DMBI: A Dictionary of Methodism in Britain and Ireland

Germany

A German layman, C. Gottlieb Müller (1785-1858), from Württemberg, came to England in 1806 to escape conscription into the Napoleonic army. He came under Methodist influence in London, was converted and engaged in evangelical work. Returning to Germany in 1813, he began an evangelical ministry in the Stuttgart area. A plea from a group of Moravians meeting in his father's house met with no immediate response from the WMMS; but in 1831 they appointed Müller himself as a lay missionary. Despite his intention of working within Lutheranism, he met with opposition from the Church leaders. The year after his death in 1858, John Lyth was sent to supervise. In the later part of his life Müller was in contact with Wilhelm Nast, founder of the American Methodist work in Germany. The British work in Germany was eventually taken over by the MEC, so that present-day German Methodism is affiliated to the United Methodist Church.

Sources

G.G. Findlay and W.W. Holdsworth, The History of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (1921-1924), vol. 4 pp.460-74
Ludwig Rott, 'Gottlob Muller: In Memoriam', in London Quarterly and Holborn Review, July 1958, pp.187-90
W.P. Stephens, Methodism in Europe (1998)
Freidmann Burkhardt, Christoph Gottlob Muller und die Anfange des Methodismus in Deutschland (Gottingen, 2003)

Germany

See also