John and Charles

"The 18th and early 19th centuries, according to received wisdom and introductory intellectual history courses, were characterized by increasing secularity: oppressive religious superstitions and institutions gave way to scientific understandings of the world; industrialization and empire spread; markets and trade grew. Under this schema, the US Constitution, with its separation of Church and State, stands as a high point in the advance of modern, secular civilization. Yet as Empire of the Spirit repeatedly demonstrates, evangelical Christianity thrived in this so-called secular environment. The unprecedented growth, spread, and consolidation of early Methodism was inextricably linked to the growth of the British Empire and that of the soon-to-be United States. And while Methodism and similar Free Church traditions have witnessed an equally rapid decline among their membership over the past fifty years, their shrinking numbers are by no means indicative of the weakness of evangelical Christianity—today, sects like the Pentecostals are growing as fast as Methodism did during the 1790s and 1810s. Instead, the decline of Methodism may be paradoxical proof of the sheer pervasiveness of its ideology: aspects of Methodism have become so absorbed into our cultural mindset as to have been rendered invisible."

Jennifer Snead in n+1 reviews Methodism: Empire of the Spirit by David Hempton.