![The Stand-In Church]()
by Steve | Jun 28, 2013 | July-August 2013
By Lillian Daniel –
Pete was the sexton at the first church I served, in charge of maintaining the physical plant of the church. Sextons, not Saint Peter, hold the all-important keys in church life, securing the building after 12-step meetings, cleaning up before Sunday worship, making sure the boiler is ready and running. A rock-and-roller who had turned his life around, Pete the sexton had finally met the right wife, finally quit drinking, and finally started to think about one day quitting smoking.
With his ever-present dark jeans and T-shirts, salt-and-pepper beard, and rock-star-skinny build, people were always telling Pete that he looked like Eric Clapton. He still played the guitar with other men in that New England suburb, who parked minivans after work and descended into basements where tube amps and Stratocasters kept out the noise of the children’s cartoons upstairs.
As sexton, Pete spent as much time visiting with the church members as he did fixing up the church, more comfortable sharing his philosophy of life than hammering in solitude, unless it was on that guitar. The beauty of working with Pete was that he might come over to my parsonage to fix a leaky pipe, but he’d end up being convinced to have just one cup of coffee, and then another, and then another. Soon you’d discover that three hours had gone by. While the sink was not yet fixed, you sure had learned a lot about Masonic conspiracy theories, the hazards of a bad acid trip, or why life in the Connecticut suburbs had never been for Pete.
After I left that church, Pete and I remained friends as I followed the gossip of the church I had left behind over yet more cups of coffee, now in my own home, where leaky pipes did not beckon to him to be fixed. The news he brought from that old church was nuanced in that Pete did everything there except attend worship.
Scarred by church long ago, Pete had been drawn into an intellectual dance in which he read much about all religions but could not bear to rest in one. Fascinated and horrified by the life of faith, he had found a job that pulled him into the inner workings of a community of faith without demanding any confession of faith. In many ways, Pete practiced the Christian faith, but his early experience of a church obsessed with doctrines had left him gun-shy of the institution. While he never sat in those pews at the appointed hour, he was participating in the church in every other way.
Becoming the Church
When lung cancer caught up with him, when a cup of coffee became too heavy to hold, when bad cells had wrapped themselves around the last safe breathing space in his thinning body, his wife called me to a Catholic hospital, where I saw Pete be still for the first time in my life.
To watch his wiry, fidgety body at rest, moving only with the up and down of the respirator, to hear the gurgling of fluids in his chest that would end up bringing on a death by drowning, to watch the tears of the “right wife at last” as she held on to him in this small moment, I was suddenly the church.
A former associate minister, one who had stayed too short a time to affect much at all, I was suddenly the Church of Jesus Christ writ large, present at the moment when Pete would die, and I would witness my very first experience of life leaving one body and going somewhere else.
I think we do this for one another all the time, we mad people of faith. We interact with those who will not step foot in the institutions we love. We make friends with nonbelievers who claim that we are crazy. And then in these moments of utter crisis, we find ourselves called into the eye of the tornado. And suddenly we realize that we have become, for them, the church. And we are called to play a role greater than our role as friend, family member, or colleague.
“Do you believe in heaven?” they may ask, as Pete had asked me many times over coffee, just checking to make sure I still thought it was true.
“Do you still believe in God as you watch him suffer?” they may ask, as the wife of a dying man asked me, angrily challenging yet longing for some word of hope as her love slipped away. Forever?
And suddenly, instead of thinking that a debate is about to ensue, you realize you have been called upon not for your answer, not for your argument, but for your testimony. Not just your testimony, but the testimony of the church that has stood in the midst of utter sadness and made claims that only the mad would make.
Many quietly faithful people struggle with testimony. We don’t want to shove our faith down people’s throats. We don’t want to be pushy, obnoxious, or self-righteous. But sometimes people put us on the spot, put us on the witness stand, and ask for our testimony.
Testimony is calling out that you have seen light in the midst of darkness. Testimony is telling the story about how you met God, even when you have forgotten it. Testimony is telling the story of a community over time, of a particular people, and how God has intervened. And when the unchurched call us into the most intimate and sad moments, we become the church. We can either sit mute or give our testimony.
It may not be eloquent. Some of the best testimonies are stumbling words choked out of the same sorrow that the nonbeliever stands drowning in, but at least the believer can say, “Yes, in the midst of this tragedy, I believe there is more than all of this.”
The Gospel from the Bottom Up
I remember, when I walked into Pete’s hospital room that day, that not only was my role unclear but my place was unclear. Was my role to be friend or to be some kind of pastor? What was my place in this situation?
And what was my place in this physical room? Pete’s wife was next to him; there were no free chairs and no one to act as host. I wondered where to place myself.
Like the disciples who asked Jesus where they should sit, with regard to who could be at his right side, loved ones around the bed of a dying person often wonder the same thing. Where is my place?
There can even be a hierarchy of the grieving. Who sits closest? Who does the doctor address? Who is forgiven from speaking and who is called upon to explain?
And the newcomer, entering the room where death has settled, is always unsettled. Do I hold the hand of the one who is slipping away? Or do I hold the hand of the one who will be slipped away from?
In this case, I felt my place was at the foot of the bed. Pete’s wife had his head in her arms, his heart next to her heart, but I at least could keep vigil over his feet. I rubbed his foot, first one then another, gradually realizing that indeed I had found my place, not just here but in a longer story.
The great prayers of the church, the testimony that life will go on and that the dead will live forevermore, often get heard from the feet up. They come, for most who grieve, as background noise in the surprising busyness of death. Even the details of the funeral overshadow the words that are spoken, and family members worry over who brought the chicken salad, or who will read the poem at the graveside.
But God has never objected to speaking from the bottom end of things. It was, after all, his son who washed the feet of the disciples who preferred to argue over who would sit at Jesus’ right hand. Jesus preferred to proclaim from the foot of the bed, and to take his cues from the foot of his own body.
Sometimes, the church has to work through church stand-ins. Sometimes, as people of faith, we are called to witness the good news to people who have no interest in our beliefs. Yet they have called us to their sides at a moment of crisis, as friend, family member, or comforter. And we could no more leave behind our faith than we could leave behind our bodies. And so we are there, present, being as much of the church as they will see.
The membrane between the church and the world is thin. We want to cross it lightly, gracefully, so that suddenly, even for those who do not show up on Sundays at God’s physical house, a house with many mansions still might shine through in their imaginations. This kind of agility is not born by taking the physical house, the church, lightly. No, worship is what prepares us for the strangeness of life. When we read about Jesus washing the disciples’ feet before the Last Supper and his death, God prepares us for a later moment when the only seat at the table will be at the bottom of a hospital bed.
Rather than hammering the unchurched with the gospel from our mouths and heads, rather than arguing with them or badgering them, rather than capturing the moment like a pious pirate the stand-in church is called not to be brilliant, not to be persuasive, not even to tell the entire story right then and there, but rather, the stand-in church is called to simply be.
After all, we follow a savior who knew when to preach but also when to be content washing feet. Jesus delivered the gospel from the bottom up. We can do that too. As I rubbed his feet, as the stand-in church, Pete’s body buckled under the white blankets and left us with a violent shake of an old rocker whose guitar solo had taken it all out of him. I held on to his feet a little longer, as they grew cold, until I knew that this was no longer my place. It was time to move to the rest of the room and the tears of the living, where Pete’s song played on.
Lillian Daniel is the senior minister of the First Congregational Church of Glen Ellyn, Illinois. From the book When “Spiritual but Not Religious” Is Not Enough by Lillian Daniel. Reprinted by permission of Jericho Boooks, New York, NY. All rights reserved.
by Steve | Jun 18, 2013 | Magazine Articles
John Wesley and United Methodist renewal
By James V. Heidinger II
Good News, 2013
At the time of the birth of Methodism, eighteenth century England was in a period of both spiritual and moral decline. John Wesley was preaching at a time that observers would consider Anglicanism’s “glacial” era – cold, stiff, and uninviting. Poet Laureate Robert Southey went so far as to say, “There never was less religious feeling either within the Establishment, or without, than when Wesley blew his trumpet and awakened those who slept.”
Today, we revere Wesley, seeing clearly in retrospect the full impact of his ministry. However, we may not appreciate how he was scorned and even hated by his contemporaries. In England: Before and After Wesley, J. Wesley Bready points to the following examples.
• John Kirkby, Anglican rector of Blackmanstoke, wrote in 1750, just twelve years after Wesley’s Aldersgate experience, about “the horrid blasphemies and impieties taught by those diabolical seducers called Methodists.” He said, “They pray in the language of a saint to Beelzebub himself,” and “their religion could be forged nowhere else but in the bottomless pit.”
• Dr. Smollett, in his History of England, wrote: “Imposture and fanaticism still hang upon the skirts of religion. Weak minds were seduced by the delusions of a superstition, styled Methodism, raised upon affectation of superior sanctity and pretention to divine illumination. Many thousands were infected with this enthusiasm by the endeavours of a few obscure preachers, such as Whitefield and the Wesleys.” (Oh, to be so obscure!)
Such was the rancor spewed out at the Wesleys. But years later, historians gave a much different evaluation of what happened during those decades of the Wesleyan Revival. J. R. Green, in his Short History of the English People, claims the revival “changed after a time, the whole tone of English society.” He also spoke of the mighty influence on the Anglican Church: “The Church was restored to new life and activity. Religion carried to the hearts of the people a fresh spirit of moral zeal, while it purified our literature and our manners. A new philanthropy reformed our prisons, infused clemency and wisdom into our penal laws, abolished the slave-trade, and gave the first impulse to popular education.”
Stanley Baldwin, speaking as Prime Minister in 1928 at the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the opening of Wesley’s Chapel, said that historians of the eighteenth century “who filled their pages with Napoleon and had nothing to say of John Wesley, now realize that they cannot explain nineteenth century England until they can explain Wesley.” Then, he added quite poignantly, “And I believe it is equally true to say, that you cannot understand twentieth century America, unless you understand Wesley.”
Permit me one more word about Wesley’s life, this from Bready’s unsurpassed prose, in reminding us of the significance of this one life: “The ‘conversion’ of the one-time don of Oxford, which ‘strangely warmed’ his heart toward God and impelled him forth as the friend and releaser of the outcast, vulgarized masses, was fraught with a succession of results destined finally to change the whole trend of social history throughout the British Empire and the English-speaking world. Nor was the impact of this prophet, who claimed ‘the world for his parish,’ confined even within those spacious limits. Millions of many colors, climates, and tongues, inhabiting the four corners of the earth, have lived richer, happier, nobler, and more serviceable lives because, in 1738, fire from off the altars of God purged and illumined the soul of a downcast and disillusioned English priest.”
Now, I believe we can do more today than look wistfully at our Wesleyan heritage, or reflect on it with nostalgia. I believe that there are certain aspects of it that can guide us today as a church in great need of renewal, especially theological renewal.
Theological boundaries
It is not uncommon today to hear claims that United Methodism is not a creedal church. We are, rather, a church that focuses on a reasoned faith and on experience. One dramatic example of this claim was seen in a commentary in the United Methodist Reporter written by Rhett Jackson, a layman from South Carolina. He has been to eight General Conferences and 42 Annual Conferences as a delegate. He said he was a part of a group in his church seeking a “religion of reason.” Their problem is that “we do not believe in the virgin birth, physical resurrection, ancient creeds or any of the other magic revealed in much of our liturgy and literature.” He admitted to reading John Robinson’s Honest to God decades ago, and it changed him dramatically. He sees “magic” revealed in our liturgy.
We also recall retired Bishop Joe Sprague’s speech in January of 2002 at Iliff School of Theology, where he shared with the students “candidly and vulnerably” about just who “Jesus the risen Christ is for me.” In his message, the bishop denied the classic understandings of Jesus’ full and unique deity, virgin birth, blood atonement, and physical [bodily] resurrection. To believe these, he cautions, is “idolatry.”
In response to this, we must say that theological indifference cannot be justified by an appeal to Wesley. He was theologically informed and deeply concerned about maintaining a solid doctrinal foundation for the people called Methodists. One good example of Wesley’s insistence on doctrinal faithfulness is his provision governing the purchase of “preaching houses.”
In 1763, Wesley drafted a Model Deed which stipulated that the pulpits of the Methodist chapels were to be used by those persons who preached only those doctrines contained in Wesley’s New Testament notes and his four volumes of sermons. The provision stated that if a majority of the trustees felt any preacher was not conforming to these standards in either doctrine or practice, then another preacher was to be brought in within three months. Wesley was not at all broad-minded in this regard, and it was an effective way for him to maintain doctrinal fidelity in his “preaching houses.”
In 1808, American Methodism gave further prominence to doctrinal standards. At that year’s General Conference delegates adopted the first “Restrictive Rule” which provided that the General Conference “shall not revoke, alter, or change our articles of religion, nor establish any new standards or rules of doctrine contrary to our present existing and established standards of doctrine.”
However, in the early 1900s, during the Modernist/Social Gospel era, there developed a growing antipathy toward creeds. A. H. Goodenough wrote in the Methodist Review in November, 1910: “Creeds have had their day. They are no longer effective. Without doubt, they were well intended. Possibly they have done some good—they certainly have done much harm. The church has been loyal to her creeds, and has spent much good blood and splendid brains in the defense of them. All this was considered the very essence of Christianity. It was child’s play, as we now see it, and in some instances paganism….The creeds are retired to the museums and labeled ‘Obsolete.’”
This antipathy to creedal formulation was also seen in the changing requirements for membership. Since 1864, the Methodist Episcopal Church had required members to subscribe to the Articles of Religion, but in 1916, this requirement was removed. Belief in the Apostles’ Creed continued to be required beyond 1924 because it was in the baptismal ritual, but it, too, was dropped in 1932.
It may well have been in response to General Conference’s dropping of the Apostles’ Creed in 1932 that led to Dr. Edwin Lewis’ article of alarm about “The Fatal Apostasy of the Modern Church.” He was a professor of systematic theology at the Theology School at Drew University, and wrote stinging words about these changes: “But what does the modern church believe? The church is becoming creedless as rapidly as the innovators can have their way. The ‘Confession of Faith’ – what is happening to it? Or what about the ‘new’ confessions that one sees and hears – suitable enough, one imagines, for, say, a fraternal order. And as for the Apostles’ Creed – ‘our people will not say it any more’: which means, apparently, that ‘our people, having some difficulties over the virgin birth and the resurrection of the body, have elected the easy way of believing in nothing at all – certainly not in ‘the holy catholic church.’”
It is no surprise that a Methodist bishop would claim in 1908 that since 1812, there had been no definite content given to that particular phrase (“established standards of doctrine”). However, Dr. Robert Chiles claims there are, indeed, “existing and established standards of doctrine” with definite content. He contends, “According to reputable scholars, it can be historically demonstrated that the standards referred to in this Restrictive Rule are the Twenty-Five Articles of Religion, Wesley’s Standard Sermons, and Notes Upon the New Testament.”
In light of the present claims today that Methodism has never been a doctrinal or creedal religion, but only an experiential one, we should begin with Wesley and recover those basic core doctrines which have generally been considered essential and non-negotiable for Wesley – those basic doctrines which represent what Methodists must believe. In doing this, we discover our core differs little from the major beliefs of historic, ecumenical Christianity. Or as Thomas C. Oden would say in citing Vincent of Lerins, our doctrines simply represent “what has been believed always, everywhere, and by all.”
What are those core doctrines? Robert Chiles agrees with Methodist theologian Colin Williams (author of John Wesley’s Theology Today) and lists the doctrines which Wesley insisted on at various times in his ministry as “original sin, the deity of Christ, the atonement, justification by faith alone, the work of the Holy Spirit (including new birth and holiness), and the Trinity.” These were non-negotiable and nothing less than the great historic tenets of catholic Christianity through the ages. Take away any one of the six and you have something less than classic Christianity. Nor will it do to interpret them in such a way that they are scarcely recognizable when weighed against Christian teaching across the centuries.
Now, the revisionists have been hard at work with Wesley. Liberal, or perhaps naïve, United Methodists have often quoted Wesley’s well-known dictum that Methodists “think and let think.” We’ve heard it again and again. However, what is not quoted is his qualification at the beginning of that statement in his tract “The Character of a Methodist”: “As to all opinions which do not strike at the root of Christianity, we think and let think.”
Another famously misquoted statement from Wesley is the statement from his sermon “Catholic Spirit,” which says “Is thine heart right, as my heart is with thy heart? Then give me thy hand.” This sermon is very helpful but is notoriously abused. In this sermon, Wesley shows a gracious, non-dogmatic view toward opinion, but not toward basic doctrine. Under “opinion,” Wesley includes modes of worship, forms of church government, prayer, baptism, and specifics about the Lord’s Supper. But then he goes on to explain what he means by the question, “Is thine heart right, as my heart is with thy heart?” He spends no less than seven lengthy paragraphs, some 64 lines in my edition of the sermon, asking, “Do you believe…? Do you believe…? Have you the divine evidence…?”
For John Wesley, right doctrine was a vital ingredient for a right heart. Your heart could scarcely be “right” in Wesley’s terms if you denied, for example, the deity of Jesus Christ or the bodily resurrection. In fact, Wesley goes on to make his ringing, clarion charge that United Methodists today very much need to hear, saying, “A man of truly catholic spirit, has not now his religion to seek. He is fixed as the sun in his judgment concerning the main branches of Christian doctrine.” Wesley allowed pluralism in matters of “opinion,” but certainly not when it came to essential doctrine. In these understandings, Wesley is exceedingly relevant for our reductionist and revisionist age.
Primacy of Scripture
In 1988, the United Methodist General Conference approved a new theological statement from the Theological Commission headed by the late Bishop Earl Hunt. The significance of this new version, “Our Theological Task,” is that “theological pluralism” was intentionally removed and the phrase “the primacy of Scripture” was inserted numerous times. In this way, we moved back toward our Wesleyan roots.
Wesley continually subjected tradition and experience to the “written Word of God.” In the “Character of a Methodist,” he wrote “We believe, indeed, that ‘all Scripture is given by the inspiration of God’…We believe the written word of God to be the only and sufficient rule both of Christian faith and practice” (Works, VIII, 340).
Wesley was not a simplistic proof-texter, casually pasting together texts from here and there. In his words is his own practice: “I want to know one thing – the way to heaven; how to land safe on that happy shore. God Himself has condescended to teach the way; for this very end He came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God! I have it: here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius libri. Here then I am, far from the busy ways of men. I sit down alone: only God is here. In His presence I open, I read His book; for this end, to find the way to heaven. Is there a doubt concerning the meaning of what I read? Does anything appear dark or intricate? I lift up my heart to the Father of Lights…I then search after and consider parallel passages of Scripture, ‘comparing spiritual things with spiritual.’ I meditate thereon with all the attention and earnestness of which my mind is capable. If any doubt still remains, I consult those who are experienced in the things of God; and then the writings whereby, being dead, they yet speak. And what I thus learn, that I teach” (Preface, Standard Sermons, 1746).
Being homo unius libri did not mean that Wesley rejected all other books, learning, and writings. To the contrary, Wesley stressed also the importance of reading the works of the saints of the Church down through the centuries in order to share in the insights God gave them into his (God’s) revelation.
Williams points out that Wesley must be placed with the Reformers in his principle of sola scriptura, in the sense that Scripture is the final authority in matters of faith and practice; not in the sense that tradition and experience have no value, but in the sense that those further sources of insight must be congruous with the revelation recorded in Scripture.
Wesley said in fact, “It is no part of my design to save either learned or unlearned men from the trouble of thinking.…On the contrary, my intention is to make them think, and assist them in thinking.” But his own mind and heart was so full of Scripture that he scarcely gets through a sentence without including a phrase or portion or a verse of Scripture. His life, mind, and writings are saturated with the sacred text of Scripture.
The teaching of perfection
There is no question about the importance of the doctrine of perfection in the history of Methodism. Wesley believed that this emphasis was a peculiar heritage given to the Methodists in trust for the whole Church. He wrote in 1790, just a year before his death, “This doctrine is the grand depositum which God has lodged with the people called Methodists; and for the sake of propagating this chiefly He appeared to have raised us up” (Letters, VIII, 238).
For Wesley, the work of salvation was not completed with conversion, justification, adoption, the new birth, or assurance. These were the beginning. From there, the believer needed to go on to Christian perfection. Our discomfort with this doctrine today is seen in services of ordination when candidates are asked, “Are you going on to perfection?” Our misunderstanding about this often brings uneasy chuckles and quick disclaimers that we certainly don’t claim to be “perfect” in our Christian life. When asked about “going on to perfection,” Dr. Bob Tuttle used to respond, “Well, what’s your alternative?”
Wesley was very serious about this teaching. He used various terms to describe a new, deeper stage or relationship in the life of the believer—perfection, holiness, entire sanctification, perfect love, full salvation. This teaching came to Wesley from his careful reading of the Apostolic Fathers. In fact, their writings formed the first volume of his Christian Library.
It was in these writings that Wesley saw the theme of perfection as an important one for the Christian, especially with their discussion as to whether a second repentance is needed, which shows an expectation of a deeper change in the life of the believer, such as was described in Wesley’s doctrine. We sometimes call it a deeper cleansing or full surrender. Wesley had become convinced that the spread of Methodism depended on the preaching of this doctrine. He wrote in his journal, “Wherever this is not done, the believers grow dead and cold. Nor can this be prevented but by keeping up in them an hourly expectation of being perfected in love.”
For Wesley, the holiness about which he spoke and preached was one in terms of unbroken relationship to Christ the Holy One. The perfect Christian is holy, Wesley would say, not because he has risen to a required moral standard, but because he lives in this state of unbroken fellowship with Christ. Wesley stated what perfection is: “We mean one in whom is ‘the mind which was in Christ,’ and who so ‘walketh as Christ also walked;’ a man ‘that hath clean hands and a pure heart,’ or that is ‘cleansed from all filthiness of flesh and spirit;’ one in whom is ‘no occasion of stumbling,’ and who accordingly, ‘does not commit sin’” (Works, XI, 384).
Those made perfect in love by faith were never so perfect that they did not still need forgiveness and were not perfect in such a way as to be able to live independently from Christ. Little wonder that he saw this doctrine as a key to his movement.
The Wesleyan legacy
In our quest to renew the United Methodist Church, we should rely upon the unique strengths that marked the ministry of John Wesley – theological seriousness, doctrinal precision, reliance upon Scripture, Christian perfection, and aggressive social ministry. These were the key elements that sustained the birthing of early Methodism and distinguished John Wesley throughout his life.
We also should note in closing that we can learn much from Wesley about dying. These poignant words from the last hours of his life tell a deeply moving story. “The strength of his body being spent, long periods of sleep ensued. As the fever waned, his countenance would kindle, and his eyes sparkle, as though beholding some wondrous vision, afar,” Bready wrote of John Wesley’s final hours. “No murmur, no complaint, escaped his lips. The lines which focused his consciousness, and which again and again he sang, were: ‘I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath; And when my voice is lost in death; Praise shall employ my nobler powers.’
“On the evening preceding his death, he smiled benignly on all about him, and with great effort, raising his hand, exclaimed calmly and clearly, ‘The best of all is—God is with us!’ About 10 a.m., on the morning of March 2, 1791, casting his eyes again slowly from person to person around his bedside, he whispered: ‘Farewell!’ Instinctively, all present fell on their knees; and as Joseph Bradford led in prayer, the holy man’s soul, without struggle or groan, sped forth to the spirit centre of the Kingdom of God. A winsome smile enwreathed his face. No sooner was his spirit released, than those who had come ‘to rejoice with him,’ burst into an anthem of praise.”
In plans for his passing, Wesley remembered the poor. He directed that “Whatever remains in my bureau and pockets, at my decease,” was to be equally divided among four poor itinerants, whom he named. To each of the traveling preachers within the connection six months after his death, he left copies of the eight volumes of his sermons. He also requested that neither hearse nor coach take any part in his funeral, but desired that six poor men, in need of employment, be given a pound each to carry his body to the grave. And while multitudes filed silently by Wesley’s body, which lay in state in his City Road Chapel, the funeral and interment were kept secret among his inner circle, being conducted by torchlight before the dawn of day.
“Do you think we shall see John Wesley in heaven?” an over-aggressive Calvinist had inquired of George Whitefield years earlier (Wesley outlived Whitefield). “I fear not,” replied the fellow evangelist, musing about his long-time friend. “No! – he will be so near the throne, and we at such a distance, that we shall hardly get a sight of him.”
Bready concludes his moving account with this: “If spiritual values and spiritual attainments be the ultimate standard of greatness, few greater than this little English preacher have yet trodden the earth; and none greater, has spoken the English tongue.”
James V. Heidinger II is president emeritus of Good News.
John Wesley, detail of an oil painting by Nathaniel Hone, 1766; in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London
by Steve | Jun 18, 2013 | Magazine Articles
Good News Archive – Wesley finds his place in history
By John Singleton – Originally appeared in March/April 2003 issue of Good News
Plans to mark the 300th anniversary of the birth of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, have received a boost on the Anglo-Methodist side of the Atlantic. Late last year, a major BBC poll to find the “Greatest Britons” of all time saw Wesley come in at No. 50 in the top 100 names.
In the run-up to the start of a significant year for Methodism, this indicated that Wesley’s reputation as a great religious leader might actually enjoy much wider recognition than many of us had assumed. And, hopefully, by the end of 2003—in Britain, America and all countries with a Methodist presence—Wesley’s name will enjoy even greater significance.
Born at Epworth, Lincolnshire, on June 17, 1703, Wesley was the 15th child of Susannah and the Rev. Samuel Wesley, a clergyman of the Church of England like his father and grandfather before him. Susannah was the daughter of Samuel Annesley, an expelled Puritan often styled “the St. Paul of Nonconformity.”
It was in 1709 that, as an infant, John was saved from a fire that destroyed the Epworth Rectory. The dramatic rescue convinced his mother that God must have special work cut out for him. She described her son, biblically, as “a brand plucked from the burning.”
During early boyhood, he was educated at home by his remarkable and intellectually gifted mother who, by all accounts, was also something of a disciplinarian. And although he was brought up during some lean times – his father once even being imprisoned for debt—the young John is said to have lived within a happy family atmosphere.
At age 10, he left Lincolnshire to become a “sponsored” boarder at Charterhouse School in London, later leaving at age 17 for Oxford, where he spent six years as a student at university. Following in the footsteps of his father, he decided to become an Anglican priest and was ordained in 1728.
While at Oxford, he and his brother, Charles, became involved in what was sneeringly known by some fellow students as the “Holy Club,” the “Bible Moths” or the “Methodists.” This was a small group of like-minded students who regularly met to study the Bible and pray. They also showed a practical concern for the poor and were involved in visiting prisoners and distributing relief to destitute families.
In 1735, John and Charles sailed to Georgia in America, where John served as a parish priest in Savannah and was keen to be a missionary to the Indians. But coupled with a disastrous romance (the first of at least three during his lifetime), the enterprise did not seem to work out, and he returned to England in 1738. Years later, he was to have a profound influence upon the spread of Methodism to America.
An experience from his American visit that did have far-reaching consequences was his contact with the religious group known as the Moravians. This began during his outward voyage on the “Simmonds” when, during a ferocious storm, Wesley was enormously impressed by the courage and steadfast faith of these German families while everyone around them was fearing for their lives.
After returning to London, he attended various Moravian meetings, and during one of these, on May 24, 1738, he had a conversion experience. “I felt my heart strangely warmed,” he wrote. “I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” He was then 35 years old. The experience had such an effect on him that he devoted the rest of his long life to bringing the same message of salvation to others.
In so doing, he took the plunge and—accepting George Whitefield’s invitation to speak to the miners of Kingswood, Bristol, in the open air—he did the unthinkable in the eyes of the established church and became a “field preacher.” During his lifetime, Wesley traveled an estimated 250,000 miles throughout Britain and Ireland (mainly on horseback), preaching the good news of Jesus wherever people would gather to listen (often at 5 a.m.).
When invited to do so, he also preached in local parish churches. On one memorable occasion, this was denied to him at Epworth, his home church, so he waited until the service had finished and then preached from his father’s tomb in the churchyard. On a nine-week tour of Ireland in his 86th year, he preached 100 sermons in 60 towns and villages.
Bristol, where he built the historic New Room Chapel, became Wesley’s headquarters in the west of England and one of three bases from which he set out on his many journeys, the others being Newcastle and London.
In 1739, he purchased the shell of the old royal canon foundry in north London and had it refurbished as a chapel and as his London headquarters. It was called the Foundry and was replaced in 1778 by a new chapel in nearby City Road, with a house for Wesley and his preachers adjoining. Methodist pilgrims from all over the world now visit Wesley’s Chapel and house on that site, where John Wesley and other pioneering Methodists are buried.
The Foundry became something of a nerve center for the social conscience of the early Methodist movement, which included London’s first free clinic and dispensary, opened in 1745. Other initiatives were a well-staffed school for children of poor families and the building of an almshouse for homeless paupers.
At the Foundry in 1740, almost by accident, Thomas Maxfield became the first Methodist lay preacher, having taken it upon himself to preach while Wesley was away in Bristol. Although at first angry, Wesley later had to admit that it was of God’s doing—an endorsement that led to lay people (including women) taking responsibility and playing a powerful role in the rapid spread of the movement.
Wesley always believed that it was not necessary to leave the Church of England. Instead, he saw himself as a catalyst for reform within the established church. He remained an Anglican priest until his death in 1791, and as late as 1787 wrote: “I still think that when the Methodists leave the church, God will leave them.” Nevertheless, in 1784, relations with the Church of England must have been more than a little strained when he ordained three of his preachers to provide ministers to serve the American Methodists.
In Britain, the burgeoning Methodist network, with its thousands of believers and their local meetinghouses, provoked much opposition during the early years from both church and state. This antagonism reached a peak during the 1740s, and as accounts in his journals make clear, Wesley himself had to endure a great deal of violence, particularly in his determination to stand alongside local Methodists who were being hounded and persecuted for their faith.
So it is no wonder that many people feel John Wesley deserves to rank as one of the “Greatest Britons.” The picture of him that emerges from a reading of his journals is a fascinating one, and this is a good year to remind ourselves of what he achieved.
John Singleton is a consultant editor with the weekly Methodist Recorder in London. In 2003, this article was distributed by United Methodist News Service.
Art: Wesley’s Chapel, originally known as “City Road Chapel,” in London via Creative Commons.
by Good News | Jun 18, 2013 | Magazine Articles
Willimon
By William H. Willimon
“The best thing about the new Wesley Study Bible,” a woman said to me as she slapped her new copy, “is its restoration of theological thinking to the church.” As one of the editors of the Wesley Study Bible, I pray that she is right.
A significant aspect of John Wesley’s vision was to teach ordinary eighteenth century people to be theologians. Reading Wesley’s sermons or his writings such as Notes on the New Testament can be tough going. We need to remember that he spoke and wrote for “the average Methodist,” not for theological experts. That we find Wesley too intellectual is proof, not that Wesley’s church was more theological than our own, but rather that theological indifferentism is sapping the life out of us.
Years ago I was in a group where some were excoriating Good News as the voice of “right wing conservatism” in our church. One of the group—a certified liberal social activist if ever there were—defended Good News. “Among Methodist leaders,” (he was a church bureaucrat) “evangelicals are about the only people who seem to believe that theological claims make any difference.”
I’m old enough to remember when “evangelical” meant somebody who swallows biblical theology whole without choking, no matter the current cultural trends. Got problems with the turgidity of Trinitarian theology? Can’t handle Chalcedonian doctrines of the Incarnation? Well, tough. We’re evangelicals and we adore our doctrine. We care enough about you and the state of your soul to teach our theology to you.
These days, I’m disturbed by the allegedly “evangelical” preaching that I hear where the rich good news is often reduced to a slogan that fits on a bumper sticker or three snappy platitudes about how to have a happy life. I’ve had it with allegedly “contemporary worship” where a snippet of Scripture is used to dive into a string of trite self-help truisms called “the message.” Sermons that attempt to scale down the faith to three slogans in PowerPoint is killing our spirit. In an otherwise healthy evangelical desire to lean over and speak to the world, we have fallen in face down. In attempting to get a hearing from the world, some of us preachers have jettisoned our high calling to preach the full counsels of God so that our sermons sound something the world could as easily hear from dozens of other simplistic, quick fix, self-help, pop-psychology gurus.
It’s my prayer that the spectacular success of the Wesley Study Bible—with its pastoral and theological sidebars paired with biblical texts, with its distinctive, robust, unashamedly Wesleyan scriptural exposition—signals the beginning of a widespread recovery of the Wesleyan theological imagination in our church.
I know that in saying the word “theology” I risk making your eyes glaze over. I worry that you may have contracted a too limited (Calvinist? Utilitarian? Academic?) notion of theology.
Theology means literally “God words”—our words to God and God’s words to us. Theology is what nearly everyone must do when they meet Jesus Christ because Jesus didn’t fit most people’s definition of God. So when Jesus claims, “I and the Father are one,” or his followers proclaim, “You are the Son of the living God,” well, we are thrown into an intellectual crisis. In my experience, theological thought is a distinctly reflexive, responsive enterprise. You are forced to be a theologian when you realize that Jesus goes against much of what the world believes “God” must be like if God is worthy of our worship or when you realize that Jesus is not at all what you had in mind when you prayed, “God, come into my life.” Theology in a never-ending enterprise, not because we want to ride the newest intellectual wave, but because Jesus keeps showing up, keeps revealing himself to us, keeps demanding more of us than we expected.
But theology is more than our deep thoughts about God; it is also God’s talk to us, that which the living God lovingly says to the world.
The story of God in Christ is so intellectually demanding, so strange, so against our natural inclination that we couldn’t have thought it up ourselves. Thus John’s gospel introduces Jesus as “the Word,” God’s great address to God’s Creation. Some people heard “the Word” as God’s word spoken to them and some didn’t. Something about Jesus leads people not only to say things like, “Here is the long awaited Savior of the World!” but also “He can’t be the Son of God. Can he?” or, “We never heard anything like this!” From the first, it was nearly impossible to say anything about Jesus without raising questions like, “Who is God, anyway?”
I don’t mean that everybody does good theology. Good, faithful, specifically Christian theology is informed by and responsive to Scripture, the historic faith of the church, and the contemporary promptings of the Holy Spirit right now in our lives. There is well formed, informed theology, and then there is theology that is merely “what seems right to me” or “here is something I heard on Fox News.”
This is where the Wesley Study Bible proves to be so helpful. Christians don’t have to reinvent the wheel, theologically speaking. We have faithful guides who will show us the way, if we dare listen. Faithful Christian theology arises in conversation with the saints (Scripture, the Wesleyan tradition, contemporary witnesses) who tell us what they have discovered about God when God discovered them. The WSB is unique in making explicit how, when we read Scripture, we join a lively conversation of the living and the dead that began long before you got here and shall continue long after you are gone. Despite his sometimes turgid prose, Father John can teach us today, if we will listen.
Scripture is highly charged, visionary literature that stokes, funds, and fuels our imaginations, presenting us with a more interesting world than the flat and demystified one we would have had if we had been left to our own modern devices, narrating a much more interesting and demanding God than that generic, flaccid, innocuous “god” that the world tries to pass off on us these days. (Another word for a “god” who meets all your needs and thinks only what you think is idol.) By grounding and initiating our thoughts about God and the world in Scripture, the WSB demonstrates that all our theology is accountable to Scripture; the Bible keeps our thought focused upon the God who, in Jesus Christ, has so graciously focused upon us.
The Wesleyan in me warns: Do not attempt faithful Christian theology on your own—Wesleyan thinking about God is a group activity. The Trinity is so wonderfully complex, dynamic, mysterious, and counter to who we expect God to be that, if you want to think faithfully, you need help from your friends. If God were merely a concoction of your own imagination and the Christian faith only a mishmash of ideas that “work for me,” then you could do theology alone. (Another word for theology done solely by you is “heresy.”)
The Bible is the product of the church’s life with God. Scripture’s primary audience is not some academic department of religion. All Scripture is from the church to the church. As Wesley said, Christianity is a “social religion”—you can’t do it alone; the test of this faith is its corporate embodiment.
One of the great gifts of the WSB is to introduce you to a host of new friends, chief among them the brothers John and Charles Wesley, friends living, and friends dead, all of whom want to have a lively conversation with you about theology. While you may not have been thinking about God in Jesus Christ that long, don’t worry. The brothers Wesley took as their special mission to introduce people to the living God and to urge ordinary people to risk having their lives enlisted into God’s work. Their heirs in the Methodist movement have been talking about God to anybody who will listen for over 200 years. They have a lot to say.
The good news is that you don’t have to come up with words about God—theology—on your own. Wesleyan Christians are those who think about God with the Wesleys. The theological revolution begun in Eighteenth Century England has now spread to every corner of the globe. Millions have met the true and living God through the ministrations of the Methodists, heirs of Wesley. The Wesley Study Bible is presented as an exchange between the diverse speakers within Scripture (those in Israel and the early church who had so vivid an encounter with God that they just had to talk about it to figure out what had happened to them), and (in the sidebars in the WSB) a conversation between the Wesleys and Wesleyans on their particular experience of God. There are also the sidebar testimonies of present day pastors on the life applications for the biblical and Wesleyan insights. For Wesleyans, all theology is practical; our ideas about Jesus are meant to be put into action with Jesus, “Warm hearts and active hands.”
You don’t have to be a Wesleyan to do faithful Christian theology, but forgive me for thinking that it really helps. John and Charles Wesley’s discoveries about God still astound and challenge. The worldwide renewal of the church launched by the Wesleys has exceeded their wildest dreams. Wesleyan “practical divinity” (one of John Wesley’s favorite terms for his sort of theology) is as revolutionary and as badly needed now as ever.
Mark says that while Jesus was hurrying down the road a man stopped him and asked a deep theological question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Mark 10:17). One gospel says that the man was a “ruler,” another says that he was “young.” All agree that he was “rich.” At first Jesus brushes him off with, “You know what Scripture says—obey the Ten Commandments.”
“I’ve obeyed all the commandments since I was a kid,” replies the man. (Never broken a commandment? Who could say that? This man is not only successful in accumulating wealth; he is successful at morality too.)
Then Mark says, “Jesus looked at him and loved him”—the only time that Jesus is said to have loved a specific individual. Then, in one of the wildest demands Jesus ever made of anybody (because “he loved him”?) Jesus told the man to, “Go, sell all you have, give it to the poor, then come, follow me.”
With that Mark says that the young man got depressed and departed, leaving Jesus to lament, “It is very difficult to save those who have lots of stuff; as difficult as it is to shove a fully loaded dromedary through the eye of a needle. But with God, even the salvation of the rich is…possible.”
While the North American in me is distinctly uneasy about Jesus treating affluent people like me in this brusque way, the Wesleyan in me loves Jesus’ response to the man’s big theological question. Refusing to be drawn into an intellectual bull session, some ethereal blather about “eternal life” (which Jesus discusses only rarely), Jesus hits the man not with ideas about eternity but with ethics here on earth—the Ten Commandments, redistribution of wealth, moral transformation, and discipleship. Here this rather smug, successful person attempts to lure Jesus into abstract, speculative theology and Jesus, after citing scripture, then forces the man to talk about obedience and action. Jesus doesn’t say to him, “think,” “ponder,” or “reflect.” Rather he speaks to him only in active verbs: “Go…sell…give…follow me.”
To my mind it was a wonderfully Wesleyan theological moment. The man wants a relaxed discussion; Jesus gets practical and demanding. Jesus never said, “Think about me!” He said, “Follow me!” All the man may have wanted was a polite exchange of ideas about “eternal life” but what he got was a cruciform call to go, sell, give, and be a disciple.
When Wesley discusses this passage in his Explanatory Notes on the New Testament he focuses upon both Jesus’ love for this person and the need for a loving personal response to that love. Wesley praised, “The love of God, without which all religion is a dead carcass.” Then exhorted readers, “In order to obtain this, throw away what is to you the grand hindrance of it. Give up your great idol, riches.”
I think Mark 10:21 is the only place in the gospels where someone is called by Jesus to be a disciple and refuses. Yet for all that, it’s one of the most explicitly Wesleyan gospel moments. God’s love is gracious, but also demanding. Wesley was not much interested in any theology that couldn’t be put into practice; warmed hearts and good intentions were no substitute for active hands. And the point of having deep conversations with Jesus about what to believe was to be better equipped to obey Jesus. Theological reflection on Jesus was in service of better following Jesus. To think in this fashion is theology in the Wesleyan spirit. In his short tract, “The Character of a Methodist,” Wesley noted that Methodism is distinguished, not by unique doctrines but by a shared commitment to theological renewal paired with an active obedience to a living Lord.
As evangelicals, Matthew 28:18-20 is a key text for us. Usually our stress is upon the, “Go…make disciples of all nations….” But note that here Jesus not only commands us to “Go…make” but also to teach “everything I have commanded you” (verse 20).
In my roaming about, I notice that churches sometimes put some boast on their sign out front like, “Friendliest Church in Town,” or “No shirt? No shoes? No problem! Come, worship with us.” I pray for the day when a United Methodist congregation will say, “Come join us; we won’t hold back or limit ourselves to the thoughts of the average person in the pew. We promise to teach you to obey everything Jesus commanded.”
William H. Willimon is presiding bishop of the North Alabama Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. He is not only one of the joint editors of the Wesley Study Bible but is also author of This We Believe, a book that is tied to the study of theology using the WSB. Bishop Willimon has been a long time contributor to Good News. This fall Abingdon Press will publish his book Why Jesus?
Photo courtesy of Ben Williams.
by Steve | Jun 18, 2013 | Magazine Articles
Southwick
By John Southwick
A few years ago, a key focus of a trip to England was to do some Wesley heritage touring, which led me to Aldersgate Street. Many reminders of the street can be found in the life of John Wesley, but the most remarkable is the entrance to the Museum of London. Adjacent to the main entrance is a two-story bronze structure complete with a reproduction of the May 24, 1738 page of Wesley’s journal. There, all can read of how his heart was strangely warmed and how he had assurance that he had been saved from the law of sin and death.
Given that Christianity is so far gone in English culture today, the prominence of John Wesley is even more astonishing. London has a long history of large historical figures and yet this founder of Methodism is the only one displayed. Perhaps, as some historians suggest, John and Charles Wesley and the Methodists changed the whole moral climate of that land in the 18th century, and maybe even averted another revolution of the French variety.
Prior to 1738, these very talented brothers were hardly culture shapers. They earnestly applied their best efforts to their Christian discipleship with only ordinary results. Had their ministry remained this way, we may never have heard of them. In 1739, everything changed.
What happened? While we must credit God with the outcome, several factors appear to be in play on the human level, including, of course, Aldersgate.
What is sometimes lost in all this is that Charles had a similar encounter with God just three days prior to his brother’s famous experience, and quite independent of it. On May 21, which happened to be Pentecost, Charles was ill and godly woman prayed a potent and powerful prayer over him. The prayer brought about what has been described as his evangelical conversion.
The extraordinary beginning of 1739 is often forgotten. From John’s journal entry of January 1 we find: “Mr Hall, Kinchin, Ingham, Whitefield, Hutchins, and my brother Charles, were present at our love-feast in Fetter-Lane, with about 60 of our brethren. About 3 in the morning, as we were continuing instant in prayer, the power of God came mightily upon us, insomuch that many cried out for exceeding joy, and many fell to the ground. As soon as we were recovered a little from the awe and amazement at the presence of his Majesty, we broke out with one voice, ‘We praise thee, O God; we acknowledge thee to be the Lord.’”
While many interpretations of these events could be offered, the one point remains clear: The ministry of the Wesleys went from ordinary to extraordinary. What occurred was clearly an act of God, but their own spiritual activity also played a role. This raises the question for modern Methodists: Can the best efforts through our own strength, talents, gifting and efforts be translated into something more that really makes a difference for the kingdom of God?
I believe it can. There is no simple formula for this, however, since nothing can happen without the mighty hand of God. We would do well to seek God for it. We would do well to include a vision of ministry and encourage prayer support. We would do well to hunger more for God’s reality. The United Methodist Church is so used to the ordinary – a dose of the extraordinary is desperately needed. Who is better suited to lead in this way than those whose faith is grounded in Scripture, who love the God of the Bible, and who stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before?
John Southwick is Director of Research, Networking, and Resources at Good News.
