by Steve | May 17, 1985 | Archive - 1985
Archive: Sweet Songs of Salvation
By J. Ellsworth Kalas (1923-2015)
May/June 1985
We Methodists make much of John Wesley’s dramatic religious experience one evening on Aldersgate Street, but he almost forget that his brother Charles Wesley had an equally transforming experience three days earlier. In fact, John and Charles followed quite similar paths in their spiritual journeys.
For example, both went to Georgia as missionaries and both were disappointed there. Back in England, things went well for Charles outwardly. He was chosen to present the Oxford Address to King George II, and then to dine with the king the following day. But Charles’ soul remained distressed.
Like John, he had been influenced by the writings of William Law and by the Moravian, Peter Böhler. Böhler described both John and Charles in a letter to the Moravian leader, Zinzendorf: “Of faith in Jesus, they have no other idea than the generality of people have. They justify themselves; therefore they always take it for granted that they believe already and would prove their faith by their works, and thus so plague and torment themselves that they are at heart very miserable.”
Then on Sunday, May 21, 1738, Charles and John and some friends sang a hymn together. Charles prayed earnestly and at length. He heard a voice saying, “In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, arise, and believe, and thou shalt be healed of all thy infirmities.” A young woman, Miss Bray, had spoken the words, but she insisted that she had done so by order of Christ. Charles received the words as a message from God. Suddenly, his struggling ceased. “I found myself at peace with God, and rejoiced in hope of loving Christ. … I saw that by faith I stood; by the continual support of faith, which kept me from falling.”
On Tuesday, Charles began to write a hymn about his conversion. He had done some things with poetry before, but now he had a new and urgent impulse to write. On the day of his conversion he had been impressed with the Scripture, “I will put a new song into thy mouth.” Nevertheless, as he began to write that Tuesday, he “was persuaded to break off for fear of pride.” But a friend convinced him that these feelings were from Satan, and encouraged Charles to finish the hymn. The opening line shows the grand awe of a newborn soul:
Where shall my wondering soul begin?
How shall I all to heaven aspire?
A slave redeemed from death and sin,
A brand plucked from eternal fire,
How shall I equal triumphs raise,
Or sing my great deliverer’s praise?
O how shall I the goodness tell,
Father, which thou to me hast showed?
That I, a child of wrath and hell,
I should be called a child of God,
Should know, should feel my sins forgiven,
Blest with this antepast of heaven.
The following evening, May 24, 1738, “Towards ten, my brother was brought in triumph by a troop of our friends, and declared, ‘I believe: We sang the hymn with great joy, and parted with prayer.” This is an auspicious hymn indeed – the first written by Charles after his conversion, and sung “publicly” for the first time in celebration of John’s Aldersgate experience.
Charles eventually wrote about hundreds of subjects, but one theme surfaces again and again: redemption of the human soul through Jesus Christ. It isn’t surprising that it should be the subject matter in this first expression of his new faith in Christ, but it is impressive that it continued to be his song all through the years. In this emphasis, too, Charles was like John. No doubt they reinforced one another in their conviction.
In 1772, for example, after the Methodist revival had been going on for a full generation, John wrote to Charles, “Your business, as well as mine, is to save souls …. I think every day lost, which is not (mainly at least) employed in this thing.” By then their movement had reached what some analysts might call a new level of development, a point at which they could easily have shifted to a different emphasis. But the Wesleys never forgot their reason for existence, perhaps because they never lost the sense of wonder at their own salvation.
Those who know the pious backgrounds of John and Charles Wesley may question why Charles felt such an exceeding sense of personal sin. In this first hymn he describes himself as “a slave redeemed from death and sin, a brand plucked from eternal fire … a child of wrath and hell.” Later in this same hymn he addresses himself to the most obviously lost:
Outcasts of men, to you I call;
Harlots and publicans and thieves:
He spreads his arms to embrace you all;
Sinners alone His grace receive.
And it is evident that Charles numbers himself with this motley crew.
How is it that Wesley could have such a sense of sin and need for a Savior? He knew virtually nothing, in his own life, of gross and vulgar sins. He did not come to Christ through drunkenness and lechery, or theft, murder, and drug addiction. His life had been lived in a rectory and in the scholar’s chambers. Yet he sings as if Christ had intercepted his journey at the very gate of hell.
Some might argue that Wesley’s sensitivity to sin was because he lived in times which were violent and corrupt. But that explanation is doubtful. With our current level of crime, alcoholism, and drug addiction, we ought to be as conscious of the exceeding sinfulness of our sin as any generation. Besides, Wesley could have responded in quite the opposite way, feeling self-righteous rather than remorseful as he viewed the world around him.
Instead, Wesley seemed to understand the ulterior motives behind his moral conduct. In one hymn he thanked God that he had escaped being one of the “young corrupters,” and confessed that it was because of his “sacred cowardice.” That’s a telling insight into human nature. Many of us might acknowledge that we would have been more crude in our conduct if we hadn’t feared public opinion and were not so concerned about our community standing. Wesley knew that his cowardice was sacred in that it kept him free from more obviously sinful acts, but it was cowardice nevertheless.
I think also that Wesley’s sense of the seriousness of sin (and thus, the glory of redemption) came because he had a theology rather than a sociology or a psychology. Our broader learning has, perhaps. blurred our vision.
That is, with our sociological emphasis, we speak much of corporate sin. This is a valid concept, of course. Some of the elements of international conflict, pervasive hunger, and poverty are the products of society in general.
But while this is a true concept. it is also a diverting one. It is easy, when confessing corporate sin, to project the burden or guilt upon others. The idea of corporate sin is likely to dull our realization of personal responsibility. We are then prone to see sin as something which is wrong with the system – as a matter of fact, we call it “systemic sin” – rather than an issue which we must confront directly, in ourselves.
Psychology, too, has had its impact on our conception of sin; and even more, on our expectation of salvation. So we think of ourselves as having personality disorders rather than as individuals in need of a Savior.
These disorders may, as a matter of fact, spring from self-centeredness and selfishness. and they may express themselves in indifference or unkindness to others. Nevertheless, the intellectual climate of our times helps us avoid facing ourselves as we are. Our culture has an intricate system of euphemisms to prevent our seeing things in their true light, and nowhere is this system of euphemisms so well developed as in the matter of sin.
If we moderns sense that we have a problem, we are offered any number of possible saviors. When Paul walked the streets of Athens he discovered that there were almost as many gods as there were people. Our times are somewhat like that. Every day, it seems, someone is offering a new way of salvation.
Mind you, not many of these new gospels claim to be eternal, because not many recognize that our need is for the eternal. Most of the salvations which are offered come in smaller packages, ranging all the way from plastic surgery to psychoanalysis.
We may never know how many people embark upon a new diet regimen, another night course at the community college, or a new hobby, romance, discussion group, or personality cult in the hope that it will bring a special excitement to life or fill some indefinable void. Understand me – such matters are OK in their place, but they are poor substitutes for a Savior. And when one sees the expectation with which many of our contemporaries embark upon some of these pursuits, one feels an aching pathos. God made us for more substantial fare.
This crowd of secular saviors has affected the confidence with which the task of preaching is approached. We are so often tentative in our claims for the Gospel. Consider, for instance, the matter of chemical addiction, whether alcoholism or drugs. I grew up in a little Methodist downtown mission, where any number of people had been saved from addictions. Frank Satterlee, one of my boyhood Sunday school teachers. told our class often of the night, in his lostness, when he was headed toward the Missouri River and suicide. He had stopped at the mission, caught by the music, and that night his life was changed. “I never wanted another drop,” he told us so often.
Not many of us nowadays are ready to deal directly with the chemically addicted person. We refer him or her to Alcoholics Anonymous or to a counseling center. I do not mean to discredit these aids: I only ask if we have lost our faith in the Lord of redemption. Are we afraid to confront addiction?
The 18th-century world of John and Charles Wesley must have had at least as much alcoholism as ours. Their class meetings included any number of persons who had been so addicted. How did the early Methodists manage without AA, treatment centers, and expert counseling? I do not condemn; I only ask, in pain, if we have lost faith in the redeeming work.
Sir William Blackstone, the first professor of English law and perhaps the most memorable name in legal education, said that he went to hear every noted cleric in 18th-century London, and “did not hear a single discourse which had more Christianity in it than the writings of Cicero.” It would have been impossible, Blackstone said, to discover from what he heard “whether the teacher were a follower of Confucius, or Mohammed, or of Christ.” One wonders if a modern seeker might make a similar complaint, after tasting a variety of sermons discussing pop psychology and the most recent fads in self-help. Is there any salvation, the modern seeker might ask.
The Wesleys perceived sin to be something more than a personality disorder, and more than a society which was out of joint. They saw sin as an eternal malady, the kind of illness which could afflict only eternal creatures, the human race. It could not be healed lightly. The remedy would have to be as drastic as the illness demanded. and the redemption must be strong enough to confront hell. So they sang:
He breaks the power of cancell’d sin,
He sets the prisoner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean,
His blood avail’d for me.
The peculiar glory of these salvation hymns is that they were so surely a personal testimony. Halford Luccock and Paul Hutchinson suggested a test. Compare the hymns of Isaac Watts, Addison, Cowper, or Doddridge with those of Wesley. The hymns of Wesley are not necessarily better poetry, nor is their content always better, for these other poets were also skilled theologians. “But note the pronouns! Wesley started the Methodists singing personal pronouns, and that was what made his hymns a turning point in English history.” Wesley sang from the wrestlings and the victories of his personal experience of salvation.
When one says that Charles Wesley’s hymns were so often songs of salvation, we’re likely to think of rollicking tunes with words that require no intellectual involvement. Not so. He managed the nearly impossible; he wrote with emotion of his love for Christ, yet with the kind of theological content that makes a thoughtful reader want to savor the words. Take this magnificent passion hymn:
O Love divine. what hast thine done!
Th’incarnate God hath died for me!
The Father’s co-eternal Son
Bore all my sins upon the tree!
The Son of God for me hath died:
My Lord, my Love, is crucified.
And again, in a communion hymn:
Victim Divine, thy grace we claim
While thus thy precious death we show:
Once offer’d up, a spotless lamb.
In thy great temple here below,
Thou didst for all mankind atone,
And standest now before the throne.
The smoke of thy atonement here
Darken’d the sun and rent the veil.
Made the new way to heaven appear,
And show’d the great Invisible:
Well pleased in thee our God look’d down,
And call’d his rebels to a crown.
The substantial content in Wesley’s hymns played a great role in the nurture of the first generation of the people called Methodists. Whatever other books they had, or whatever other training, one could be sure that every time they sang one of Charles’ hymnsespecially those dealing with salvation-they would get some solid theology. The text encouraged analysis, thought, meditation, and growth.
And of course it was classic theology. There is nothing trendy in Wesley’s theology. His doctrine was ancient and catholic. It was never incidental or peripheral.
One often has a feeling that much contemporary theology is aimed for the marketplace, either in the scholarly journals or perhaps, at the extreme, something popular enough to get a sensational book review. Wesley was always sensitive to his times, but his theology was classical and catholic. He worried not so much about what was currently popular in the universities as what was needed on the streets and in the mines.
The most impressive factor in Charles Wesley’s hymns of salvation, however (and in his work in general), is the massive Biblical content. J. Ernest Rattenbury contends that a skillful person, if the Bible were lost, “might extract much of it from Wesley’s hymns.”
Very few contemporary congregations can do full justice to the singing of Wesley’s hymns. This is because relatively few church members have the Biblical knowledge to appreciate what they are singing. Rattenbury says the Holy Scripture was Wesley’s “sole literary inspiration,” because even when he took phrases from other authors, they were generally nothing other than a recasting of some Biblical truth. Yet Wesley’s weaving of Biblical phrases, allusions, and insights is so masterful that even a careful reader will find it hard to catch them all.
The salvation of which Wesley sang, it should also be said, was no one-night experience. He rejoiced more than anyone in the wonder of the moment of awakening, but he was never content to stop there. He would look askance at the kind of evangelism which makes its final count at the altar call or the receiving into church membership. His evangelism didn’t stop that soon. He knew there would be struggles, for the adversary was not likely to release a soul without resistance, and Wesley knew that the soul must go on growing.
Wesley’s personal struggles no doubt colored his conception of the Christian life. Perhaps one must have such capacity for self-doubt if he is to experience so large a measure of God’s grace. At any rate, Charles struggled.
On June 3, 1738, within two weeks of his conversion, he wrote in his Journal, “I could not help asking myself, ‘Where is the difference between what I am now, and what I was before believing?’ I immediately answered, ‘That the darkness was not like the former darkness, because I was satisfied there was no guilt in it; because I was assured it would be dispersed; and because, though I could not find I loved God, or feel that he loved me, yet I did and would believe he loved me notwithstanding.’ “
Charles’ insight into himself and his struggle was beautifully expressed in a hymn of celebration that he wrote on his birthday in either 1740 or 1741.
The tyranny of sin is past:
And though the carnal mind remains,
My guiltless soul on Thee is cast,
I neither hug, nor bite my chains.
He is a man at peace, albeit a struggling peace, with his redeemed humanness.
The Wesleys did not believe in a cheap salvation. One section of their hymnbook was for “Believers Struggling.” The Wesleys never promised their converts that life would be one continual victory once they accepted Christ as Lord. They only knew that in the end there would be victory.
A favorite hymn with modern congregations, and perhaps especially with those who look upon religion mainly as a source of comfort, is “Jesus, Lover of My Soul.” Charles didn’t offer it for easy comfort, though. It was originally titled “In Temptation,” and it was meant to lend strength to the soul in struggle. A verse not usually included in modern hymnals reads:
Wilt Thou not regard my call?
Wilt Thou not accept my prayer?
Lo, I sink, I faint, I fall!
Lo! on Thee I cast my care!
The concluding verse, so familiar to those seeking comfort, is actually a cry for restoration in the hour of temptation. Wesley rejoiced, even as he appealed:
Plenteous grace with Thee is found,
Grace to cover all my sin:
let the healing streams abound;
Make and keep me pure within!
Members of the early Methodist societies were expected to grow. Their spiritual struggles were supposed to lead to new heights and depths in Christ. And they were never to be content with the initial experience of grace. The new birth was for the purpose of maturity.
Modern congregations probably think of “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” as a hymn emphasizing the love of God, even though our hymnal editors put it in the section on “Christian Perfection.” Wesley himself classified it as “For Believers Seeking Perfect Love.” So he prayed:
Take away our bent to sinning:
Alpha and Omega be:
End of faith. as its beginning,
Set our hearts at liberty.
Christ was the Alpha, with whom our salvation has begun; now He must be the Omega, bringing it to a victorious end. The fourth verse is the finest of prayers for those seeking Christian perfection:
Finish, then, thy new creation;
Pure and spotless let us be. let us see thy great salvation
Perfectly restored in thee:
Changed from glory into glory.
Till in heaven we take our place,
Till we cast our crowns before thee,
Lost in wonder, love. and praise.
Charles was looking forward to a finished, spotless life, worthy of an adoring appearance before Christ. And while Wesley knew so well that the Christian life can sometimes be described as “from struggle to struggle,” he identified it now from the side of God’s action: as He works in our lives, we are “changed from glory into glory.”
Wesley had an entire section of hymns under the classification, “For Mature Believers.” These hymns underline the expectations the Wesleys had for the people in their societies. The goal was maturity, perfection. The Wesleys gladly accepted all who desired to flee from the wrath to come, but they expected them to go on to perfection. They hoped to present to God a people who had grown into the fullness of Christ. Charles was confident that this was God’s will for all His people:
Lord, I believe a rest remains
To all thy people known:
A rest, where pure enjoyment reigns,
And thou art loved alone.
The stage manager in Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town temporarily takes the part of the parish minister. In that role he says, “Everybody knows Nature’s interested in quantity. I believe she’s interested in quality too. That’s why I’m a minister.” John and Charles would have agreed. They were looking for quality in their people, because they believed that was God’s goal for those redeemed by Christ.
Finally, the most notable quality in Wesley’s song-theme of salvation is this, that his songs not only described salvation, they conveyed it. The hymns were instruments of salvation, drawing the lost to Christ. Wesley rejoiced in his salvation. He had tasted and seen that the Lord is good. And as he sang of what God had done for him and for the growing host of miners, prostitutes, ne’er-do-wells, and wandering souls, Wesley was sure He could do it for all.
It is our privilege, in this Wesleyan heritage, to offer the same salvation. One wonders why we so easily neglect it. Our message is so exciting, why don’t we exploit it?
Vance Havner has been an evangelist, in one of the non-Wesleyan traditions, for more than 60 years. One day he quoted the lines from our Methodist theme song:
Hear him, ye deaf. his praise, ye dumb,
Your loosened tongues employ,
Ye blind, behold your Savior come,
And leap, ye lame, for joy.
And picturing such a sad and motley body of the world’s needy, Havner said, “Every Sunday we should say to a crippled world, ‘Look Who’s here! Look Who’s here!’“
We have redemption to offer, and the Savior. We can tell the world with all its need, “Look Who’s here!” That ought to stir the evangel in every Wesleyan heart.
Reprinted by permission from Our First Song by J. Ellsworth Kalas (1923-2015). © 1984 by Discipleship Resources. Used by permission.
by Steve | Mar 28, 1985 | Archive - 1985
Archive: Why I Believe In the Bodily Resurrection
by J. Harold Greenlee
Does it really matter whether Jesus rose from the dead?
Let’s ask a different question: Does it matter whether the American Revolution really happened? The United States has its independence from England—so what if the story of the Revolutionary War is just a myth? Does it matter? Yes, it does; for the fact of American independence requires a historical basis sufficient to account for the change from British colonies to an independent nation.
The same logic applies in considering the resurrection of Jesus. Only the Resurrection can account for the radical change which took place in His disciples.
Yet through the centuries there have been those who deny that Jesus rose from the dead. Some of the Jewish authorities were among the first to deny the Resurrection. On that first Easter Day, after being informed by the Roman guard of what had happened at the tomb, “they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers and said, ‘You are to say, “His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep.”’ … and this story was widely spread among the Jews, and is to this day” (Matthew 28:12-13, 15).
This theory, first circulated as a cover-up, has arisen again from time to time. But to believe that those frightened and defeated disciples, who had no expectation of a resurrection, would have devised such a plan and succeeded in stealing their Lord’s body from under the noses of an armed Roman guard stretches credibility to the breaking point. That the soldiers, moreover, had all fallen asleep in spite of their orders, yet knew who had come to steal the body—and did nothing to stop them—is an idea too absurd to be seriously considered.
Another theory is that Jesus did not die on the cross; He just passed out and then revived in the cool air of the tomb. This claim was renewed in a recent book.
Such a hypothesis would have us believe that Jesus, after hanging on a cross for several hours with nails through His hands and feet and with a spear-wound in His side, after 36 hours without food or water, somehow survived. Not only did Jesus survive, but He regained sufficient strength to free Himself from the tightly-bound grave-cloths and roll the huge stone away from the tomb entrance, evidently so shocking the Roman soldiers that they made no attempt to impede His escape! This claim is equally absurd.
We should, by the way, point out another issue. Evangelical Christians accept the authenticity of the Gospel records. Of course, if we deny the historicity of the Gospels we can make up any story we choose concerning this event. Years ago one of my university professors said he didn’t think it ever occurred to the disciples to inspect the tomb to see whether the body of Jesus was there!
The problem with denying the Resurrection, of course, is how to account for the disciples’ proclamation that Jesus had indeed risen from the dead. From the day of Pentecost, a mere 52 days after the Crucifixion, Jesus’ followers not only began proclaiming that He had risen and was the promised Messiah and Savior, but they began to suffer for this proclamation. A number of them, evidently, were put to death for their beliefs.
Did the disciples, knowing that Jesus had not risen, figure that His teachings were so important that someone must invent the stories of His post-resurrection appearances as a “pious fraud”? And then did these disciples devote their lives to proclaiming this “white lie” in order to promote the fine teachings that Jesus had given? It was not His teachings, but the proclamation of Him as risen Savior and Lord which caused offense. Surely the persecution the disciples endured would have convinced at least some of them to admit the Resurrection was only a figment of their imagination.
It simply will not do to deny the Resurrection. Only the conviction that Jesus did not remain dead can account for their lives being so dramatically changed, for the message they boldly proclaimed, and for the success that message achieved.
But can we not conclude that the Resurrection, though “real,” was a “spiritual” resurrection? We can agree that Jesus’ immortal soul or spirit does live on. But an actual physical resurrection encounters difficulties with modern science. May we not accept the story of the Resurrection as “true” and a necessary part of salvation history, but not an actual physical, observable event?
This theory, or a variation of it, is commonly accepted in some church circles. We must ask, however, does a “spiritual resurrection” mean there were no personal appearances by the risen Jesus to the disciples, but only a conviction by them that Jesus must surely be alive? If so, this is a totally inadequate explanation in view of the disciples’ unpreparedness for the concept of the Resurrection. Such a view would also contradict the clear statements of Scripture that Jesus did appear often and to many.
But suppose a “spiritual resurrection” included the appearances described in the New Testament. There would still remain insurmountable obstacles to accepting such a theory. It would have Jesus as a “spirit” appearing to the disciples, while at the same time His physical body was decaying in His tomb. The disciples would certainly go to inspect the tomb (in spite of my professor’s guess to the contrary).
Then, even if they could have convinced themselves that they were not victims of mass self-hallucination in their visions of Jesus, such a subjective testimony would have appealed to few others. It would have been a feeble instrument indeed for the evangelization of the world. The Jewish authorities, moreover, would most certainly have used the “occupied tomb” to make the disciples a public laughingstock!
A “spiritual resurrection” might seem to be consistent with the manner in which Jesus appeared and disappeared during the following 40 days. But those remarkable appearances can be explained equally well by the view that Jesus, in His risen condition, was free to move outside our three-dimensional world.
At any rate, Jesus not only showed the disciples the wounds in His hands and feet, He invited them to touch Him in order to make sure He was not merely a spirit (Luke 24:39). Later He urged Thomas, “Reach here your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand, and put it into My side” (John 20:27). On another occasion Jesus ate food in the presence of the disciples, as further proof that He was a living person with a physical body (Luke 24:41-42). These passages show that Jesus Himself felt it was important for the disciples to have full proof that He had risen physically, in the body in which He had died.
No, nothing will do but the plain account of Scripture—that Jesus really died and was buried; that He came forth from the tomb literally, physically, and triumphantly; and that He appeared at various times to many people, as I Corinthians 15:3-7 succinctly puts it.
Let us look at this matter in more detail.
How can we account for the amazing change which took place in the lives of these frightened disciples? Of course, the Holy Spirit came upon them about seven weeks later, empowering them for their long-term ministry. But even this tremendous event was based on their assurance that Jesus had risen .
There can be no doubt that the New Testament writers believed that Jesus rose physically from the dead on Easter morning. The Gospels make that fact unquestionably clear. The differences between their accounts simply demonstrate that the Gospel writers are independent witnesses, but they are in full agreement on the central fact.
The Book of Acts presents the resurrection of Jesus as a fundamental truth in the preaching of the early Church. The statement that God raised Jesus from the dead appears twelve times in Acts, and the Resurrection is mentioned in other ways three additional times.
What is sometimes overlooked is the centrality of the Resurrection in the message of the New Testament epistles. Saint Paul begins his epistle to the Romans with the statement that Jesus “was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead” (1:4). Romans 4:24-25 relates our salvation to the death and resurrection of Jesus. In Romans 6:4-10 the apostle describes the Christian’s new life as based on the resurrection of Jesus.
In Philippians 3:10 Paul speaks of knowing “the power of His resurrection.” Ephesians 1:20 speaks of the exceeding greatness of God’s power “which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead.” I Thessalonians 4:14 refers to the Christian’s confidence that Jesus “died and rose again.” I Peter 1:3 and 3:21 ground our salvation on the resurrection of Jesus. At least 9 additional passages in the epistles refer to God’s raising Jesus from the dead.[1]
The most extensive passage concerning the Resurrection in the epistles is I Corinthians 15. Here Paul declares that Christ did rise from the dead (v. 4) and that He was actually seen by a multitude of people at various times (vv. 5-8). Paul then declares decisively and in detail that if Jesus did not rise from the dead, the entire Christian faith is false and we are left without hope (vv. 21-19). Paul continues by proclaiming again that Christ is indeed risen from the dead (v. 20) as the “first fruits” of resurrection for all Christians (v. 23).
These are only some of the many passages in the epistles in which the resurrection of Jesus is not only set forth but is intimately related to our salvation.
The Gospels frequently quote Jesus as telling His disciples of His coming death and resurrection. The Gospel, however, were written after the event. The Gospel writers understood from experience what Jesus had been saying to them. When He was telling them, and at the time of His arrest and crucifixion, the Resurrection was beyond the grasp of their minds. As Luke states: “The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about” (Luke 18:34, NIV).
The disciples were in no way predisposed to believe that Jesus would rise from death. They had come to believe that He was the promised Messiah, and they had witnessed the miracles which He had performed. But that Jesus would return from the grave to life was still beyond their comprehension.
Their behavior at the time of His death proved that for them the Crucifixion was a final defeat for Jesus and for their hopes. Only the Resurrection and the appearance to them by the risen Jesus could have convinced the disciples that He was physically alive.
Surely few events are dealt with in the New Testament so specifically, so frequently, and with such profound implications for the Christian faith as the resurrection of Jesus. Why do some people still find it hard to accept?
The reason is simple: the resurrection of Jesus is a supernatural event, a miracle in the true sense of that word. People who can accept the authenticity of the Sermon on the Mount—which is recorded in only one Gospel—or even the account of the Crucifixion, which is found in all four Gospels, stumble at the resurrection of Jesus simply because it is a supernatural event, a miracle. The problem needs to be faced for what it is.
Moreover, the Resurrection is not merely a story set down in the New Testament which could be extracted without disturbing the rest of the message. As we have shown, the Resurrection is as inseparable from the whole Christian message as a tomato in vegetable soup. The difficulty is simply the difficulty of supernaturalism.
Let us, then, settle in our minds the basic question. If supernatural events cannot and did not happen, we must give up our belief not only in the resurrection of Jesus but also in His Virgin Birth and the miracles of His ministry. And in so doing, we make a shambles of the New Testament which so clearly testifies to all these supernatural events.
Let us therefore, without apology, recognize that Christianity is a supernatural religion. Let us recognize that God can, and in fact did, intervene in human history; and that He did so, not in violation of natural law but by interposing His higher level of supernatural law. Let us believe and proclaim in full assurance of faith with Saint Paul, “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead” (I Corinthians 15:20, NIV). And because He lives, we too shall live.
Dr. J. Harold Greenlee is a UM minister and Greek scholar with a Ph.D. in Biblical Greek from Harvard. He taught at the seminary level for 20 years and currently serves in international ministry with OMS International and as a translation consul/ant for Wycliffe Bible Translators. Among Dr. Greenlee’s published works is a grammar of the Greek New Testament which has been translated and published in five foreign languages. He is a contributing editor to Good News magazine.
[1] Rom. 4:24, 8: 11 (twice), 10:9; I Cor. 6: 14; II Cor. 4:14; Col. 2:12; I Thess. 1:10; and I Pet. 1:21.
by Steve | Mar 28, 1985 | Archive - 1985
Archive: Should United Methodists Embrace Liberation Theology?
By Riley B. Case
Consider. This past fall …
- The Roman Catholic Church’s doctrinal standards commission issued a 36-page paper on liberation theology. It warned that theologians who accept Marxist solutions are adopting positions incompatible with the Christian view of humanity.
- A leading Catholic advocate of liberation theology, Brazilian Leonardo Boff, was summoned by the Vatican to appear in Rome. Boff was asked to respond to charges that certain of his teachings are not consistent with Christian teaching.
- In an address to his denomination’s General Board of Global Ministries, United Methodist bishop Roy Sano asserted that the board should reject efforts to separate itself from liberation theology. Sano went on to argue that the Holy Spirit is at work in liberation movements, and therefore opposition to liberation efforts are acts of “blasphemy.”
At the core of liberation theology is the belief that God stands with the poor and oppressed of the world against societies and systems that hold them in bondage. The “poor” and “oppressed” might be peasants in South America who are oppressed by unbridled capitalism, or blacks in South Africa or America who suffer because of racism, or women who are in bondage to male-dominated structures in the world. According to liberation theology it is the mission of the Church to support those movements which struggle against such oppression.
The goal of liberation theology is not simply social reform or guaranteed human rights, but a total reworking of the structures of society. Present systems based on racism, capitalism, sexism, and militarism must fall, to be replaced by a new world order. This new order is what Jesus had in mind when he spoke of the kingdom of God.
The strongest interest in liberation theology is in Latin America, particularly among Roman Catholics, and especially among those involved in radical political—and oftentimes Marxist—movements. In North America liberation theology finds support among intellectuals and church bureaucrats. (Contrary to what its supporters often claim, liberation theology is not a movement from among the poor.) United Methodism is affected by liberation theology because it has influenced agencies like the General Board of Global Ministries and the World Council of Churches.
Much of the criticism directed toward liberation theology is aimed at its political, social, and economic stance. That stance is almost always identified either with Marxism or some form of socialism. It tends to link the sins of “racism,” “sexism,” “militarism,” “classism,” and “capitalism” with an anti-American or anti-Western bias. Opponents see this as very poor economics and very poor politics.
For evangelical Christians, however, there is a more important issue: Is liberation theology an adequate interpretation of God’s truth in matters of faith and practice? A number of observers, evangelical and otherwise, have serious reservations. Pope John Paul II, for example, while taking a strong stand on behalf of the poor and against injustice, has expressed concern about liberation theology as a form of Christian teaching. A number of evangelical scholars have labeled liberation theology quite simply as heresy.
“Heresy” is a strong word for United Methodists, who like to be known for their tolerant pluralism. But even within pluralism there are certain minimum standards for doctrinal truth. There is, according to the Book of Discipline, a core of faith that is “revealed in Scripture, illumined by tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason.” This standard has been known as the “Wesleyan quadrilateral”: Scripture, tradition, experience, and reason. When these tests are applied how does liberation theology measure up?
Scripture
The good in liberation theology has been in its calling the Church’s attention to those Biblical passages which speak of justice and God’s concern for the poor. Liberation theology has also rightly insisted that evil is not exclusively a matter of the heart, but also extends to political and economic systems.
Liberation theology is not content, however, simply to challenge the Church to take more seriously the cause of human rights and justice. Liberation theology has a whole new agenda for the Church—the working for a new world order. And in this agenda a great part of the Bible is deemed irrelevant.
Liberation theology speaks about “usable” Biblical traditions, “usable” Biblical teachings, and even “usable” Biblical language (for example, “Lord” is not a usable term in referring to God because it suggests a male image). When only some Biblical passages or Biblical teachings are usable, it is plain that other passages or teachings are not usable; that is, they are seen as irrelevant because they do not fit into the liberation theology scheme of things.
Thus, the Bible’s teaching on heaven and hell is not relevant because it speaks of a world to come, and that distracts from facing the problems of this world. Or, another example: The Bible makes a distinction on the basis of faith between those “in Christ” and those outside of Christ. Liberation theology rejects that distinction in favor of a distinction between the “oppressed” (who may or may not be Christians) and the “oppressors” (who likewise may or may not be Christians).
The apostle Paul says the message of the Gospel of first importance is that “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day” (I Corinthians 15:3). That understanding of gospel does not fit into the liberation scheme of things, which sees Christ’s death not as atonement but as an act of solidarity with the poor, and which has little need for a bodily resurrection.
Rosemary Ruether (advocate of liberation theology and a professor at United Methodists’ Garrett-Evangelical Seminary) teaches that there needs to be a “transformation of the semantic content of the religious symbols.” She means by this that Biblical concepts as they have been understood by scholars and by the Church down through the years must be changed and accommodated to a liberationist understanding of the world.
Thus, incarnation does not refer to God’s taking human flesh in Jesus Christ, but means “to be fully committed to the oppressed and to a political action which takes the anguish and hopes of the people seriously.” Revelation is not God’s self-disclosure of Himself and His truth to us, but is “conscientization,” that redeeming and liberating insight which makes people “aware of the social contradictions that define their lives, and thrusts them toward a process of liberation from dependency and oppression” (Liberation Theology, Paulist Press, by Rosemary Ruether, p. 183).
Thus, for many liberation theologians the Bible is usable only as it can be conformed to social and political ideology.
Add to this the fact that liberation theology really doesn’t speak much of the Bible, preferring instead to base theology on social and political analysis. In one midwestern seminary interested in liberation theology, the seminary bookstore has more shelf space devoted to Marxism (32 shelf feet) than to Biblical or historical theology. When the liberationists use the Bible it is not so much to stand under its authority as it is to seek its support of the liberationist agenda.
Even in this very brief and simple analysis it seems clear that liberation theology has a controversy with Scripture. A theology cannot legitimately be said to be Scriptural if it chooses to reject the large portion of Scripture while working with only selected passages. The choice is clear: either Scripture is taken seriously or liberation theology, but not both. If liberation theology is God’s truth for our time, then the appeal is to some authority other than Scripture.
Tradition
An appeal to tradition is an appeal to the way the Church has always understood the Bible and Christian teaching. Within United Methodism such an appeal is to the historic creeds, to the Reformers, to the foundation documents as found in the Discipline (the Articles of Religion and the Confession of Faith), and to the writings of Wesley. In the broader Christian tradition the appeal is to those teachings that Christians have held in common down through the years.
Not only does liberation theology make no appeal to tradition, at many points it opposes Christian tradition. In the social analysis of the liberationists, that tradition has often contributed to the very structures that are oppressive and need to be overthrown. In this analysis traditional Christian doctrines must be cast aside or reworked.
For example, Catholics and Protestants have traditionally disagreed about how a person is saved. Protestants have argued that salvation is by faith alone. Catholics have argued that faith includes works. But either way, both Catholics and Protestants have agreed that salvation means salvation from the effects of sin to life with God now and eternal life in the future. Christ died for persons and therefore salvation is personal, but it has social implications.
Liberation theology argues that the emphasis on the person has often been harmful because it blinds people to the effects of social sin. Furthermore, according to liberationists, how one is saved is irrelevant because to them salvation itself means something totally different from what the Church has always taught. Gustavo Guitierrez, in his book, A Theology Of Liberation, argues that salvation is not some “other-worldly” condition: it is the practical construction of social justice in the existing world. If salvation means what liberation theology says it means, then the Church’s teaching down through the years is wrong.
Another example is liberation theology’s concept of sin. Traditionally, Catholics and Protestants, and Christians of all eras, have seen sin as primarily a matter of the heart, that is, within the person. Liberation theology rejects this understanding for one which sees the focus of sin primarily in the structures of society. According to liberation theology the problem that faith should deal with is not personal sin, but social sin. Thus, tradition is cast aside so that liberation theology can recast the content of the faith to fit its own agenda.
Are United Methodists serious at all about lifting up tradition as a test for doctrine? If there is any integrity at all in the process, then liberation theology must be judged as failing to pass the test. One can side with liberation theology, but to do so is to cast aside the authority of tradition.
Experience
The quadrilateral’s appeal to experience asks whether Biblical truth is confirmed by the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart. In the words of John, “what we have seen and heard we proclaim” (1 John 1:3). If we claim miracles, have we known miracles? If we claim forgiveness, have we known forgiveness? If the Bible teaches that faith is worked out in love, can we give evidence of that love?
It has always been true that the Gospel leads to liberation. Persons, when confronted by Christ, have believed their allegiance is to God first, and not to principalities and powers of this world. That has been the basis for many of the social reform movements growing out of faith. Christianity has been a major factor behind many of those movements.
But the power behind that liberating factor has always been a transcendent God whose judgment beyond this world gives freedom in this life, because oppression and even death are not the last word. As Luther expressed in his hymn: “The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still; His kingdom is forever.”
Liberation theology preaches not a transcendent God whose truth is forever and whose judgments will ultimately make all things right, but a God whose liberating power is understood in terms of this world. Furthermore, liberation theology maintains that it is by the changing of systems, rather than through personal regeneration, that the new world order will come.
Not only is this idea not supported by Scripture or tradition, it is also highly questionable whether it is supported by appeal to Christian experience. If God truly has anointed liberation theology and the liberation movements of today, where is the evidence? Where, upon the preaching of liberation theology, have the oppressed found their full humanity under God? Where has revival of faith broken out? Where are the new societies based on love and justice?
Some liberationists, when asked to point to a society which most clearly approximates God’s new order, have mentioned Cuba. How could anyone dare to lift up totalitarian Cuba as an example of what this new religious movement is all about? But if not Cuba, what?
If there is an argument from experience to give validity to liberation theology, we wait to hear it.
Reason
The task of reason is to inquire about the consistency and credibility of any theology which claims to be God’s truth. Reason may not be able to determine whether any ideology is true, but it can ask whether any ideology is consistent with what it claims to be.
In the name of integrity and credibility, it must be asked at what point we cease to use the label “Christian” in referring to opinions and positions which bear so little resemblance to what has always been referred to as Christian—in Scripture and in tradition. When liberation theology is so antagonistic to such a large portion of Scripture and tradition, does it not give up its claim to be a Christian theology?
From a United Methodist perspective, the integrity of the doctrinal statement is at stake. Either the Wesleyan quadrilateral (the working together of Scripture, tradition, experience, and reason) is a guideline to be taken seriously as a test for the adequacy of theological affirmations, or it is not. Either there are limits to how far afield we are allowed to go in the name of pluralism, or there are none. Liberation theology may be God’s truth for today, but if it is, United Methodism’s doctrinal standards and guidelines are irrelevant. And this needs to be stated, regardless of the bias of bishops, or seminary professors, or general boards, or councils of churches.
Recasting the Gospel
The Church has not always been what it has claimed to be. It can be faulted for its lack of concern in the midst of injustice and oppression. But the question should be asked, is this because the Church has misunderstood God’s message and is preaching a false gospel, or because the Church has not lived up to the message it already has. Do we change theology because we have not the truth, or do we repent because we have not acted on the truth already revealed to us?
Liberation theology would ask us to recast the Gospel, to reinterpret the message of the Church down through the years in order to make it consistent with the goals and aims of modern liberation movements. In its extreme form, liberation theology ought to be seen as another religion, in competition with historic Christianity.
Fortunately, the number of people committed to this extreme form of liberation theology is few. A large majority of those persons with an interest in liberation theology is either unaware of, or not convinced by, some of its more radical assumptions. These persons tend to be fairly traditional Christians who have a commitment to human rights and social justice. With these and others, conversations must continue about what it means to be a faithful Christian in the world today.
Riley B. Case is a graduate of Taylor University and Garren-Evangelical Seminary. He is a member of the North Indiana Conference and presently serves as district superintendent of the Marion District.
by Steve | Mar 27, 1985 | Archive - 1985
Archive: What I Saw in Ethiopia
By John Wieler
Now I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Let me tell you what I saw at the feeding camp at Decamhare, run by a Christian church there. Maybe 1,000 people had been getting fed at this camp. But by the time I arrived the camp had nearly run out of grain, and camp workers could only feed 200.
I saw them feed one group. First they dumped the grain into a pile. The fortunate people getting food were sitting around in a very orderly fashion. As they came forward they were registered, their fingerprints were taken to make sure they went through only once, and they were handed their food.
When that was finished a bit of grain was left in the pile. The workers started to gather it up. But separated from the grain by an eight-foot-high fence topped with barbed wire were the wretched others-the ones who were to get nothing that day, perhaps no day. There wasn’t enough food for them, or perhaps they were from outlying areas not covered by relief programs.
The sight of that leftover grain was too much for them to stand. There were 300-400 of them on the other side of the fence, and they began to pound on the gate and climb over the fence. The young fellows who were guarding the gate began lashing out with sticks and hit some of the fence climbers. But the guards couldn’t hold them. They kept pushing and pushing against the gate and suddenly it gave way and people just poured in.
Then a strange thing happened. I expected these starving people to rush up and grab the grain and then leave. But the Ethiopians are not thieves. No, instead they just sat down in rather neat rows and waited. The leader of the camp then came out and told the people he couldn’t give them any food. It wasn’t their day. Besides, he said, there was very little grain left to give anyone.
Slowly the disappointed people got up and left, but not everyone left quietly. Many of the young women with babies, some at the breast, made an almost indescribable pleading for food for their children. They were pitifully haggard and were dressed only in tatters. They were terribly poor, and had come from far away to get food. But because they came from the wrong areas they were not registered—there was no day for them to get grain. I stood and wondered where the women and babies were going to get food. And I knew they were not going to get any. They were destined to starve, and they were starving…
The End of the World
For the people of Ethiopia it’s the end of the world.
Already you have heard the story. For several years the rains have not come. Crop after crop has failed, including the latest one. Added to that have been the scourges brought on by human blunders: the Marxist government has pursued a poor domestic policy which has discouraged small farmers. And in Northern Ethiopia a civil war rages on.
All of these things together have brought terrible famine. The people are literally starving to death. By now every American has seen and heard the grim story on TV. What you see on television you can perhaps ignore. But not when you see it yourself. What I saw with my own eyes can never be forgotten.
The tragedy happening at the camp I just told about is being repeated in many other camps around Ethiopia. A friend of mine visited a camp with 12,000 people crammed in it, and 500 more arriving daily. As you can imagine, there wasn’t enough food there. He told me that about 160 people were starving to death every day in that place. No medicines left, not enough food. The people die. It blows your mind how this could happen on earth.
Still, there are places with hope, because of the food sent by relief agencies. For example, I visited a World Vision feeding camp at Alamata, in the Wollo province—one of Mother Teresa’s feeding camps was next door. My number-one impression was the dust. Dust everywhere. I t was very, very dry. There was hardly anything green in sight. There were children everywhere, getting in the way, begging for food.
Thank God there was food at that camp. I n only 1 3 days the population o f the World Vision camp rose from 3,700 to 5,500, with more pouring in every day. The camp workers have the people split up into about six groups. One group gets intense feedings of milk and high energy food every few minutes. This program is for the children who are literally starving to death, and for the mothers who are just skin and bones. Some of them don’t make it. Then there are the other levels of feeding, all the way up to those who get dry rations and cook them themselves.
How poor the people are! Their clothing is pathetic. You feel that they haven’t washed their clothes in three years. Brown, faded, and parched cloth—it looks almost like the earth itself. Patches upon patches upon patches. And their feet—the terrain is so rough that feet must be protected, but many are wrapped only in rags. Others are bare.
All that’s inside the camp. Outside there are the newcomers who aren’t yet registered or had to be turned away because the camp was full. Here it is chaos. I had to watch where I stepped. Human waste was everywhere. In some of the stools I saw blood, and of course the flies.
The flies were tormenting the children too. Some of them were so helpless and weak they couldn’t even brush the flies off their faces. Their eyes are full of flies and their mouths are full of flies and their noses are full of flies.
The good news was the valiant efforts inside the camp to bring the starving back from the brink of death. The bad news was outside the camp, where there was no food. People were dying. It was very, very grim.
The civil war has made the situation worse. Because of the drought and the war, thousands of Ethiopians have walked into Sudan to escape. Sudan has become a refuge for those who are unable to register for food in Ethiopia.
Another crop failure is expected this spring, so the situation in that region of Africa may grow even more desperate. The famine may drag on for another year and many are saying two years. To get the people back on their feet and back into their villages will take more time and money.
Christians say, “What difference does my little amount make?” It does make a difference. We should not think in terms of masses. We should think in terms of individuals. The miracle of the loaves and fishes continues, whether we believe it or not.
First, we have to assume it’s going to rain eventually, and there must be seed to plant. The people have eaten almost all their seeds. Some of the relief agencies have begun planning ways to bring in new seed and some cultivation expertise. If that doesn’t happen, the famine will continue indefinitely.
Even during this crisis we must be thinking of more than short-term food assistance. The land itself must be restored. It’s the old story—when you abuse the Lord’s garden’ the ecology factors in nature somehow avenge themselves. If all the trees are chopped down you have erosion and you lose the ability of the trees to draw clouds for rain. Food is being used now to pay workers to build roads that are missing, to plant trees when the rains come.
One success story I saw along this line happened near a northern city called Esmira. An evangelical group had given $20,000 to a local church to build a reinforced dam, which caught a lot of the water from the last real rain. Today, that dam is providing adequate water resources for the town next to the dam and even for Esmira, 10-15 kilometers away. The people who built the dam also put in a large cistern and hand pumps, so now there’s enough water for vegetable production and even reforestation. This is a good demonstration of what should be happening to prevent future disasters.
One thing many Western evangelicals don’t realize is that there is a large Christian population in Ethiopia, the Coptics. They are similar to Eastern Orthodox Christians. But we shouldn’t reflect too much on the theological differences. The important thing is that many of these people have been faithful.
My heart went out to these people when a Coptic priest came up to me at a feeding camp and let me know he was a Christian by showing me his cross. I think we evangelicals have a mission to relate to these people. But of course all the relief organizations help hungry people of every faith. Jesus made no distinction when He said that when we help the least of these, “You have done it unto me.”
The situation in Ethiopia is one of the most serious catastrophes of our century. The need is unprecedented. Fortunately, cooperation between the various relief agencies is excellent. There is no room for competition here. And I think the Christians in the West can feel confident in the recognized agencies that are raising support for Ethiopia, from the largest down to the smaller agencies.
Another thing is that we must try to find ways of getting aid to some of the Ethiopian communities where small church groups exist. Perhaps this is an area where evangelical groups could focus some effort.
We also need to remember that the need in Africa will continue well beyond this crisis. We need to give generously to help rehabilitate the area so this famine will not be repeated.
Last, I think the churches back home need to re-evaluate their overall mission. It’s just as much an imperative of the Gospel to feed the hungry at the right times as to evangelize at the right times. In the light of Jesus’ teaching, we must re-examine the discipline of helping our fellow human beings.
One scene I witnessed in Ethiopia was especially poignant. I was walking along right outside a feeding camp. I looked down and saw a woman who had just then given birth. I thought to myself, Life and death both stand out so much here. We as Christians must continue and increase our giving today so that life can at last gain the upper hand.
John Wieler went to Ethiopia during December to plot out a strategy for meeting the needs of the famine victims there. Wieler took years of experience in the area of relief work to the field with him while representing World Relief/Canada, a relief, development, and refugee service arm for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.
by Steve | Jan 27, 1985 | Archive - 1985
Archive: Wesley’s Principles For Social Action
by Frank Baker
During this century there has been an increased emphasis upon the social dimension of Methodist witness. In 1908, inspired by a theology of the social gospel proclaimed by the Baptist, Walter Rauschenbusch, the Methodist Episcopal Church set forth the Methodist Social Creed. It became the nucleus for a similar statement adopted by the Federal Council of Churches.
More recently our brothers and sisters in Latin America have extended this approach still further. In their liberation theology they seek to remove both the dependence of the poor upon the rich, and of Christian theology itself upon those who are economically comfortable. They have begun to search the writings of John Wesley for support—and with considerable success.
True, it is unthinkable that Wesley would have echoed in his day the revolutionary demands of the liberationist. True, he seems never to have used even the phase “social gospel,” though he did speak approvingly of “social religion” and “knows of no religion but social; no holiness but social holiness” (preface to Hymns and Sacred Poems).
Wesley’s constant emphasis upon the dangers of riches makes many of us in a wealthy society very uncomfortable. Yet, even more intense than his condemnation of luxurious living and unconsecrated wealth is his passionate concern for the poor. Wesley demonstrated this concern primarily in various forms of Christian philanthropy rather than in social reforms. He seems to have regarded social service as a more natural and inevitable outflow of Christian love than using the somewhat tainted weapon of politics.
Yet there can be no doubt that Wesley’s social practices were the necessary outcome of his social principles, that his philanthropy sprang from his theology. It all January/February 1985 began with the new Testament, of course. The Lord Jesus Christ had taught Wesley to say, “Our Father.” And the fatherhood of God implied the brotherhood of man. Wesley’s favorite epistle challenged him, “that the one who loves God should love his brother also” (1 John 4:21). And Wesley’s comment on this verse carefully defined the term “brother” as “everyone, whatever his opinions or mode of worship be, purely because he is the child and bears the image of God. Bigotry is properly the want of this pure and universal love.”
Our Lord’s two great commands were to love God and to love your neighbor-the latter defined by the parable of the Good Samaritan as anyone in need. In 18th-century England the distinctions between rich and poor were as outrageously visible as in first-century Palestine, and one’s most needy neighbors were obviously the poor.
The coin of Christianity was two-sided for Wesley, and was meant to be spent in two ways: in securing and maintaining personal salvation and in serving one’s neighbors. Both separately and jointly these formed the unity of living to the glory of God, of doing God’s will. Charles Wesley captured this duality of the Christian calling as he paraphrased Matthew Henry’s comment on Leviticus 8:35:
A charge to keep I have,
A God to glorify,
A never-dying soul to save,
And fit it for the sky;
To serve the present age,
My calling to fulfill;
O may it all my powers engage
To do my Master’s will.
For a time John Wesley toyed with the idea of a separated Christian community modeled on early Christian communism—when “all those who had believed were together, and had all things in common.” His comment on Acts 2:45 exclaims wistfully: “It was a natural fruit of that love wherewith each member of the community loved every other as his own soul. And if the whole Christian Church had continued in this spirit, this usage must have continued through all ages.” Wesley never quite forsook this dream. And during his last three decades he encouraged “The Community” formed by his followers for social service in London.
Soon after the development of his United Societies in 1739, however, he deliberately set aside any plans to organize Methodist monastics. He maintained in one of his sermons on the Sermon on the Mount, that “Christianity is essentially a social religion, and that to turn it into a solitary religion is indeed to destroy it.” He realized that we must come to terms with the society in which we live, with all its faults.
In turn this implied dealing seriously with the problem of money—gaining it, saving it, and spending it, as good stewards exercising one’s stewardship to the glory of God. Speaking of Wesley’s “radical rejection of surplus accumulation,” Dr. Albert Outler claims: “On no other single point, save only faith and holy living, is Wesley more insistent, consistent—and out of step with the bourgeois spirit of his age” (The Bicentennial Edition of the Works of John Wes ley, Vol. 2).
Do good unto all men
Thus, Methodism’s ministry to society was, in Wesley’s view, inseparable from the preaching of salvation by faith. And he sought to make this clear in the major documents in which he introduced his societies to a skeptical and often antagonistic public. In The Character of a Methodist (1742) he stated that a Methodist was not distinguished from others by peculiar opinions, words and phrases, customs, or even by the proclamation of salvation by faith alone.
“A Methodist,” Wesley claimed, “is one who has the love of God shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost given unto him, one who loves the Lord his God with all his heart, and with all his soul; and with all his mind, and with all his strength” (section 5). After expounding the spiritual implications of this (largely from I Thessalonians 5:16-18), Wesley continues:
And while he thus always exercises his love to God by prayer without ceasing, rejoicing evermore, and in everything giving thanks, this commandment is written in his heart, that “he that loveth God, loves his brother also.” And he accordingly “loves his neighbour as himself;” he loves every man as his own soul (section 9).
Wesley continues in this vein through the second half of his pamphlet, making it clear in section 16 that a loyal Methodist “does good unto all men—unto neighbors, and strangers, friends, and enemies.”
A year later Wesley took the same Methodist social principles which he had thus announced to the general public, and summarized them as General Rules for his own people. Although he claimed there was only one condition for Methodist membership, “a desire … to be saved from their sins,” he insisted that for continuance in the society this must be confirmed by steady behavior befitting such a desire: avoiding evil, doing good, and attending upon all the ordinances of God. Wesley provided an all-embracing understanding of “doing good”:
By doing good … as they [Christians] have opportunity … of every possible sort and as far as is possible to all men:
To their bodies, of the ability which God giveth, by giving food to the hungry, by clothing the naked, by visiting or helping them that are sick, or in prison.
To their souls, by instructing, reproving, or exhorting all they have any intercourse with. …
For Wesley the most immediate thing (whether or not it was in the long run the most important) was caring for bodily needs—there was no point in making even the most eloquent evangelical appeal to a starving man!
Send relief to the poor
Wesley’s Plain Account of the People Called Methodists (1749) was again roughly divided into halves, the first devoted to spiritual principles and practices, the second to the social. He showed how the Methodist social principles were being worked out in practice, usually with an eye to similar precedents in the early Christian church.
The essential function of his stewards, for example, was “to send relief to the poor,” with the added rule: “Give none that asks relief either an ill word or an ill look. Do not hurt them, if you cannot help.” Soon the stewards found it difficult to keep in touch with all the sick, especially since none of these ministries was confined to Methodists only. At a general meeting of his London society, therefore, Wesley called for voluntary “sick visitors” and sent them out by couples into 23 divisions of the city.
Medical care for the poor then forced itself upon Wesley’s attention, and he “thought of a kind of desperate expedient,” and began the first free clinic and dispensary in London. He also sponsored a poorhouse (financing it by faith), in which he housed “nine widows, two poor children, two upper servants, a maid and a man,” as well as a school both for basic education, for spiritual training, and for reaching the parents. Another venture which was of immense social assistance was Wesley’s “lending fund,” from which he was able to rescue some people from debtors’ prisons, and to set others up in honest work. He appealed for financial aid to this cause by an adaptation of a line by George Herbert: “Join hands with God to make a poor man live.”
This varied social ministry was not unique to Methodism, but it was characteristic. And several of Wesley’s social ventures were pioneering experiments of great value. None of these, or his later developments, formed a blueprint for saving society.
Wesley believed in the leading of the Holy Spirit as he pursued the call to serve his contemporaries. He had no carefully thought-out scheme for social renewal, no political program for Methodism. Nevertheless, he did also urge the honest, diligent, and caring exercise of voting, upon the minority who possessed that privilege. And he was ready to cooperate with other influential leaders, even in the world of politics.
Wesley’s most noteworthy effort in this field was his lifelong campaign, first, to improve the lot of the black slave, and then to banish from the earth what he called “the execrable villainy” of slavery itself, “the scandal of religion … and of human nature” (Letter to William Wilberforce, Feb. 24, 1791). Even on his deathbed, because Wesley loved the God whom he was going to meet, he continued to love his brothers and sisters also.
Dr. Frank Baker is the emeritus professor of English church history at Duke University, and the editor-in-chief of the new bicentennial edition of the Works of John Wesley.
by Steve | Jan 27, 1985 | Archive - 1985
Archive: My Hard Rock World
By Lenny Stadler with Ruth Snyder
It was like I was falling and there was no bottom. The surgeon had given me the prognosis … a 50/50 chance. Just like flipping a coin—heads you live, tails you die!
We had a concert at Chapel Hill, North Carolina that night. The mammoth wall of amplifiers screamed heavy metal rock and roll behind me. My ears pounded from the blast of music, and my eyes burned from the thick cloud of smoke. I played my bass—knowing that I was dying.
The guys in the band offered me a joint. “Smoke this,” they said, “you’ll feel better.” They didn’t care. It was me, not them.
But God was close by that night. And I was strangely aware of His presence. He wanted to speak to me: “Choose this day whom you will serve.”
I was raised in a Christian home. But I had lost interest in church and in God. I knew if Christ was the Lord of my life I couldn’t “do my thing.” So, I chose my god—rock music. I chose my goal—to become successful in a musical career that would bring me fame and fortune.
My parents tried to convince me to pursue a college education. But I had no interest in studies. One morning during my sophomore year at Elon College I heaved my books down the hall in disgust. I was finished. I dropped out of college to pursue my goal.
I bounced from one rock band to another. Each band was a bit more successful than the previous one. I investigated every potentially successful avenue. A “roadie” told me of a band from New Jersey named Blackfoot. The group had disbanded, but there was a possibility of their regrouping. I was willing to try to help bring the band back together.
Through some negotiations the members were reunited and the band relocated in North Carolina. I was the new bass player. Big time rock and roll … I was sure I had arrived.
As the bass player for Blackfoot I had an image to project. I grew my hair very long and my mustache drooped down over my chin.
I dressed like a rock musician was expected to dress. I acted like a rock musician was expected to act.
We toured the eastern seaboard, playing in nightclubs and colosseums. Soon we began negotiations with a major record company for a recording contract. We were beginning to taste fame, and “super-stardom ” appeared to be within our grasp.
Traveling was tiresome and hazardous, sometimes even life-threatening. But playing music was my only happiness. I lived to hear the crowds cheer. I lived to please the fans and took pride in their devotion to us.
Night after night my performance was almost exactly the same as the concert before. It became routine. Some nights were monotonous and often I didn’t feel like performing up to expectations–on or off the stage. When finally the lights were turned out, the crowds had gone home, and the concert hall doors were closed, we were left with emptiness and loneliness.
Drugs temporarily filled the barren gap between performances. Rock and roll came to mean “gigs” and “joints,” feeling low and getting high.
All the while my parents faithfully continued to greet me when I returned from a concert tour. They kept on loving me and praying for me. My family was always there, like a good thorn in my side.
Nearly every week I went to my grandparents’ home for a meal. My long hair dangled close to the table. I sat in silence as my grandparents filled my ears with Bible stories. They relentlessly pursued me.
I will never forget the look on my grandfather’s face when he told me, “I don’t know what it’s going to take, Lenny, but some way God is going to wake you up. Someday God is going to answer our prayers for you.” His words lingered, but my obsession with rock music continued.
Behind the scene, big bashes and pot parties were all part of rock and roll life. One night after a concert some friends invited the band to a party being given in our honor. Dozens of people were crowded into the house. Someone brought out cafeteria trays filled with every drug imaginable, and booze was available to everyone.
There I was, indulging in it all when suddenly a violent pain struck me in the chest. It was so severe that it took my breath and I fell to the floor gasping. I couldn’t breathe. It was as if someone had stabbed me with a dagger.
My friends hovered over me. They were high themselves, though, and didn’t know what was happening. “Man, he must have had too much,” somebody muttered. Soon the pains left, just as quickly as they had come. But after that attack they began re-occurring nearly every day.
Mentally and physically fatigued, I reluctantly consented to see a doctor. An examination revealed a tumor on my bronchial tube near the heart. The surgeon said frankly, “If there is any malignancy you only have a 50/50 chance to live.”
I was scheduled for major surgery at Duke Medical Center. For two weeks I waited in anguish. I isolated myself. I contemplated … everything. My false god could not help me now. My world had collapsed.
“Lenny,” Mom said, “we want you to come over to your grandparents for dinner. The whole family is getting together in your honor before you go to the hospital.” I agreed, and arrived at the house early. As I pulled up in the driveway my grandfather’s words echoed through my mind. “One day, Lenny, God is going to wake you up.” I was aware then that I was a spiritual battlefield. Suddenly I didn’t want to confront my grandparents.
I was certain something strange was going on when no one greeted me at the door. Hesitantly, I moved through the house and turned the corner to the living room. There were my grandparents sitting with their faces in their hands, praying for me. I sat down next to my grandmother. She continued in prayer. My hard heart melted. I began to cry.
I hadn’t cried in years. I had forgotten what tears tasted like. I had forgotten many things—including who I was. Maybe I had never known. But whoever I was, my life was about to end. I couldn’t afford to pretend any longer.
“Papa,” I said to my grandfather, “will God hear my prayer? Is it too late for me?”
Through his tears I saw his blue eyes widen with joy. “Yes, son, God is always ready.”
So I prayed, “Jesus, if You are who You claim to be, I need You in my life.” A spiritual healing and reconciliation occurred in me that night, the eve of my 21st birthday. For the first time I knew real peace because I knew Jesus. This was the greatest miracle of my life.
In a few days I left for Duke Medical Center. My anxieties about the surgery remained, but I was peaceful and resigned to the will of God.
After an extensive examination the doctor came into my room and told me, “Mr. Stadler, we don’t understand what has happened. There is no tumor, it has disappeared!” But I did understand. For whatever reason, I had been healed! God had performed another miracle in my life, and He had used my sickness to awaken me.
Even after this wonderful experience I was torn. I sincerely wanted Christ to be the dominant force in my life, but at the same time I wanted to continue with Blackfoot. I loved playing the music and performing, or so I thought. I began to like it less and less.
I felt like a fish out of water. I went through the motions. But I was deeply concerned about the young people in the audience. I felt like the pied piper leading them all into the river. “This is not really me! It’s all a show!” I wanted to scream. “And this is not the way to live!” Playing rock music had been my only happiness. Now it was my greatest anguish.
For four weeks I wrestled with indecision. I carried my Bible on the road and read it at every spare moment. While the other band members continued to smoke and drink, I stayed alone and absorbed whole chapters of God’s Word. It became increasingly clear to me that I had to make a clean break from my old lifestyle.
I left the group and joined a contemporary Christian singing group, The Sammy Hall Singers. Through this ministry I shared my story with thousands of young people. While singing and sharing at Tyler Street UMC in Dallas, Texas, I met my wife, Shana Morell.
I eventually left the singing group and returned to Elon College. There I received a BA in religion. Later I felt a nudging toward the ordained ministry, so I went on to receive my Master of Divinity degree from Duke Divinity School.
Some time afterward I journeyed to Greensboro, North Carolina, to share my message of Christ with the members and entourage of Blackfoot and to see the band in concert. It was an awkward moment, to watch as my friends came on stage. The fans were in a frenzied state.
I raced out of the concert hall after the first song with tears of sorrow and of joy. I was so thankful that God had worked in my life, but my heart was saddened for my old colleagues. What were they doing to themselves? What were they doing to the crowd? Oh, that they might know Jesus and how he can make a difference! That was and is my prayer.
Today I serve as a pastor of Christ United Methodist Church in Drexel, North Carolina. As I share my testimony with young people and parents I tell them that the glamour in the rock and roll scene is only a facade. Rock and roll creates a spirit of rebellion against God. “If it feels good, do it”—that is its message. I encourage parents to be aware of what is happening in the lives of their young people and to stand firm on what is brought into the home.
My ministry continues. As a pastor I seldom play my bass. But when I do, my music is a joyful noise to my Lord. And my bass … well, it’s like an old friend.
