Charles Wesley in America

A study of Charles Wesley's time in America where he struggled as a newly ordained Anglican priest, faced scandal, and engaged with the politics of the time.

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In 1736, a century into Britain's expansion in North America, Charles Wesley arrived, and departed, the American colonies. His time in Georgia, where he was a missionary of the Church of England, Colonel Oglethorpe's personal aide, and secretary of Indian Affairs, was filled with discord and difficulty. Despite being treated warmly by the Anglican clergy of Boston, he struggled as a newly ordained Anglican priest, and was enveloped by scandal when two women accused him and Oglethorpe of moral impropriety.
Charles Wesley in America is the first comprehensive treatment of this period in Wesley's ministry. Kimbrough provides the first explanation of Wesley's silence following the Oglethorpe affair, and also examines his negative attitudes towards the Revolutionary War and nascent opposition to slavery. Drawing on primary sources such as Wesley's poetry and a rare letter exchange between two former slaves whom Wesley befriended in Bristol, Kimbrough gives fresh insight into this formative period and the impact it had on Wesley's later career.