This study will explain how early American Methodism succeeded by exploiting class distinctions in the turbulent free -- market religious world of the early republic and how it unknowingly helped to shape the liberal capitalism which emerged during this period. It will also demonstrate that the quest for the supernatural in everyday life, and not a theological abstraction like Arminianism, was the key theological distinction of early Methodism, and that the class meeting and not the camp meeting was the dominant social structure of American Methodism. This study will also analyze the central role of women in the shaping of American Methodism, and how the allure of respectability changed the church’s basic character during this era. On a broader scale it will help explain why Protestant Christianity continues to thrive in American popular culture while its influence in Europe has steadily declined. Convinced as never before of the singular importance of the Revolutionary era, historians of every stripe are currently exploring the dynamics of how America evolved into the individualistic, market-oriented society of the age of Jackson. But while American Methodism was the most significant and broadly organized social movement of the era -- expanding from approximately 1000 members in 1770 to over 250,000 by 1820 -- it has been virtually ignored. This is partly because religious historians have generally proceeded from the standpoint of intellectual history, while social historians have often worked from a Marxian perspective. One of my goals is to bridge this gap.