Discipline in Dispute: The Origins and Early History of the Methodist Sacramental Fellowship

¹ Methodist Recorder (London), 23 July 1936, 25.

² Vickers, John A. ed., A Dictionary of Methodism in Great Britain and Ireland (Peterborough, 2000), 234–5 ; Brake, George Thompson, Policy and Politics in British Methodism 1932–82 (London, 1984), 365–7 ; Newton, John, Heart Speaks to Heart (London, 1994), 68–84 ; Bowmer, John C., The Lord’s Supper in Methodism 1791–1960 (London, 1961), 49–50.

³ Typed circular, December 1932, MSF archive. I am grateful to the Revd Norman Wallwork for access to the MSF papers in his stewardship. The archive is not catalogued and is only loosely organized into yearly files.

⁴ Gregory, A. S., The Methodist Sacramental Fellowship (London, 1954), 6–7.

⁵ T. S. Gregory, ‘Retreat at Sidcup Sept 1932: Suggested Basis of Discussion’, MSF archive.

⁶ ‘Retreat report, Epsom, May 1933’, MSF archive.

⁷ Methodist Recorder, 19 September 1935, 12.

⁸ Wakefield, Gordon S., Methodist Spirituality (Peterborough, 1999), part 3; Randall, Ian M., Evangelical Experiences: a Study in the Spirituality of English Evangelicalism, 1918–39 (Carlisle, 1999), chs 4, 5, and 9; Bebbington, D. W., Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: a History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London, 1989), 203–7 ; Wallwork, Norman, ‘Developments in Liturgy and Worship in Twentieth-Century Nonconformity’, in Sell, Alan P. F. and Cross, Anthony R., eds, Protestant Nonconformity in the Twentieth Century (Carlisle, 2003), 102–31.

⁹ Whitham, A. E., ‘Friendliness in Earnest’, Methodist Recorder, 19 November 1936, 11.

¹⁰ ‘Methods of Private Prayer’, MSF archive (undated typescript, filed in 1934 folder).

¹¹ Gregory, ‘Suggested Basis’.

¹² ‘Draft Memorandum prepared at the Inception of the Movement’, MSF archive (undated typescript, filed in 1934 folder).

¹³ Gregory, ‘Suggested Basis’.

¹⁴ ‘Draft Memorandum’.

¹⁵ Currie, Robert, Methodism Divided: a Study in the Sociology of Ecumenicalism (London, 1968), ch. 8.

¹⁶ In Defence of the Methodist Sacramental Fellowship at the Conference of the Methodist Church at Hull, 1938 (Southport, 1938), inside front cover (MSF Pamphlet, no. 7, reporting a speech by J. E. Rattenbury).

¹⁷ Wakefield, Gordon S., T. S. Gregory (Emsworth, 2000), 22–3, 30 ; Methodist Times and Leader (London) [hereafter: Methodist Times], 28 February 1935, 4. For Whitham, see Whitham, A. E., The Discipline and Culture of the Spiritual Life (London, 1938), 9–10 , and Minutes of the Methodist Conference (London, 1938), 192.

¹⁸ Methodist Times, 26 September 1935, 19; 3 October 1935, 18; 10 October 1935, 20; Methodist Recorder, 31 October 1935, 21; 7 November 1935, 23; 14 November 1935, 13; 21 November 1935, 23; 28 November 1935, 26; 5 December 1935, 37.

¹⁹ Vidler, Alec, Scenes from a Clerical Life (London, 1977), 57–74 ; Barnes, John, Ahead of His Age: Bishop Barnes of Birmingham (London, 1979), chs 5 and 6.

²⁰ Compare Methodist Times, 30 April 1935, 6, with Howard’s own account in a letter to A. S. Gregory, 27 November 1936, MSF archive.

²¹ ‘“Orchardism” in the Methodist Church’, Churchman’s Magazine (London) [hereafter Churchman’s], June 1936, 146–50. The agent, A. W. Martin, was detected at, and evicted from, the 1937 conference: Churchman’s, June 1937, 163; Methodist Times, 1 July 1937, 8

²² Nine articles appeared in the Churchman’s between June and December 1936, six in 1937 and five in 1938.

²³ ‘Metholay’ [J. Crowlesmith], ‘Roman Catholicism in the Methodist Church: “The Methodist Sacramental Fellowship” ’, Joyful News (London), 11 June 1936, 2.

²⁴ Methodist Recorder, 18 June 1936, 23; Methodist Times, 18 June 1936, 18;Joyful News, 25 June 1936, 2.

²⁵ Methodist Recorder, 3 September 1936, 18; Methodist Times, 3 September 1936, 18; Joyful News, 3 September 1936, 3.

²⁶ Kaye, Elaine and Mackenzie, Ross, W. E. Orchard: a Study in Christian Exploration (Oxford, 1990), 96–100 .

²⁷ Methodist Times, 2 May 1935, 20; 26 September 1935, 18.

²⁸ Ibid., 3 October 1935, 18.

²⁹ Ibid., 10 September 1936, 20; 17 September 1936, 18.

³⁰ In print, Howard called them ‘sentimentalists’ and ‘clanks’: Joyful News, 25 June 1936, 2; in his letter of 27 November 1936 to A. S. Gregory he described one prominent MSF eccentric, E. J. B. Kirtlan, as ‘that uncertified lunatic’: MSF archive.

³¹ Who’s Who in Methodism 1033 (London, 1933), 296; Methodist Recorder, 6 June 1935, 17.

³² Methodist Times, 1 April 1957, 1.

³³ Howard to Gregory, 27 November 1936.

³⁴ Methodist Recorder, 3 October 1935, 11.

³⁵ Methodist Times, 22 October 1936, 18.

³⁶ Joyful News, 8 July 1937, 1.

³⁷ The principal protagonists in this debate were Rattenbury, Jackson and Henry Bett: see, for example, Bett, , The Spirit of Methodism (London, 1937), 64–99 , with critical review by Rattenbury in Methodist Times, 29 July 1937, 9, with debate picked up by Jackson in Methodist Recorder, 3 March 1938, 11 and 31 March 1938, 13, with response by Rattenbury, ibid., 7 April 1938, 23.

³⁸ Methodist Times, 22 October 1936, 18.

³⁹ Robert Bond to A. E. Whitham, 25 May 1937, MSF archive.

⁴⁰ The language of ‘fellowship’ and ‘experience’ was all-pervasive in Methodist publications of the 1930s. See, for instance, Bett, Spirit of Methodism, 131–47. ‘Metholay’ missed ‘the Methodist fellowship’ when he attended a cathedral service: Joyful News, 8 October 1936, 2.

⁴¹ Agenda of Conference 1936 (London, 1936), 5; Methodist Recorder, 23 July 1936, 14. Heap attributed the Hereford memorial to a Local Preacher in a London circuit: Joyful News, 3 September 1936, 3.

⁴² Agenda of Conference 1937 (London, 1937), 1–9. The circuits and their ministers may be identified from the Minutes of Conference 1936 (London, 1936).

⁴³ Methodist Recorder, 21 July 1938, 28.

⁴⁴ ‘Methodist Conference Committee of Enquiry: Copy of Statement made by the Revd Dr Rattenbury… 2 June 1938’, MSF archive. One of Rattenbury’s targets was Richard Pyke, who published an article on The Lord’s Supper: Its Significance as a Memorial’, Methodist Recorder, 20 January 1938, 9.

⁴⁵ Agenda of Conference 1938 (London, 1938), 493–5.

⁴⁶ Methodist Recorder, 21 July 1938, 19–20, 28; Joyful News, 28 July 1938, 4; Churchman’s, September 1938, 231–3. The MSF published Rattenbury’s speech as a pamphlet, In Defence of the Methodist Sacramental Fellowship (see n. 16 above).

⁴⁷ Kirtlan died in January 1937: Methodist Times, 14 January 1937, 3. Gordon Wakefield’s judgement that ‘no one could accuse [Rattenbury] of being an encassocked romanizer’ (Methodist Spirituality, 74) underestimates the PTS, but holds good for Methodism.

⁴⁸ Heap gave favourable notices to PTS publications in Joyful News, but noted as early as 1936 that Conference was ‘in no mood to brook outside interference’: Joyful News, 6 August 1936, 2.