Wesleyan theology

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Doctrine Doctrinal standards Bible Old Testament New Testament Creeds Nicene Creed Apostles' Creed Articles of Religion Sermons on Several Occasions Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament Distinctive beliefs and practices Assurance of faith Conditional preservation of the saints Priesthood of all believers Sainthood Four sources of theological authority Covenant theology Substitutionary atonement Imparted righteousness Moral law New birth Free will Outward holiness Prevenient grace Real presence Sanctification (growth in grace) Sunday Sabbatarianism Christian perfection Second work of grace Baptism with the Holy Spirit Views on sin Works of piety Works of mercy
Worship The Sunday Service of the Methodists Covenant Renewal Service Revival service Altar call Mourner's bench Camp meeting Tabernacle Tent revival Brush arbour revival Lovefeast Watchnight service
People John Wesley Charles Wesley Richard Allen Francis Asbury Thomas Coke John William Fletcher Orange Scott William Williams Pantycelyn Benjamin Titus Roberts Walter Ashbel Sellew Howell Harris Albert Outler James Varick Countess of Huntingdon Phoebe Palmer George Whitefield Bishops Theologians
Groups Churches Methodist Church of Great Britain Free Methodist Church United Methodist Church World Methodist Council Global Methodist Church Other Methodist denominations
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Related groups Holiness movement Conservative holiness movement Holiness Pentecostalism Evangelicalism
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Wesleyan theology, otherwise known as Wesleyan–Arminian theology, or Methodist theology, is a theological tradition in Protestant Christianity based upon the ministry of the 18th-century evangelical reformer brothers John Wesley and Charles Wesley. More broadly it refers to the theological system inferred from the various sermons (e.g. the Forty-four Sermons),^[1] theological treatises, letters, journals, diaries, hymns, and other spiritual writings of the Wesleys and their contemporary coadjutors such as John William Fletcher, Methodism's systematic theologian.

In 1736, the Wesley brothers travelled to the Georgia colony in America as Christian missionaries; they left rather disheartened at what they saw. Both of them subsequently had "religious experiences", especially John in 1738, being greatly influenced by the Moravian Christians. They began to organize a renewal movement within the Church of England to focus on personal faith and holiness, putting emphasis on the importance of growth in grace after the New Birth.^[2] Calling it "the grand depositum" of the Methodist faith, John Wesley taught that the propagation of the doctrine of entire sanctification—the work of grace that enables Christians to be made perfect in love—was the reason that God raised up the Methodists in the world.^[3][4]

Wesleyan–Arminian theology, manifest today in Methodism (inclusive of the Holiness movement), is named after its founders, John Wesley in particular, as well as for Jacobus Arminius, since it is a subset of Arminian theology. The Wesleys were clergymen in the Church of England, though the Wesleyan tradition places stronger emphasis on extemporaneous preaching, evangelism, as well as personal faith and personal experience, especially on the new birth, assurance, growth in grace, entire sanctification and outward holiness. In his Sunday Service John Wesley included the Articles of Religion, which were based on the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, though stripped of their more peculiarly Calvinistic theological leanings.^[5] Wesleyan theology asserts the primary authority of Scripture and affirms the Christological orthodoxy of the first five centuries of church history.^[6]