John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement, found slavery appalling. “It cannot be, that either war, or contract, can give any man such a property in another as he has in sheep and oxen. Much less is it possible, that any child of man, should ever be born a slave,” he said.11 Although it was far from advocating for racial equality, this antislavery stance—along with Wesley’s emphasis on revivalism, interracial camp meetings, a swift ordination process, and an appeal to the non-elite classes—initially attracted black Christians such as Richard Allen and Absalom Jones to the denomination.
