Love ‘Em Or Hate ‘Em: Christian Sect Leaders Through The Ages

John Wesley

During the time known as the Great Awakening, John Wesley rose as an Anglican minister promoting an idea of Free Will in strong opposition to the British-American Charles Whitefield’s strong Calvinist view, and yet together they helped found the Methodist movement. With a high view of God’s Law, Wesley, his brother Charles and Whitefield tried to set about living their lives as strictly as possible, performing their religious duties and studying the Scripture with methodical precision – hence the name and birth of the Methodist movement. Methodism is deeply personal, influenced by Moravian settlers that Wesley spent time with in Georgia, with a focus on unity and missions, and deemphasizing the church building he had in Anglicanism.

Though Luther, Calvin and Wesley promoted the supremacy of Scripture and the sufficiency of Jesus Christ for salvation, others followed with their emphasis on personal salvation. These movements since 1800 have often been characterized by their detractors as “not Christian,” with a few claiming to restore the Gospel to its understanding at the time of the Apostles.