In the history of Protestant Christianity, sectarian movements have often served to bridge the gulfs which have opened between conventional forms of religious life and new secular aspirations among the lower classes. The emergence of the Labor Church movement in England during the closing decade of the last century may be seen in part as an attempt at such a reconciliation. For it was dedicated to the idea that the emancipation of the working classes from capitalism was a religious movement, that the improvement of social conditions was as important as the development of personal character. And yet its leader, John Trevor, repudiated the dogmatic implications of the sectidea and viewed the Labor Church as a search for a truly free religion. In fact it quickly severed all ties with the traditional faith and embarked on a quest for radically new religious meaning.

In 1927 William Warren Sweet observed that “the most important and far-reaching of the schisms in the American churches were caused by Negro slavery and the effects of the bitter contests in the churches over slavery, which began nearly a century ago, are still with us. Therefore any study of the peculiar factors which have determined the course of American church history must of necessity give a prominent place to slavery.” He himself pursued this suggestion in subsequent research.

The Broad Church movement, of which “muscular Christianity” was one of the most influential expressions, represented a type of liberalism within the Church of England. Benjamin Jowett claimed that the name “Broad Church” was first proposed in his hearing by Arthur Hugh Clough and that it had become a familiar term in circles at Oxford a few years before 1850. In July 1850, A. P. Stanley, writing on the Gorham controversy in the Edinburgh Review, said that the Church of England was “by the very conditions of its being, not High or Low, but Broad.” The term “Broad Church”, however only began to be used generally from October 1853, when an unsigned article by W. J. Conybeare, entitled “Church Parties,” appeared, also in the Edinburgh Review. F. D. Maurice believed that Conybeare invented the name.

The traditional unconcern for historical roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church still prevails sufficiently to help account for a less extensive program of historical investigation than that reviewed above for Great Britain. The fact that England has a long-established Historical Society with a vigorous publishing program is indicative of the contrast. Organization for historical study in America is either dominated by the limited vision of Annual Conference groups or is so informal and peripheral as to lack central support.