“The Education and Special Training of Ministers in Theological Schools”

This essay, which runs about 11 pages, was delivered to the Oecumenical Methodist Conference in London in 1881. Pope delivered it on Wednesday, September 14, during the session on education. The Proceedings of the meeting (published in 1882) report that “In the afternoon the Conference reassembled at Half-past Two o’clock. After the usual Devotional Service, the Rev. Dr. Pope (British Wesleyan Methodist Church) read a paper on The Education and Special Training of Ministers in Theological Schools.”

It is a mature account of Pope’s considered position on theological education, in which he returns to a favorite theme: how to be distinctively Wesleyan while remaining in the great tradition of the Christian tradition at large. As a result, the heart of the essay is another rehearsal of Pope’s vision of Wesleyan theology (see also 1873’s “The Peculiarities of Methodist Doctrine,” and 1881’s “Methodist Doctrine” for the Wesley Memorial Volume).

Pope also contributed to this conference some brief remarks under the heading of “Methodism and the Young,” focusing on the value of using the Methodist Catechism in their training. (I have not assigned this its own resource page, though I may do so when I complete my study of Pope’s role in revising the Conference catechism.)