Barefootin: Methodism and the Parson of the Islands by Dennis Forney

Up and down the Eastern Shore, there’s nothing quite as ubiquitous as crabs, oysters and Canada geese, small towns and villages – and smaller post offices – along with white-painted, wooden Methodist churches.

So what’s the method aspect of Methodism, which took root so vigorously in this region?

In Van Morrison’s super-spiritual and lovely song In The Garden, he sings, and talks, a refrain that says: “No guru, no method, no teacher – just you and I in nature.”

The song shares a simple spirituality, but Van’s sentiments aside, I’ve felt there still must be something to that method in Methodism.

Two years ago or so a few of us were fishing for rockfish around the remains of the Love Point Light north of Kent Island. The fish weren’t in a cooperative mood so we had time to jibber-jabber. Among us was Raym’s son Wilson, heavy into Christianity and its gospel of love, now a seminarian with a career as a minister in his sights.

One day I asked Raym if he had ever heard Wilson preach.

Raym answered quickly, with good humor and love: “Every time he opens his mouth.” We laughed.

That day we were fishing, I asked Wilson what he thought the method meant in Methodism. Though he’s pretty much non-denominational, he gave it some thought and took a stab at it:

“I would guess it’s a method for living a holy life,” he said.

That worked for me.

Then, just this week, I brought it up with Will, pastor at my home church in Lewes, Groome Church. Though Groome is now in the throes of leaving the Methodist Church because of the mother church’s anti-homosexuality stance, Will knows Methodism thoroughly as a minister in the denomination for 45 or so years.

He said his understanding of the method in Methodism had to do with founder John Wesley’s belief that the Christian message should be taken out to the people instead of insisting that people should come to the church. “It was a method of taking a theology out to the countryside – to all the people. That’s why they had circuit-riding preachers. John Wesley had a makeshift pulpit that he carried around in the back of a wagon so he could preach the gospel wherever he went. No churches needed.”

That worked for me too.

The line of thinking took me to a prominent historical figure on the Eastern Shore named Joshua Thomas, who I wrote about early in my career as a journalist when I was with the Record Observer in Centreville.

In Eastern Bay, tucked inside Kent Island, there’s an island named Parsons Island. My understanding is that Thomas, who eventually became known as the Parson of the Islands, preached there from time to time. I toured the island and learned something of Thomas.

He started out around Crisfield, saw the light when he was about 23, and then followed his calling as a preacher with Tangier Island as his home base.

Pastor Will, a sailor himself, recalled that Thomas earned his moniker as Parson of the Islands by sailing “in a sharpie-like sail boat” up and down the inhabited islands of the lower shore. He preached his sermons to whoever would show up and listen. In so doing, he aligned himself with Wesley’s method and became – literally – an honest-to-God Methodist minister.

What little I know now about Thomas comes from Hulbert Footner’s 1947 book Rivers of the Eastern Shore which I mentioned in a recent column. For those interested in the Eastern Shore – its culture, history, geography and people – I couldn’t recommend Footner’s book more highly. I believe it’s out of print but copies are available via the internet.

In the chapter on the Little and Big Annemessex Rivers at Crisfield, Footner quotes Thomas’s own words when he explains the high point of the preacher’s career when, during the War of 1812, he addressed about 12,000 British troops on Tangier after their fleet took the island. When the fleet was about to head up the Chesapeake to take Baltimore, the admiral commanded Thomas to address the troops.

Thomas said he told them his story as a converted sinner, and then, fearlessly, he told them of the wickedness of war “and that God had said: ‘Thou shalt not kill!’ . . . . I told them that it was given me from the Almighty that they could not take Baltimore and would not succeed in the expedition.” He also told them that if they did go, God would cause them to perish by the sword.

“We saw them coming back some days later,” Thomas wrote, “and I went down to meet the first that landed. ‘Have you taken Baltimore?’ I asked. ‘No,’ one answered, ‘But hundreds of our men have fallen and our best General is killed. All the time we were fighting we thought of you and what you had told us. You seemed to be standing there before us, still warning us.’”

Footner writes much more – with great color – about Thomas.

In the rest of his richly informative and engaging book, in his own methodical way, the author explains, through his own travels, observations and anecdotes, much about Maryland’s Eastern Shore and a culture that persists in many pockets to this day.

Dennis Forney grew up on the Chester River in Chestertown. After graduating Oberlin College, he returned to the Shore where he wrote for the Queen Anne’s Record Observer, the Bay Times, the Star Democrat, and the Watermen’s Gazette. He moved to Lewes, Delaware in 1975 with his wife Becky where they lived for 45 years, raising their family and enjoying the saltwater life. Forney and Trish Vernon founded the Cape Gazette, a community newspaper serving eastern Sussex County, in 1993, where he served as publisher until 2020. He continues to write for the Cape Gazette as publisher emeritus and expanded his Delmarva footprint in 2020 with a move to Bozman in Talbot County.