Why I Left The Methodist Church

by Earl E. Robertson

Protestantism cannot adequately be studied without an inclusion of the Wesleyan heritage beginning in the eighteenth-century Evangelical Revival in England. John Wesley was an Anglican priest. Dissatisfied with the lack of holiness in the Anglican Church, he organized societies led by the common members to spread so-called “scriptural holiness” within the state Church. Mr. Wesley was born in 1703 to the parish rector, Samuel and his wife, Susanna, in Epworth, Lincolnshire. In 1714, he went to Charterhouse School in London on a scholarship, and in six years to Christ Church, Oxford, graduating in 1724. This was the beginning of his career for the priesthood which he reached in 1728.

Wesley is the father of the Methodist Church, and this slowly developed from his undergraduate days when trying to develop his faith and help others; he became a leader in a group of students methodically doing the things he believed would lead to a deeper holiness, and these were called “Methodists” in derision by their critics. He also was influenced by the Moravians, German Pietists, on his trip to Savannah, Georgia. Pietism was a movement in the seventeenth-eighteenth centuries among Protestants seeking deeper personal “heart religion” that greatly differed from the theological views of Luther and others. Moral charges were brought against him by a grand jury, and some “trumped-up” charges in civil proceedings, while he did work among the Indians in Georgia, so that he despaired of further efforts here and took a ship back to England.

He broke with the Moravian influence and established the Methodist Society in July, 1740, not intending, however, to begin a new denomination. Methods for more holiness became the means for a new church. As Methodism grew Wesley developed a strained relationship with the Anglican Church of which he was yet a part. This difficulty reached its climax when Wesley appointed the Anglican priest, Thomas Coke, to be the superintendent of the Methodist Church in North America, and sent Coke there for the work. In establishing Methodism in America, Coke would be in control of doctrine, church government, the rituals, and the ordination and control of preachers yet under the oversight of Wesley.

Following this time-frame “Methodists had little impetus for sponsoring higher education,” said F. Michael Perko in Encyclopedia of American Experience, volume 3, page 1614. The Age of Reason had given impetus to the powerful intellectual influence of John Locke, and the intellectuals fell for this sort of thinking. Religious conditions urging emotionalism in preference to divine revelation produced a trust in human philosophy; thus, an abandonment of the Bible for a human discipline! A humanly established church with a human handbook to guide it! Human doctrine is not static, but ever changing; changes in teaching or church law inevitably produce changes throughout the ecclesiastical body. This means the determining oversight of the Methodist Church rests in men, not God. Continually, the Discipline is amended and changed, one article after another, but the word of God – divine revelation – changes not. Subscription to a human Creed makes one accountable to man, not God.

Church government soon became a bone of contention. Like the Church of England and the Catholic Church they willed that control oversight be vested in men. This is the background of William Guirey’s The History of The Episcopacy In Four Parts, published in about 1799. Guirey was a part of this Society (a “trial member of the Methodist Conference,” as W. E. MacClenny said in his work on James O’Kelly, page 130) and he, in discussing Wesley’s power over churches and preachers said, “Whether Mr. Wesley really loved power or not is only known to the searcher of hearts, and will appear in that day when God shall judge the secrets of men.” He also said that Wesley responded to charges that his conduct was a violation of the liberties to free men, saying, “Not at all for if you are not satisfied with this mode of procedure, you may return to your trades” (page 155). So, the spirit and attitude displayed said: Line up in obedience to our dictums or get out! The exercise of arbitrary ecclesiastical power in the Methodist Church contributed to the exodus of James O’Kelly and others at this time. Baltimore was the scene where a number of men like Guirey, O’Kelly, Rice Haggard, and others left, and were soon joined by others like Joseph Thomas to take the gospel to the common man. There were divisions among some of these men over basic Bible doctrine, such as baptism. They were learning truth they had not previously perceived, and as they went through a number of states preaching and practicing these truths many souls accepted their messages and churches were established.

When a youngster in the mid-40's I became a member of the Methodist Church, but within about two years afterwards, under the preaching of J. Ermin Poer, of Lebanon, Indiana, at the old Sycamore church (founded in 1840 and remains a great congregation to this day) in Boyle county, Kentucky I obeyed the gospel. My own great-uncle, Charles Ellis, baptized me into Christ. During that two-week meeting I vocally resisted brother Poer’s teaching, but through his patience and persistence I was led to see my religious errors, and my need for conversion to Christ. Stated herein are matters I learned and I hope they will help others see Bible truth to their own salvation.

The Methodist Church did not begin at Pentecost of Acts 2, but the church of Christ did. The above information briefly shows the beginning and development of the Methodist Church, whereas Acts 2 gives the actual account of Christ founding His church in Jerusalem at the first Pentecost following His resurrection from the dead. Jesus promised to build his church (Matthew 16:18), in the last days (Isaiah 2:1-4), upon the “rock” Peter confessed (Matthew 16:16-18; cf. I Corinthians 3: 10-11). The last days (dispensation of time) came at the beginning of Jesus’ rule and Peter made this plain saying that God had made Him both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36). The Lordship of Jesus was first preached and benefits offered in his name at Pentecost of Acts 2. It was here and at this time-event, that the church of Christ actually came into being, and saved souls added to it by the Lord (Acts 2:37-47). Christ’s church existed and functioned in the Lord’s business more than seventeen centuries prior to the beginning of the Methodist Church: therefore, the two are not one and the same church.

The Methodist Church teaches salvation is by faith only. The official stated doctrine in the Discipline is: “we are justified by faith only, is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort” (page 13, 1894). The Discipline is a human Creed, drafted and composed by the human will, but the Scriptures are breathed out words of God (II Timothy 1:16-17; I Corinthians 2:13). Jesus continues to say. “He who believes, and is baptized will be, saved” (Mark 16:16); and the apostles “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38), but the Discipline affirms salvation by “faith only”! While denying that baptism is essential unto salvation in affirming it to be by faith only, the Discipline rejects the very words of the Lord and substitutes its own man-made plan. This is an actual case of human philosophy exercising itself over divine revelation. James says justification “is not by faith only” (James 2:24). Jesus is the Lord (rightful Ruler) being endowed with all authority from God (Matthew 28:18), and the only lawgiver (James 4:12); consequently the Savior (Matthew 1:21; Acts 5:31; I Timothy 1:15: I John 4:14). Faith that saves is faith that obeys God.

The Methodist Church offers choices of “modes” of baptism, whereas the Bible word “baptism” is said to be a burial (Romans 6:4; Colossians 2:12). This word limits the action. Philologists show the derivation of the word “baptism” to come from the Greek root “bapto.” In English the omicron (o) is dropped and endings used to form baptized, baptism, baptizing, etc., making, anglicized words. However, the meaning of the word remains, with the root; and this is forcefully seen in Paul’s use of the term “buried” or “burial” in the above cited passages. “Buried with him in baptism,” the Bible says! W. E. Vine says, “baptism, consisting of the processes, of immersion, submersion and emergence” (volume 1, page 96). Friend, this is exactly what the Bible also says in the obedience of the eunuch: “down into the water … he baptized him … up out of the water” (Acts 8:38-39). This is immersion (into the water) and emersion (out of the water), and perfectly illustrates being born again (John 3:5). Neither pouring nor sprinkling, is found in the word baptize: the word “bury” gives the right idea. One hasn’t obeyed God at all, being sprinkled or having water poured on his head, but when, like the eunuch, from his heart goes down into the water and is baptized and comes up out of the water he has obeyed God. God named the action when he said “be baptized,” and no one has the liberty to change or substitute another, and when one does, it isn’t obedience to God at all.

The Methodist Church sprinkles babies. When Jesus gave the great commission to preach the gospel to every person it was to make “believers” (Mark 16:15-16). A believer of the gospel is one that “repents” (Acts 2:36-38), but infants can neither believe the gospel nor repent of sin. Infants have no sins to repent of. Up to 1910 the Methodist Discipline stated what the minister is to say in sprinkling a baby, “Dearly beloved, forasmuch as all men are conceived and born in sin, and that our Saviour Christ saith, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God,” but beginning in 1910 the Discipline was re-written to change this item. It was changed to read, “Dearly beloved, forasmuch as all men are conceived and born in Christ.” Before 1910 babies were said to have been born in sin, but then changed to say “born in Christ”! Neither statement of the creed is true; one error leads to another, and the people continue to accept whatever the preachers say.

While seeing to it that people go through all the rituals, they tell us baptism isn’t essential to salvation anyway. Though the Bible says, “Repent and be baptized … for the remission of sins” this means nothing to one when he does not accept the Bible as the absolute standard of authority. Bible baptism is not a sacrament; it is not a sign of the new birth; it is an essential condition for a penitent believer to obey for salvation.

Worship in the Lord’s church was simple: it was in spirit and truth (John 4:24). The right attitude plus every act directed by truth – divine revelation. Early Christians in worship did what the Lord said “singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16). They used no mechanical instrumental music in worship. The human heart is the direct object of the verb sing, so, in their hearts worship flowed out to the Lord.

For these and many more reasons I was happy to be only a Christian and to live and serve God on the basis of what the Bible says, and I want all others to do likewise!