page_title: Religion in the United Kingdom
section_title: Methodism
hierarchical_section_title: Religion in the United Kingdom / Christianity / Methodism
caption_attribution_description: Haroldswick Methodist Church
context_page_description: Religion in the United Kingdom, and in the countries that preceded it, has been dominated for over 1,000 years by various forms of Christianity. Religious affiliations of United Kingdom citizens are recorded by regular surveys, the four major ones being the national decennial census, the Labour Force Survey, the British Social Attitudes survey and the European Social Survey.
  According to the 2011 Census, Christianity is the majority religion, followed by Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism and Buddhism in terms of number of adherents. Among Christians, Anglicans are the most common denomination, followed by the Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists. This, and the relatively large number of individuals with nominal or no religious affiliations, has led commentators to variously describe the United Kingdom as a post-Christian, multi-faith and secularised society.
  The United Kingdom was formed by the union of previously independent countries in 1707, and consequently most of the largest religious groups do not have UK-wide organisational structures.
context_section_description: The Methodist movement traces its origin to the evangelical awakening in the 18th century. The British Methodist Church, which has congregations throughout the nationce, has around 188,000 members, and 5,900 churches, though only around 3,000 members in 50 congregations are in Scotland. In the 1960s, it made ecumenical overtures to the Church of England, aimed at church unity. Formally, these failed when they were rejected by the Church of England's General Synod in 1972. However, conversations and co-operation continued, leading on 1 November 2003 to the signing of a covenant between the two churches.
  The Methodist Church in Ireland covers the whole of the island of Ireland, including Northern Ireland where it is the fourth-largest denomination.
  Other Methodist denominations in Britain include the Salvation Army, founded in 1865; the Free Methodist Church, a holiness church; and the Church of the Nazarene.
caption: The Methodist church at Haroldswick is the most northerly church in the United Kingdom
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