Dr David Bundy named Associate Director of the MWRC

The MWRC is pleased to announce that Dr David Bundy, Research Professor of World Christian Studies at New York Theological Seminary, has accepted the role of associate director of the MWRC, commencing January 2017.

Bundy will work alongside Director Dr Geordan Hammond and two administrative assistants to carry out the day-to-day work of the centre, as well as plan events and work with the centre’s 13 partner institutions.

“I have been very impressed with the use of resources, the quality of work that is done in and around the MWRC, and the positive influence it has had in the UK, but also beyond, and the vast network of connections,” Bundy said. “I hope that I can entice some of my friends to also consider the MWRC as a locus for some of their interests and projects and a place where they can find help. I hope we can find more doctoral students to work with the resources that are here in Manchester – both people resources and other intellectual resources. My goal is not to remake anything but to help support the good things I see going on.”

For the last six years, Bundy has lived primarily in Europe so that he could pursue research on the development of holiness movements in France, Britain and Scandinavia. He and his wife, Nancy, call southern California their North American home.

Having grown up attending holiness churches in the United States, Bundy initially wrote a book on Keswick while serving on the faculty at Asbury Theological Seminary, where he taught Greek and Hebrew. His interest has developed into a life work around discovering and promoting a deeper understanding of the history of holiness and Pentecostal movements around the world, and their relationships to one another.

“I was initially curious if there is anything beyond [American holiness movements], and what it is and how would it relate to us,” he said. “It has been a series of wonderful discoveries of the lives, thought and histories of interesting people and movements.

After earning his M.Div. and Th.M. from Asbury, he relocated to Belgium, where he held a Licentiate in Oriental Philology and History at Université Catholique de Louvain, studying and teaching there for 11 years as well as conducting research on Syriac, Armenian, Arabic and Middle Eastern Christian studies.

During those years, his interest in European holiness and Pentecostal history led him to found two Pentecostal organizations and a journal (now the Journal of the European Pentecostal Theological Association), all of which continue. Additionally, he earned a Ph.D. in European Pentecostal history in 2009 from Uppsala University.

“I recognized that the holiness background in Europe was badly understood by all concerned,” he said. “I started to do some pushing on that in Scandinavia and Belgium and the Netherlands and just a tiny bit in England. I mapped out very carefully what those relationships were, how they evolved in ways that were very different from the North American experiences of the USA, Canada and Mexico.”

Grants allowed him to continue his work in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and in France. He has been an invited lecturer in 44 countries, and taught graduate-level courses in 28 countries. 

In 2015 Bundy was a Visiting Fellow with MWRC, spending six weeks exploring in the Nazarene Theological College (NTC) archives and other repositories across the United Kingdom, researching “The British Roots of the Korean and Japanese Holiness Churches.” Bundy is now working toward a book on holiness movements in the UK, 1870-1920.

The Bundys will reside in Manchester through July 2017, to continue his research and to learn more about NTC and the MWRC.

“When you’re deeply involved in [research] for personal reasons, as well as for institutional reasons, it gives one a more complete perspective on what one is representing to one’s colleagues and friends around the world. And I hope it makes me more useful to people who are here doing research.”

“We’re honoured that Dr Bundy has chosen to invest his time and talents into the MWRC,” said Dr Hammond. “His astonishingly wide networks of scholars and church leaders in the Wesleyan traditions and beyond have already begun to bless the Centre.”

Dr Bundy has authored Keswick (1975, 1983, 2012), Visions of Apostolic Mission (2009), and has contributed to reference works, including the Dictionnaire d’histoire et de gegraphie ecclesastiques, Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, Anchor Bible Dictionary, Dictionary of Religion in America,  The Blackwell Dictionary of Evangelical Biography, Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, Mission Legacies, Dictionary of Missionary Biography, International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, and Norsk pinsekristendom og karismatisk fornyelse. He has served on the boards of the European Pentecostal Theological Association, North American Patristic Society, American Theological Library Association, Wesleyan Theological Society, and Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative, among other corporations and educational institutions. 

David Bebbington's Reflections on his JRRI-MWRC Visiting Fellowship

I was grateful to be awarded the John Rylands Research Institute/MWRC Joint Visiting Fellowship for 2016. In the autumn of 2016 I had research leave from the University of Stirling and so was able to spend time in Manchester during the latter part of the year as well as during the summer.

My project was designed to investigate Methodist growth in the British Isles during the Victorian era. That entailed studying overall denominational strategies and, as case-studies of growth, two areas where Methodism was strong and where evidence was readily available. The aim was to collect a large body of data from the Methodist Archives kept at the John Rylands Library on these topics. The correspondence of Jabez Bunting and other Wesleyan ministers proved less illuminating than had been hoped because the sources contained little about strategy. Home Mission annual reports, however, were much more informative, supplying sufficient evidence to prepare a paper on ‘The Mid-Victorian Revolution in Wesleyan Methodist Home Mission’, which was delivered at Nazarene Theological College in November 2016.

Thanks to a member of staff at the John Rylands Library, I discovered five boxes of papers relating to Methodism in the Shetland Isles, an area I had already intended to investigate as a case-study of home mission. The boxes contained the papers of James Loutit, the mainland representative of Shetland Methodism for much of the time between the 1840s and the 1870s. Loutit kept every in-letter, made a copy of every out-letter and despatched them all in 1877 to the Mission House, from which they have come down to Methodist Archives. The string on many of the bundles had never been untied. This collection gave an insight into the real workings of Methodism on the ground such as is unavailable, I believe, for any other part of nineteenth-century Methodism. It therefore constituted treasure trove for the current project and so I spent a large proportion of my time at Manchester examining its contents. The boxes also turned out to contain details of a campaign run by Loutit to alter the relations of landlord and tenant in Shetland that ultimately led to the important Crofters’ Act of 1886. This political effort, hitherto unknown to the secondary literature, was an unexpected find. It is an example of what the rich resources of the Methodist Archives have to offer.

In addition, a visit from Manchester to Leeds at an early stage in the project established that the West Yorkshire Archives contain ample records of Victorian Methodism in that city. I have made several visits to the archives to explore Leeds as a case-study of Methodist home mission alongside the Shetland Isles. On a couple of days when the John Rylands Library was not open, I was able to use the Wesley Research Centre at the Nazarene College, finding useful sources by looking along the shelves. I also enjoyed meeting friends old and new from the college, the university, and elsewhere to discuss matters relating to Methodist history.

The project will continue with research on other areas, but the time spent in Manchester was extremely productive. It is planned to lead to several articles and eventually to a monograph on Victorian Methodist home mission.

Prof David Bebbington is Professor of History at University of Stirling and an Honorary Fellow of the MWRC.

Deadline for Visiting Fellowships 16 January, 2017

The deadline for applications for the MWRC Visiting Fellowships is fast approaching. There are two visiting fellowships through the MWRC with a deadline of 16 January, 2017.

The first is the 2017 MWRC Visiting Fellow Programme. This programme, in its fifth year, has allowed post-doctoral scholars, such as Dr Priscilla Pope-Levison, to visit the MWRC, the Methodist Archives and Research Centre at the John Rylands Library, The University of Manchester Library, and the Nazarene Theological College’s Hugh Rae Library, all while in residence at the Nazarene Theological College’s beautiful campus for six weeks.

The second fellowship is the 2017 John Rylands Research Institute-MWRC Joint Visiting Fellowship. This programme provides post-doctoral scholars, such as Dr David Bebbington, six weeks of accommodation at the Nazarene Theological College and a bursary of £150 to cover expenses while researching at the Methodist Archives and Research Centre at the John Rylands Library. Details are located at the John Rylands Research Institute webpage.

All interested candidates are encouraged to apply. More information can be found here. All additional inquiries may be made to the MWRC Postgraduate Assistant at aparrish@nazarene.ac.uk.