Description
Book SynopsisThe Wesleys and the Anglican Mission to Georgia examines the experiences of five Anglican minister/missionaries who came to Georgia between 1735 and 1738, including John and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield, on a mission to minister to residents and spread Christianity to the Native Americans. The author argues that personal relationships rather than institutional structures or cultural dynamics largely directed the forming, the dispatch, the unfolding, and eventually the collapse of this the largest minister/missionary effort in early Georgia. In addition to the missioners’ relationships among themselves, their interactions with leading Trustees like James Oglethorpe and the Earl of Egmont, with Native Americans, with officials in the colony, with German religious groups in the colony like the Moravians and the Salzburgers, and with individual settlers—some of whom they clashed with and others of whom at least one of them fell in love with—shaped the Mission at every turn. The author also demonstrates how the missioners used Biblical literature to frame and explain their experiences to themselves and others. The Mission involved three of the most important religious figures of the 18th century Atlantic world whose names continue to resonate in the early 21st century. The book tells the story of their lives in Georgia just before they achieved transatlantic fame.
Trade ReviewThe result of over a decade of meticulous research and careful analysis, John Thomas Scott has gifted scholars with the most extensive treatment to date of the Wesleys’ Anglican mission to Georgia. He convincingly demonstrates the complexity of personal relationships to the shape and outcomes of the mission. Future studies of the mission and colonial Georgia will be indebted to Scott’s thorough research.
-- George Hammond, director, Manchester Wesley Research Centre and senior lecturer in Church History and Wesley Studies, Nazarene Theological College, UK
Scott offers a comprehensive and objective look at the Wesley Mission. His emphasis on personal relationships and professional interactions captures the complex nuances of this endeavor, and his close examination of this event in its time and place makes this book an important contribution to the literature of colonial Georgia.
-- Julie Anne Sweet, professor of History, Baylor University
Table of ContentsChapter 1—Background and Context in Early 18th Century England
Chapter 2—The Call and the Voyage, November 1734 to Late Winter 1736
Chapter 3—First Experiences, Late Winter to Early Spring 1736
Chapter 4—Back and Forth, Late Spring to Early Summer 1736
Chapter 5—In Different Directions, Summer 1736
Chapter 6—A Stability of Sorts, Fall 1736 to Winter 1737
Chapter 7—Changes and Challenges, Late Winter to Spring 1737
Chapter 8—Institutional and Personal Problems, Mid-Spring to Mid-Summer 1737
Chapter 9—Rupture and Departure, Late Summer to Early Winter 1737
Chapter 10—Mission End, 1738
Chapter 11—Assessment of the Anglican Mission to Georgia, 1730s to the early 21st Century
Narrative Postscript—The Mission Participants after the Mission, 1739 to the 1790s
