1st Edition

Sensing Salvation in Early British Methodism Accounts of Spiritual Experience, 1735-1765

By Erika K.R. Stalcup Copyright 2024
200 Pages 5 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

200 Pages 5 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

200 Pages 5 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This book examines the spiritual experiences of the first British Methodist lay people and the language used to describe those experiences. It reflects on physical manifestations such as shouting, weeping, groaning, visions, and out-of-body experiences and their role in the process of spiritual development. These experiences offer an intimate perspective on the surprisingly holistic origins of... Read more

1 Introduction

 

2 Early Methodist Media

 

3 Authoring the Self

 

4 Sight and the Self

 

5 Enthusiastic Bodies

 

6 The Drama of Dying

 

7 Conclusion

Biography

Erika K. R. Stalcup (PhD Boston University) is a pastor at Village Mosaïque United Methodist Church in Lausanne, Switzerland. She has held research fellowships at the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History, UK, and the Institut Lémanique de Théologie Pratique at the University of Lausanne.

"Erika Stalcup’s incisive analysis of early Methodist spiritual experience rehabilitates affective language and the importance of feeling in the Wesleys’ movement. The consequent emphasis on holistic transformation gives this study a powerful contemporary resonance, as well as significant historical insight." 

- Martin Wellings, World Methodist Historical Society, UK

"This book provides a fascinating window into the transformative and holistic spiritual experience of ordinary Methodists, offering new insights into early Methodist spirituality."

- Geordan Hammond, Manchester Wesley Research Centre and Nazarene Theological College, UK

“[A] welcome addition to the literature on early Methodist spirituality […] Sensing Salvation provides a rich and textured account of the role of ‘feelings’ – meaning both emotions and bodily sensations – in the early Methodist experience of conversion and salvation.”

- Sarah Apetrei in Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society