As my online essay of the week, I'm posting a link to Grant Underwood's essay "Millenarianism and Popular Methodism in Early Nineteenth Century England and Canada". It's a nice complement to his book The Millenarian World of Early Mormonism, a new entry to my Featured Books queue (at the bottom of the list — I flipped it). Underwood is a history prof at BYU.
The United Brethren, an offshoot of the Primitive Methodists and a source of many of the English converts to Mormonism in the 1840s, make an appearance in the essay. For collected links to several posts I've put up on Methodism, see here.
Don't forget that one of Joseph Smith's key experiences (according to a recent paper by D. Michael Quinn) was at a Methodist camp meeting in 1820. See a link to the paper in my post Oh How Lovely Was The Meeting.
Posted by: Dave | Nov 14, 2006 at 10:57 AM
Dave, I will tell you my theological perspective. I am a premillennialist in my eschatology (my study in Ezekiel only solidifies this position). Yet I lean more to an "inconsistent" Calvinist position on soteriology (Romans drew me in worship to the sovereignty of God). Lastly, I am dispensational in that that I see more of a distinction between Israel and the church than my Reformed brothers do.
How does Mormonism compare to a covenant (reformed) premil position? (Maybe a post sometime for another blog entry)
Posted by: Todd Wood | Nov 14, 2006 at 11:09 AM