. Although Plato’s vision of the just society is
strikingly undemocratic and class-based, his emphasis on service
to the common good through the integrated functioning of social
classes became a salient feature of many later theories. (Notably,
Plato held that women were just as capable as men and therefore
just as deserving of opportunities to contribute to the common
good. Women as well as men, he insisted, would be among the
rulers of a just republic.)

Like Plato, Aristotle conceived of justice as both an individual

virtue and a characteristic of an ideal (or well functioning) city-
state. Aristotle’s theory of political justice has been variously
interpreted but is generally understood to encompass the rule of
law, the pursuit of the common good (the purpose of the state
being to realize the communal basis of the good life for all
citizens), the equitable distribution of benefits and burdens
among equally deserving or meritorious individuals (distributive
justice), and fairness in dealings between individuals (corrective,
commutative, or reciprocal justice). Political desert and merit,
however, are achieved only by those virtuous citizens who
contribute significantly to the common good. Thus, the just
society, though based on the competent promotion of the
common good, involves a hierarchical social order and an
equitable distribution of political rights and responsibilities
among ranking members of that hierarchy (see also Aristotle:
Political theory). Aristotle’s understanding of political justice is
to this extent aristocratic.

Aristotle’s view of justice greatly influenced

the medieval Christian philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas, who
followed Aristotle in holding that the purpose of political
authority is to promote the good of the community and that in a
just society benefits would be distributed by social rank, with
“more prominent” community members receiving
correspondingly greater benefits.
Aquinas’s philosophy and theology became official doctrines of
the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century, and his vision of
justice eventually inspired the measured social reforms
advocated by the church in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
(see below).

In the 17th and 18th centuries the English philosophers Thomas

Hobbes and John Locke and the French philosopher Jean-Jacques
Rousseau developed influential conceptions of justice based on
the notion of a social contract. In primeval times, according to
social-contract theory, individuals were born into an anarchic
“state of nature,” which they eventually sought to escape
because of the danger and misery it entailed or because they
wished to experience the advantages of social order. To do so,
they formed a society by means of a compact or agreement that
defined a set of rights and duties of individuals and a set of
powers to be exercised by a central government. Social-contract
theories thus attempt to legitimate and delimit political authority
on the grounds of individual self-interest and rational consent.
Conceptions of justice based on social-contract theory were
significantly different from earlier understandings, because they
viewed justice as a human creation or social construct rather
than as an ideal rooted in objective features of human nature and
society. Locke’s particular version of the social contract, which
recognized a set of natural individual rights that the social
contract obliged the ruling authority to protect, became the
philosophical basis of political liberalism.

In the 19th century the English utilitarian philosophers John

Stuart Mill and Henry Sidgwick addressed issues of social justice
made prominent by the extreme economic inequalities created by
the growth of industrial capitalism in Europe and the United
States during the Industrial Revolution. Following the utilitarian
jurist Jeremy Bentham, who propounded a principle whereby
actions are considered morally right or wrong in proportion to
the balance of happiness or unhappiness they produce, Mill
advanced a theory designed to explain and justify on utilitarian
grounds what he understood to be the chief principles of justice,
as reflected in the common usage of just, unjust, and related
terms. The principles include, among others, the ideas that
justice requires respect for the legal and moral rights of
individuals and for the right of individuals to possess or receive
that which they deserve. Such principles are valid, according to
Mill, because a society that consistently observes them (as laws
or moral conventions) would in the long run experience a greater
level of happiness for a greater number of people than would a
society that did not. Broadly speaking, Mill’s vision of a just
society encompasses the liberal ideals of individual rights (e.g.,
to life, liberty, and property), democracy, and free enterprise.

Although utilitarianism was a major current of social thought in

the 19th and 20th centuries and thus a major intellectual vehicle
of social-justice reform, its explanation of the nature of justice
eventually proved vulnerable to serious objections, some of
which recall the basic difficulties raised against utilitarian
accounts of the rightness or wrongness of individual actions.
Some critics of utilitarianism, for example, remained
unconvinced that Mill’s conception of justice would rule out any
conceivable social order in which the enslavement or exploitation
of a minority of the population is accepted on the grounds that
it facilitates the happiness of the majority.

Interest in social-contract theories was revived in the second half

of the 20th century by the American political philosopher John
Rawls. In his A Theory of Justice (1971) Rawls rejects utilitarian
accounts of justice (on the basis of the criticism mentioned
above) and defends a conception of “justice as fairness.” Rawls
argues that justice consists of the basic principles of government
that free and rational individuals would agree to in
a hypothetical situation of perfect equality. In order to ensure
that the principles chosen would be fair, Rawls imagines a group
of individuals who have been made ignorant of the social,
economic, and historical circumstances from which they come, as
well as their basic values and goals, including their conception of
what constitutes a “good life.” Situated behind this “veil of
ignorance,” any group of individuals would be led by reason and
self-interest to agree that (1) each person should have an equal
right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar
liberty for others and (2) social and economic inequalities should
be arranged so that they are to the greatest benefit of the least
advantaged and are attached to offices and positions open to all
under conditions of fair equality of opportunity.

Rawls’s first principle ensures most of the basic rights and

liberties traditionally associated with modern liberalism
and democracy, and his second principle
prevents detrimental inequalities of wealth and income and
provides for meaningful equality of opportunity to compete for
public offices. Rawls’s work is widely interpreted as providing an
intellectual model for the modern capitalist welfare state or a
market-oriented social democracy.
Despite its wide appeal, Rawls’s liberal egalitarianism was soon
challenged by advocates of conservative libertarianism, who
charged that the society Rawls envisioned is unjust because it
would allow (indeed, require) the state to redistribute social and
economic goods without the consent of their owners, in violation
of the owners’ private property rights. Some libertarians,
following the American philosopher Robert Nozick, argued that a
validly derived social contract would justify only a “minimal
state,” with powers limited to those necessary to protect citizens
against violence, theft, and fraud. Other critics argued that
Rawls’s theory does not take sufficient account of a community’s
shared understanding of how it is appropriate to live
(see communitarianism).
Social justice movements
As noted earlier, movements for social justice have been guided
and inspired by intellectual understandings of the nature of
justice. An early and important example of such influence is the
work of the 19th-century Jesuit scholar Luigi Taparelli, who
coined the term social justice in the 1840s. Inspired by Aquinas,
Taparelli propounded a conservative vision of justice
that legitimates aristocratic rule by grounding it in supposedly
natural inequalities between individuals. Later in the 19th
century, justice became a central theme of Roman Catholic social
teaching, which emerged in response to the dire societal
consequences of the Industrial Revolution. The church generally
accepted economic inequality and social stratification as the
products of natural inequalities of ability between individuals but
emphasized the ideally harmonious interworking of
socioeconomic classes and the moral obligation of civil
society and the state to protect the weak and vulnerable and to
promote the common good. The church’s approach to social
justice thus represented a course midway between laissez-
faire capitalism, which would reject any state intervention in the
economy on behalf of impoverished and exploited industrial
workers, and socialism, which would impose state ownership or
control of the economy to meet the basic needs of workers and to
ensure their material equality. Taparelli’s contention that the
state is obliged to intervene on behalf of distressed individuals
only in situations where smaller social units, including the family,
are unable to address the relevant social problems was embraced
by Pope Leo XIII (a former student of Taparelli) in his
1891 encyclical Rerum novarum (Latin: “Of New Things”;
English title On Capital and Labor) and reaffirmed in Pope Pius XI’s
1931 encyclical Quadragesimo anno (Latin: “In the Fortieth Year”;
English title Reconstruction of the Social Order).

1 of 2

Selma MarchArm in arm, Martin Luther King, Jr., and his wife, Coretta Scott King,
leading the voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, March 1965.
(more)

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Women's Strike Day, 1970Women's Strike Day march in Washington, D.C., for
equal employment and educational opportunities as well as accessible child care,
August 26, 1970.(more)

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, legal reformers in

England and the United States, some of whom were inspired by
utilitarianism, began to apply the notion of social justice to issues
of legal, economic, and political inequality, including women’s
rights, the rights of workers, and the exploitation of immigrants
and children. In the mid-20th century, racial discrimination and
the civil rights of minorities in the United States,
particularly African Americans, came to be recognized as a major
problem of social justice, as reflected in the nationwide civil
rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s. From the 1960s and
’70s, women’s rights and the rights of sexual minorities were
also major focuses of activists who conceived of their goals in
terms of social justice. Later social-justice movements in the
United States and Europe were concerned with uncovering and
dismantling systemic forms of racial discrimination (see critical
race theory) and, more broadly, with identifying the various
political, economic, and social mechanisms by which members of
racial, ethnic, and cultural minorities were—in the estimation of
social-justice advocates—oppressed, excluded, and exploited,
particularly by white majorities.

These developments reflect the gradual broadening of social

justice as a practical ideal, now encompassing a number of
themes and issues beyond basic rights and economic equality. In
general terms, the ideal that activists aimed for was a society
that values fairness and equity for all individuals and social
groups in all areas of life; that recognizes and respects differing
ethnic, cultural, gender, and other identities among citizens; and,
most importantly, that affords a dignified and fulfilling existence
for all individuals.
Brian Duignan
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hymn
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Also known as: hymn tune, hymnody
Written and fact-checked by

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Article History

Key People:

Martin Luther

St. Thomas Aquinas

Guru Nanak

St. John Henry Newman

Isaac ben Solomon Luria

(Show more)
Related Topics:

spiritual

chorale

fuging tune

Song of Zion

hymnbook
See all related content
hymn, (from Greek hymnos, “song of praise”), strictly,
a song used in Christian worship, usually sung by
the congregation and characteristically having a
metrical, strophic (stanzaic), nonbiblical text. Similar songs, also
generally termed hymns, exist in all civilizations; examples
survive, for instance, from ancient Sumer and Greece.

Christian hymnody derives from the singing of psalms in the

Hebrew Temple. The earliest fully preserved text ( c. 200 CE or
earlier) is the Greek “Phos hilarion” (“Go, Gladsome Light,”
translated by the 19th-century American poet Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow). Hymnody developed systematically, however, only
after the emperor Constantine legalized Christianity (313 CE),
and it flourished earliest in Syria, where the practice was
possibly taken over from the singing
by gnostics and Manichaeans of hymns imitating the psalms.
The Byzantine church adopted the practice, and in its liturgy
hymns maintained a much more prominent place than in the
Latin liturgy. Byzantine hymnody developed complex types such
as the kanōn and kontakion (see also Byzantine chant). St. Ephraem
—a 4th-century Mesopotamian deacon, poet, and hymnist—has
been called the “father of Christian hymnody.”

In the West, St. Hilary of Poitiers composed a book of hymn texts

about 360. Not much later St. Ambrose of Milan instituted the
congregational singing of psalms and hymns, partly as a counter
to the hymns of the Arians, who were in doctrinal conflict with
orthodox Christianity. In poetic form (iambic octosyllables in
four-line stanzas), those early hymns—apparently sung to simple,
possibly folk melodies—were derived from Christian
Latin poetry of the period. By the late Middle Ages trained choirs
had supplanted the congregation in the singing of hymns.
Although new, often more ornate melodies were composed and
many earlier melodies were elaborated, one syllable of text per
note was usual. Some polyphonic hymn settings were used,
usually in alternation with plainchants, and were particularly
important in organ music.

Congregational singing in the liturgy was reestablished only

during the Reformation, by the Lutheran Church in Germany.
The early chorale, or German hymn melody, was unharmonized
and sung unaccompanied, although harmonized versions, used
by varying combinations of choir, organ, and congregation,
appeared later. Some were newly composed, but many drew
upon plainsong, vernacular devotional song, and secular song.
The pattern of secular lyrics also influenced the hymn texts
of Martin Luther and his contemporaries. Important early
collections were those of Luther and Johann Walther (1524) and
of Georg Rhau (1544). Pietism brought a new lyrical and
subjective note into German hymnody in the 17th and 18th
centuries, among both Lutherans and other groups, such as
the Moravian Church.

Swiss and, later, French, English, and

Scottish Calvinism promoted the singing of metrical translations
of the psalter (see psalmody), austerely set for unaccompanied
unison singing. English and Scottish Protestantism admitted only
the singing of psalms. English metrical psalms were set to tunes
adapted from the French and Genevan psalters. Those were
fairly complex melodies written on French metres. The English
psalter used only a few metres, and the custom of singing each
psalm to its “proper” tune was soon replaced by the use of a few
common tunes. The common metre 8, 6, 8, 6 (the numbers give
the number of syllables in each line), a form of
English ballad metre, remains the archetypal English hymn
metre.

The principal impetus to English hymnody came in the late 17th

century from the Independent (Congregationalist) hymn
writer Isaac Watts (Hymns and Spiritual Songs; 1705–19). The
evangelical revival of the mid-18th century
under John and Charles Wesley, founders of Methodism, finally
established hymnody in England and America. Charles Wesley’s
many poems use a variety of experimental metres, and John
Wesley’s translations introduced many of the finest German
hymns. The Wesleys also adopted many German tunes, and their
later editions contain much music in the style of Handel.

The Church of England accepted hymn singing officially only in

1820, following a controversy arising from the singing of hymns
at a Sheffield church. The Oxford (High Church) Movement,
begun in 1833, stimulated new compositions, translations
of medieval hymns, and use of plainsong melodies. The present
era of English hymnody dates from the publication of Hymns
Ancient and Modern (1861; last rev. ed., 2013, as Ancient & Modern:
Hymns and Songs for Refreshing Worship), characterized by austerity
of style, conformity to the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, and
the setting of each hymn to its proper tune.
Two influential collections appeared around the turn of the 20th
century: the Yattendon Hymnal (1899), by the English poet Robert
Bridges, and The English Hymnal (1906), edited by Percy Dearmer
and the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams; the latter includes
many plainsong and folk melodies.

Continental hymnody has been largely influenced by Lutheran

models, although in Italy
the Waldensian church cultivates congregational hymnody
influenced by local folk-song and operatic styles. The Counter-
Reformation in the mid-16th century stimulated
the composition of many fine Roman Catholic hymns, and a
renewal of interest in the late 19th century eventually led, in
England, to the Westminster Hymnal (1940). The reintroduction of
congregational singing during mass in the late 1960s also proved
a stimulus to the composition of new hymns and led to the
adoption of many hymns from non-Catholic sources. See
also Armenian chant; fuging tune; sequence; spiritual; Te Deum
laudamus.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated
by Adam Augustyn.