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.
by Steve | Jun 18, 2013 | Magazine Articles
By Steve Harper
Every religion has a spirituality, because spirituality simply means our capacity to relate to God through certain established ways for doing that. Moreover, there are varieties of “spiritualities” within religions. For example, we can speak about Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant spiritualities. And we are able to further sub-divide them, with expressions that speak more of their origin (e.g., Reformed) or of their emphasis (e.g., Contemplative). The ability and necessity of speaking about spirituality in precise ways brings us to an exploration of the features of Wesleyan spirituality. In this article we will look at some selected features of it.
First and foremost, we must remember that early Methodism was a movement, not a denomination. Christians who affiliated with Methodism were usually members in other churches. As such, the Wesleys did not want to separate from any legitimate expression of the Body of Christ. When John Wesley wrote “The General Rules of The United Societies” in 1744, he made that very clear. From the beginning, Methodism was an ecumenical movement, as well as a reforming movement within the Church of England.
With respect to Wesleyan spirituality, this means we do not define or describe it with any intent of separating ourselves from the rest of historic, orthodox Christianity. In fact, John Wesley said on multiple occasions that God had raised up the people called Methodist to revive primitive Christianity. Nothing that we will talk about in this article should be used to isolate ourselves from any other Christian. But at the same time, Wesleyan spirituality is not so generic as to be vague or useless in establishing the life of discipleship. Again, as John Wesley put it, the aim of Methodism was to make “real Christians,” not “almost Christians.” What we call Wesleyan spirituality is at the heart of how he and others sought to do that.
We begin with the message of Wesleyan spirituality, which means that we begin with theology, as all valid spiritualities do. Unfortunately, spirituality has been caricatured by some as shallow, experienced-based, and even “touchy-feely.” But that is not true, and it reflects more upon the misperceptions of critics than upon true spirituality itself. On the contrary, Wesleyan spirituality emerges from sound doctrine informed by Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience.
The heart of holiness
At the heart of Wesleyan spirituality is holiness. Wesley’s conscious choice to place Methodism in the historic holy-living tradition is a reflection of his discernment regarding the centrality of holiness in historic Christianity. We cannot go into detail about holiness in an article like this, but there must be no doubt that it is at the core of Wesleyan theology. Wesleyan spirituality is about making disciples who are holy in heart and life—men and women who live in formative community that is developmental in nature (personal holiness) and missional in purpose (social holiness).
Furthermore, Wesleyan spirituality—as a theology of holiness—is also a spirituality of grace. God invites us to be holy as He is holy (Leviticus 19:2). But this can only happen by grace and in response to grace. So, Wesleyan spirituality speaks of prevenient grace, converting grace, sanctifying grace, and glorifying grace. These are not four different kinds of grace, but rather the singular grace of God as it intersects our lives at different points along the human journey. God’s grace comes to us as we are and where we are, and that’s why we are able to speak of it in different terms. But grace is not either imposed or irresistible; we must respond to it and interact with it.
In terms of spiritual formation we can summarize it this way. Through prevenient grace, we “awaken” to God. Through converting grace, we “attach” to God. Through sanctifying grace, we “abandon” to God and “advance” in God. And finally, in glorifying grace, we make the transition from earth to heaven, where we “arrive” in heaven to forever glorify God and experience our final Sabbath rest. Underneath these broad descriptions we go on to describe the grand doctrines of Christianity and are thus enabled to see our life “in Christ” in its detailed manifestations and overall magnificence.
This brings us to the means of Wesleyan spirituality. We have already noted that grace is not given apart from God’s desire for us to respond to it. We do so with what many have called the spiritual disciplines—what John and Charles Wesley called “the means of grace.” Before looking at each of the means, we must emphasize what the Wesleys emphasized, that the stated disciplines are means, not ends. They are never “proofs” of our spirituality, but only the practices in which we engage to receive and nurture it. Many mistakes have been made in Christian history by those who have tried to make their practice of the disciplines “badges of honor” and ways of elevating themselves above others who are not as devoted as they appear to be.
Instead, the means of grace are the usual channels through which God conveys grace to us. The means are not the Water of Life, but only the pipelines through which it flows. But as we drink of that Water, we find that the means promote both personal and social holiness. The Instituted Means of Grace promote personal holiness (piety) and the Prudential Means of Grace promote social holiness (mercy). Taken together, they establish and advance inward and outward holiness, and they do so both with respect to individual formation and life together in community.
Instituted Means of Grace
The Instituted Means of Grace are so named because we can see them firmly established in the life and ministry of Christ himself: prayer, searching the Scriptures, the Lord’s Supper, fasting, and conferencing. These are practiced privately and collectively, and they establish and advance “the mind that was in Christ” (Philippians 2:5)—which was one of John Wesley’s favorite descriptions of true Christianity. Again, it is not possible to go into these five means in detail. I have written more extensively about them in my book, Devotional Life in the Wesleyan Tradition: A Workbook.
Suffice it to say that prayer is the singularly central means of grace. John Wesley called it the “chief means of grace.” He also said that we could not make up for a lack of prayer by using the other means. In every way he could, he showed that the Christian spiritual life is established and maintained by prayer, precisely because it is the means by which we relate to God—and Christianity is, at its heart, a relationship. With that relational base in place, we are then given the additional means of the Bible, the Lord’s Supper, Fasting, and Conferencing to strengthen that relationship, which is essentially described in the two great commandments of loving God and neighbor.
Prudential Means of Grace
This leads directly to the Prudential Means of Grace. The term comes from the emerging belief by the church that inward holiness would lead to outward holiness. The word “prudent” is a word that bespeaks action—putting our faith into practice. And Wesley commended three Prudential means of grace: doing no harm, doing good in every way possible, and attending the ordinances of God. Bishop Rueben Job has revived their practice through his excellent little book, Three Simple Rules. John Wesley would say that the Prudential means of grace are the primary ways we express our love for God and neighbor.
Again, we cannot go into each of these in detail. In “The General Rules of The United Societies” John Wesley gave specific examples for practicing the Prudential means of grace. Some illustrations do not fit life today, but they make the point that spirituality is specific. It does not “dangle in the air,” but rather “puts feet” to its convictions. The conviction to “do no harm” means that we never consciously do anything we know will damage someone else. We make this commitment in both our personal conduct and also in our collective life (e.g. business, industry, politics).
But the Prudential means of grace also remind us that the Christian life is not simply a matter of what we avoid; it is also what we engage ourselves to accomplish. So, we “do all the good” that we can. In our elimination of evil, we move to replace it with goodness. The ethic of elimination becomes one of contribution. As the old saying goes, we leave the world better than we found it. Hence, Wesleyan spirituality is supportive of and engaged in all the efforts to improve life on this planet, and the life of the planet itself.
The “ordinances of God” are those things which enable us to do this. They are the acts which keep us attuned to God, so that the Spirit can speak to us in all the ways we have just described. The ordinances were often thought of as the Instituted means of grace practiced in community, but they could also be more widely described as any of the ways we keep positioned, so that God can get our attention and work through us for the good of others. So, what we have in the means of Wesleyan spirituality is a comprehensive exposure to the grace of God—an exposure which establishes and deepens holiness of heart and life.
The method of Wesleyan spirituality
We come now to the methods of Wesleyan spirituality. After all, John Wesley accepted the name “Methodism” to describe the movement, so there must be a “method” somewhere! And indeed there is. It is a structure which helped to manifest each element of grace and invite a response to grace.
• The United Societies (the largest Methodist meeting) reflected Prevenient grace by inviting people to “flee the wrath to come” and give serious attention to God.
• The Class Meetings (groups of a dozen or so) reflected Converting grace by bringing people to the point of profession of faith and the sustained development of that initial commitment.
• The Band Meetings (groups of three to five) reflected the need for more-personal attention, where the group “watched over one another in love” week after week, advancing sanctifying grace.
Together with the Church, the Methodist movement was present and in ministry to the dying, thus relating to glorifying grace. This is one of the geniuses of early Methodism: there was a ministry structure for each element of grace.
In addition to the formative structures for participants in general, there were two additional groups: one for strugglers and one for those who were experiencing special growth at the moment.
• The Penitent Bands were the place where the discouraged could go for support and hopefully, reactivation of faith.
• The Select Societies were the place where people who were “on fire for God” in particular ways could receive support and counsel commensurate with their experience.
When we apply this to spiritual formation, we see that Wesleyan spirituality had established methods to care for the “day in and day out” development of faith. But it also had structures to care for those who were in decline and those who were making exceptional progress. So, the “highs and lows” were provided for in the larger context of ongoing community formation.
“Ecclesiola en ecclesia”
Before we leave the methods, we must make it clear that Wesleyan spirituality’s highest peak is the church. Again, the Wesleys and the early Methodists have been caricatured as malcontents who were just waiting for the chance to “jump ship” from the church. But an accurate reading of the early Methodist movement reveals just the opposite. Methodism was seen from beginning to end as an “ecclesiola en ecclesia”—a “little church within the big church.” It was intended to develop disciples who would be the finest church members imaginable.
Despite it deficiencies, John Wesley never ceased to call himself “a Church of England man.” He rejected all views of Methodism as a substitute church, and for much of his life he even forbade the Methodists from meeting at times when meetings at the church were held. It was only later, when Methodists were deprived of the sacraments by the Church of England, that he saw “the handwriting on the wall” and began to lay the groundwork for a movement that would eventually become its own denomination in the United States and elsewhere. The point of mentioning this is that Wesleyan spirituality never condones any Christian life that degrades the church or denies the need for it.
The message, means, and methods of Wesleyan spirituality bring us to the final point: the mission. Without this feature, any spirituality becomes consumeristic—what Walter Trobisch described as “spiritually bloated.” The legitimate turning inward in the spiritual life is never the final act. Every turning inward is for the purpose of “re-turning” outward. It is an oversimplification to say what I am about to say, but it makes the point. Membership is lived inside the walls, but discipleship is always for life outside the walls. Membership has to do with the offices and tasks we perform for the good of the church; discipleship has to do with the way we practice our daily vocations for the sake of the world.
Wesley clearly understood the Methodist movement this way. The Class Meetings had not been in existence very long before the leaders were required to go house to house, inquiring about the spiritual wellbeing of the members. But as they did so, they were to collect a penny a week and a shilling a quarter. This money was designated for ministries that would provide relief to the poor and oppressed—missional spirituality. This specific practice was fueled by a larger, threefold vision: the regeneration of the lost, the renewal of the church, and the reform of the nation.
Directed into mission
In other words, every facet of early Methodism was eventually directed into mission. Different Methodists would express their spirituality in one of the three areas more than the others, and there was never a “one size fits all” definition of “a good Methodist.” Variety and specificity always characterized the mission. But every Methodist understood that he or she was commissioned by Christ and sent by him into the world, to witness and to serve in some way. Institutionally we may have a category called “inactive members,” but no such category exists in Wesleyan spirituality.
One of the surest signs that Wesleyan spirituality is taking root in a life or in a community is when we understand that we are not only called to have the mind and heart of Christ, but we are also called to do the work of Christ. To be sure, that work is empowered by the Spirit, but it happens! It is impossible to claim to have the mind of Christ without having the motivation which emerges from that mind. We cannot claim to have the heart of God without having the redemptive and restorative impulses that beat in that heart. When a homemaker does her home-making for Christ, when a teacher teaches for Jesus, when a doctor practices medicine for the Lord, when a farmer grows crops for God—when each of us “fans out” Monday through Saturday to do what we normally do, but do it in Jesus’ Name—that is when we know we have embraced Wesleyan spirituality to the fullest extent.
There are multitudes of Wesleyan Christians who practice the kind of spirituality I’ve described briefly in this article. But there are also multitudes who have yet to embrace it. For more than thirty years, I have described it this way: many of us need to stop studying the journeys of Paul in Sunday school, and start studying our own journeys. In other words, we need to receive the “faith once delivered to the saints” in all the ways we can, but then we need to respond to the singular implication which eventually comes to each of us: live by Christ, in Christ, with Christ, and for Christ! When we do this, we have embraced Wesleyan spirituality.
Steve Harper is Professor of Spiritual Formation and Wesley Studies at the Florida-Dunnam campus of Asbury Theological Seminary in Orlando. He has authored 12 books and co-authored six others. Dr. Harper’s latest book is Talking in the Dark, Praying When Life Doesn’t Make Sense.
by Steve | May 20, 2013 | Magazine, Magazine Articles, May-June 2013
By Rob Renfroe
I think many of us are feeling that things are changing. Our culture, once friendly to the Christian faith, is becoming more and more hostile. And persons who hold to a traditional view of morality are often ridiculed as judgmental, mean-spirited, and on the wrong side of history.
Rob Renfroe
I’m not willing to give up on the power of the Gospel to convert people thoroughly, heart and mind, to Jesus Christ. And I’m not willing to believe that the church cannot influence our culture in powerful and dramatic ways. I believe we can. In fact, I believe in the present dark moment, we, as the people of God, can have one of our finest hours.
But I am certain that the battle to bring secular people to faith in this cynical era will not be won through politics, power or even by the most compelling intellectual answers. We’ve tried to do it that way and it didn’t work.
There are still important reasons for Christians to engage the culture philosophically and through the arts. But I’m convinced the only way we will impact our culture significantly is for people to see the truth, not just hear it. And the truth is that the way of Jesus is a better way to live.
Our current secular culture perceives Christians as judgmental, angry, self-righteous, and defined by a political agenda. Only after Christians are seen as living authentic lives of love and compassion and service – and the Church is seen as a servant community that cares more and loves more than anyone else on the planet – will we get our culture to listen to our claim that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior, who can connect lost souls to God and bring life out of death.
And it can happen. I’m sure of it because it happened once before. In the early centuries AD of the Roman Empire, society was cynical, violence was celebrated, morals had decayed and life was cheap. Twenty centuries later, does any of that sound familiar?
The Romans were cynical about their gods. Their deities were flawed and petty, engaging in foolish and egotistical rivalries – not better than people wanted to be, but worse. And though Romans might sacrifice to their gods in hopes of blessing and prosperity, religion as a whole was losing its influence on the daily lives of the middle and upper classes.
Our culture is also cynical about religion. Fewer and fewer people in the U.S. claim a connection with organized religion. It has become more prevalent to attack and dismiss religion as a crude superstition.
Whether it’s the intellectual attacks of those known as “the new atheists,” secular attempts to remove faith from the public square, or the exposure of the church’s flaws (especially the unforgivable cover up of child abuse by church officials), you can see that persons in our time are as cynical regarding religion as the Romans were in the first centuries after Christ.
During that same period, Romans reveled in the violence of “the games.” They rejoiced to see men fight to the death, whether at the hands of other gladiators or being mauled by wild beasts in arenas throughout the empire, including the Coliseum which seated 50,000.
We haven’t gone quite that far, but there are similarities. Boxing has given way to UFC cage matches. G.I. Joes for boys have given way to explicit video games that simulate murder and even rape.
Morally, first century Rome was a time of sexual promiscuity and decadence. Affairs were common, marriages didn’t last, and it was permissible for men to keep young male and female slaves for their sexual pleasure.
Our time is characterized by human trafficking, the omnipresence of pornography, strip clubs, children sending naked pictures of themselves and others via telephone (sexting), casual hook ups and friends with benefits, so that sex is devalued to nothing more than the gratification of physical desires.
Human life in both cultures is deemed expendable if inconvenient or unwanted. Roman children born deformed or weak or even female could be discarded, left exposed to the elements to die of starvation or mauled and eaten by wild beasts.
Today, we create “clinics” where the unwanted life, often because of defect or gender, is dismembered and discarded. Over the last 40 years we have seen over 50 million abortions. Of those, less than five percent were conducted because the life of the mother was at stake or because of rape or incest.
Two cultures, 2000 years apart, but not that dissimilar. And yet, three centuries after it began as a lower-class Jewish sect in faraway Palestine, the Roman Emperor Constantine announced his conversion. And before the year 400, Christianity had become the official religion of the Empire, embraced, some estimates state, by nearly half of its inhabitants.
How had a despised and persecuted sect with no political power, that worshipped a man executed as an insurrectionist, and that appealed at first primarily to the poor and the uneducated, change the hearts and minds and eventually the culture of people who were cynical, licentious, crass, and crude? Simply put, the early Christians lived the way Jesus lived. They loved the way Jesus loved. They served the way Jesus served. And when persecuted, they died the way Jesus died, praying for the forgiveness and the salvation of those who had ordered their deaths.
Over time, the Romans came to see that the Christian way of life was simply – better. And they came to believe that the Christian faith could make them better. And they came to believe that the most outlandish thing was true – God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, offering life to all who would repent and believe.
How did the early Christians love and serve and live better? There were unwanted babies left to die because they were deformed or because they were female (there were 50 percent more boys in Roman households because female infants had been discarded). Christians would go into the woods and rescue those abandoned children and raise them as their own.
In times of plague, the Romans commonly abandoned their relatives at the first sign of illness, even pushing them into the streets before they died, in hopes of escaping the disease themselves. Not so the Christians. They not only cared for their own and nursed them to health, but also took in and cared for unbelieving neighbors and strangers – many dying themselves as a result of contracting the disease.
Christians provided food and assistance to the poor regardless of their faith and to both sexes, though Roman welfare was given only to males. They were faithful to their wives and kind to their children.
Pliny the Younger, a Roman governor, gave the following account of the Christians he had interrogated sometime between 111-113 A.D.: “… They were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, no(r) falsify their trust …”
In the midst of the decadence and the cynicism and the hedonism of Rome, the Christian way, the way of compassion and purity and service, looked like life, a superior kind of life. And what was once despised became treasured. And the foolish One, crucified in weakness and shame on a cross, became adored as Lord of all, God in the flesh. And a culture was changed.
Our culture can be reached. Its promises of life and happiness in material possession and pleasures will leave people in our time as empty and as unfulfilled as did the cynicism and selfishness of the Roman Empire. But whether they know it or not, people in our crass and cynical society are looking for a better way. And when they see it in us – the way of service, sacrifice and love – they will be able to believe that the way of Jesus is the way that leads to life.
We don’t have home field advantage anymore. But we do have a real opportunity to become focused on the way of Jesus and live it out the very best we can. If we do, I believe God will be pleased and a world can be transformed.
Rob Renfroe is the president and publisher of Good News.
![The God of Free Grace]()
by Steve | May 14, 2013 | Magazine Articles, May-June 2013
By Andrew Thomspon
Is salvation available to all God’s children?
For many people, that seems like a no-brainer. Of course it is! But it’s also a question that has been long debated in the history of the church. Many people both past and present have concluded that salvation is not, in fact, available to all people. They believe God has predestined only some to eternal salvation. Those who have found favor in God’s sight are the “elect.” Others God has chosen not to save, and thereby consigned to an eternity without God in hell. Such people are known as the “reprobate.”
It seems harsh to think that God would create some people for the purpose of damning them. But there are some biblical reasons for thinking that this is exactly God’s plan. Think about the great story of Israel in the Old Testament: God’s chosen people, just a small nation out of all the peoples of the world. And of course, the Church is a continuation of the story of Israel. Those whom Jesus Christ has called to be a part of his body have been grafted into the tree of Israel–like wild olive shoots! (See Romans 11:13-24). Yes, Gentiles are now a part of God’s people. But being a part of God’s people is still a special calling.
And then there are the passages in the Apostle Paul’s Letter to the Romans which speak of God predestining those whom he foreknew for salvation (Romans 8:29-30). Doesn’t that suggest that some are chosen to be saved and others to be cast out–and isn’t this God’s decision made from all eternity? If this is true, then Jesus Christ died only for these fortunate “elect” people and not for the sins of the whole world.
In fact, it is not true. John 3:16-17 tells us, “God so love the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world in order to condemn the world, but rather so that the world might be saved through him.”
I count as one of my chief spiritual mentors the 18th century Anglican priest John Wesley, who once wrote a powerful sermon on “free grace,” the idea that God gives grace freely to all and enables all those who will to respond to Him in faith. Wesley looked upon the passage in Psalm 145:9 as an indication of God’s disposition toward his creation: “The Lord is good to all, and his mercies are over all his works.” In other words, the God we find in Scripture–and the God we find revealed in Jesus Christ–is a God who does not despise the creatures he has made. He created out of love, and it is through love that he desires his creation to be redeemed.
The evangelical character of God’s love is seen in many places in the Bible. We see it depicted most wonderfully in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. “For the Son of Man came to seek out and save the lost,” Jesus tells us (Luke 19:10). And we also see God’s desire for the salvation of his creatures other places as well. When Paul is counseling Timothy to pray for non-Christians, he says, “This is good and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:3-4).
For those who wonder why history goes the way it does, or why Christ’s return does not happen immediately, Peter gives us a clue that points to the wide arms of God’s love: “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). God desires the salvation of all.
Does this mean that all people will be saved? No, there is nothing in Scripture to suggest that all people will be saved. There is actually quite a bit to suggest that this won’t happen, from the parables of Jesus in the gospels to the images of the end times in Revelation. The reason is not because God does not love all His creatures. It rather has to do with the character of God’s grace and the way grace works in salvation. Grace energizes, enables, and empowers. By grace, God beckons to us as a lover beckons his beloved. But God’s grace is not irresistible. Grace is God’s love for us, which has the power for salvation. But love does not coerce if it is true love; that holds for God as much as it holds for us.
So what about those passages in Romans that speak of predestination? One important thing to remember about Scripture is that we should never interpret any single passage in a way that makes a mockery out of the rest of Scripture’s witness about God’s identity or the nature of salvation. Obscure Scripture passages are always to be illuminated by passages that are more clear. That’s a basic rule for Scriptural interpretation, in fact. The Romans passage is about God’s omniscience–about the breadth of God’s vision. God does know who will respond to grace and embrace the gift of salvation. Therefore to say that God predestines those whom he foreknows is to say that God’s knowledge is perfect.
To believe that God creates so that he can damn is to make God into a monster. While there are many names given to God in Scripture, monster is not one of them. God is Love, as John tells us in 1 John 4:8. That is God’s character, and nothing He does will prove Him to be otherwise.
Andrew C. Thompson is Assistant Professor of Historical Theology and Wesleyan Studies at Memphis Theological Seminary. Reach him at www.andrewthompson.com. Follow him on Twitter @andrew72450.
Original art by Scott Erickson (www.scottericksonart.com)
![The God of Free Grace]()
by Steve | May 14, 2013 | Features, Magazine Articles, May-June 2013
By Bethany H. Hoang
Seeking justice doesn’t begin at the door of a brothel. Seeking justice begins with seeking the God of justice.
For followers of Jesus, the difference between a pursuit of justice that brings transformation for real people suffering real violence and a pursuit of justice that amounts to little more than good intentions is simple—perhaps even simpler than we want it to be. The difference is found at our starting point, every single day. It begins with the choices we make, large or small, all day long.
Fighting injustice—the abuse of power that oppresses the vulnerable through violence and lies—can be excruciatingly hard work. It can be exhausting.
It is relentless. But Jesus offers to make our burdens light, even the burden of fighting injustice. And so, seeking justice—bringing right order and exerting life-giving power to protect the vulnerable—does not begin at the threshold of abuse. Seeking justice begins with seeking God: our God who longs to bring justice; our God who longs to use us, every one of his children, to bring justice; our God who offers us the yoke of Jesus in exchange for things that otherwise leave us defeated.
Every day we have an opportunity to respond to the injustice we see in the world. And every day we will be tempted to figure it out on our own, whether that means charging forward with blind ambition or shrinking back in frustrated resignation.
At the end of the day, if our attempts to seek justice do not first begin with the work of prayer, we will be worn and weary. And our weariness will not be that deeply satisfying, joy-filled tiredness that comes from the worthy battles of justice, but rather a bone- and soul-crushing weariness.
But when the work of justice is pursued first, and throughout, as a work of prayer and an outpouring of our relationship with Jesus Christ, obstacles become opportunities to know the riches of God’s glory and great presence in ever-increasing measure. And the victories won through the hand of God will be breathtaking beyond what any of us could ever imagine.
If you have heard accounts of slavery, human trafficking, rape, police abuse and other forms of violent injustice in our world today and have felt compelled to act, I invite you to join others in bringing lifelong sustainability to your convictions. I invite you into a rhythm of daily spiritual disciplines that will not only enable you to be strengthened in the work of doing justice when the going gets tough, but to ground your entire justice passion not in temporary reactive bursts but rather in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as the very source of all that you do and give in the name of God’s own character of justice.
One of the ways that I live out my own response to God’s justice call is through my work with International Justice Mission (IJM). Compelled by the biblical command to seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan and plead for the widow (Isaiah 1:17), IJM brings tangible relief for those who suffer from violent injustices such as slavery, forced prostitution and illegal detention. For my colleagues, being obedient to God’s clear call to justice looks like this: we partner with local authorities to bring rescue to victims of violent injustice and hold their perpetrators accountable under local laws; we equip survivors to heal through long-term aftercare and support; and we work with the local government to actually transform the elements of the public justice system that are broken (such as local law enforcement, courts or social services) so that the poor are protected in the long term, because would-be traffickers, rapists or slaveowners are afraid to harm them.
God has called his people—all of God’s people—to the work of justice. But understanding how that call plays into our daily lives isn’t always easy. Both the work of justice itself and the daily work of discerning our roles in God’s movement of justice in our world today require thoughtful rhythms that will serve to sustain us and form each of us individually and as a body into the very likeness of Christ.
Sometimes, when faced with enormous need in our world today, we ask, What can I do? And, as Christians, often what we are really thinking is, What can I do . . . besides just pray? But usually when we ask that question it is not because we’ve grown to a place of satiation in our prayer life— rather we are at a place of exasperation, thinking to ourselves, I hardly even know where to begin when praying, and I’m not sure how it can possibly be as effective as doing something other than praying.
We might know in our heads that prayer and other spiritual disciplines matter, but more than likely we pursue prayer more as a half-hearted occasional duty rather than as the God-given relationship and power undergirding and fueling all of our action. Or perhaps we view it as much more relevant to our personal spiritual growth and the issues and pain we see in the lives of those closest to us—not the pain and mind-boggling complexity of millions who suffer injustice in the world. And yet this great power and source of intimacy with God is what God intends prayer to be in our lives, in every area of mission to which God calls us.
More often than not we are so eager to jump straight into whatever we perceive to be “action” that we distract ourselves from the very practices that must form, inform and even transform our action—the very practices that must form us if our action is to be wise, effective and sustained throughout the inevitable obstacles and distractions to come. For many followers of Christ, being obedient to God’s commands to do justice is certainly a daily, on-the-ground, person-by-person work of rescuing and protecting victims and restraining the hand of oppressors. However, for every follower of Christ, being obedient to God’s commands to do justice is just as much a daily, on-the-ground, person-by-person work of prayer.
The explosive growth in passion for justice over the past ten years has been an incredible testimony to the reality of need in our world today and also the reality of God’s call on his people to act. In many ways this growth is an outworking of the movement of the Holy Spirit. But there is a danger at hand as well. With large-scale growth, a movement can lose its moorings or never fully find them in the first place.
When we seek justice without first, and throughout, seeking the God of justice, we risk passion without roots. And passion without roots cannot be sustained. Burnout is inevitable. Beyond this risk of burnout, when a justice movement loses its roots of formation in Christ and yet continues wildfire growth for a season, justice itself can be turned into a commodity for consumption by the very people passionate to pursue it.
The commoditization of justice is a sign that we have begun to pursue justice more as a means toward our own self-actualization rather than a means toward the true end of freedom and transformation for those who desperately need rescue from violent abuse. We must learn to see and know the difference between a movement that is growing and being sustained because it is well-grounded versus a movement that is growing and being sustained because it is providing a commodity for self-actualization to the masses.
You have been called into a daily pursuit of God that permeates every aspect of your life. And as you grow to know God more with each day, I pray that God will daily lead you to better understand the specific ways you have been created and called to act in the face of injustice in our world today.
The apostle Paul makes a bold claim in Romans 5 that if we hope in the glory of God, this hope will not disappoint, simply because God himself has poured out his love into our hearts through his Holy Spirit. This same Holy Spirit intercedes for us when our words have run dry, when we feel we can no longer even pray. The Holy Spirit pouring God’s love into our hearts enables us to cast off all temptation to despair and instead to pour out our hearts before our God.
Sometimes our prayers are met with great effect. There are other times when we pray and pray, and we do not seem to see God answering. But even as we pray, because we are drawing near to the God who is good and gracious, by the mystery of the Holy Spirit interceding with groans and words we cannot even express (Romans 8:26-27), we draw strength to persevere and to acknowledge God’s ultimate reign even in uncertainty. As we pray, we find that God himself is drawing us even deeper into the riches of his call and his kingdom.
The choice to pray, to ask of God, to listen for his voice, leads us to encounter hope that trumps our temptation to despair. In prayer we are reminded that decades and even centuries of injustice sometimes take great time and persevering work to reverse. And so we wait in prayer with hope. We keep asking God. We listen with great expectation.
We bring God our hope for the little girls locked in darkness. Hope for the slave trapped by viciously brutal owners. Hope for those unjustly accused.
We pray with hope as Paul instructs, without ceasing.
When and if we begin to open ourselves to see inhumanity and injustice around the globe, “man’s inhumanity to man” can all too easily become crushing. Unbearable. Paralyzing. Even numbing. It can evoke utter despair.
And yet God asks us, as those who would take up our cross and follow Jesus to Golgotha, to allow ourselves to be drawn into the pain of suffering and violence. To let it break our hearts. Even to lead others to these places of pain.
Yes, we are called to “bear witness.” But our witness must not end with observation or with unbearable pain as the final word. We are called to live as those who, in the midst of the unbearable, in the midst of pain, do not shrink back but rather rise up.
We are called to rise up, engage injustice, take “the pain of man’s inhumanity to man” and bring it to the foot of the cross. At the cross we meet the God who drew near to us without fear. We meet the God who moved toward the oppressed. We meet the God who joyfully submitted to bearing all our sin, all our shame, all our burdens; the God who offers us his yoke, who makes our burdens light. At the cross we can proclaim with boldness the call of the psalms and the prophets, “I will remember the deeds of the Lord” (Psalm 77:11).
May we make choices every day that move us toward the God who alone can deepen the passion and conviction of his calling on our lives, the God who alone can sustain us; our God who will cleanse us from broken-hearted fear and despair; our God who, when we simply ask, will surely make us people who are marked and moved by great hope, courage and, above all, love.
May we move forward with deep roots, filled with the Holy Spirit, sustained by knowing the only hope that never disappoints—the hope of God’s glory, the hope of God’s healing, the hope of God’s kingdom, now and to come.
You are invited.
Bethany Hoang serves as the Director of the Institute for Biblical Justice for International Justice Mission (www.ijm.org). IJM is a human rights agency that secures justice for victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression.
This article was excerpted from her book Deepening the Soul for Justice (InterVarsity Press). Reprinted by permission of InterVarsity Press. Reprinted by permission of InterVarsity Press and International Justice Mission.
by Steve | Mar 5, 2013 | Magazine Articles
Archive: Crash Course – Alpha courses offer basics of Christian faith
By Mary Jacobs, The United Methodist Reporter
Jim Charlton was serving on the evangelism committee at Wheatland Salem Church in Naperville, Illinois, when he first heard of the Alpha course. While the United Methodist congregation was evangelistically minded, it was searching for an effective method to mobilize the congregation for evangelism. So Mr. Charlton and his pastor decided to check out a conference about the Alpha course.
“About 45 minutes into it, we realized this … was what we were looking for,” he recalled. The church began offering Alpha in early 1999, and still offers it today. At least 1,000 people — average ages 30-35 — have taken the course at Wheatland Salem over the years.
“We experienced a renewal because of Alpha,” said Mr. Charlton. Not only did the course bring new folks into the church, “we saw people who were pew sitters . . . come to Alpha, and suddenly they’d get involved.”
“It’s a great outreach tool,” said Kim Neace, who now leads Alpha as Wheatland Salem’s coordinator of outreach.
Like Wheatland Salem, many United Methodist churches around the U.S. — as well as churches of virtually every denomination — have similarly discovered the Alpha course, a ready-made, 10-week non-denominational curriculum in the basics of Christianity. Currently, about 500 United Methodist churches — more than any other denomination — are offering Alpha.
Low-key approach. Each week, participants — “guests” is the term Alpha leaders prefer — come for a meal, followed by a video presentation and small group discussions. The program also includes a daylong or weekend retreat.
What makes the course unique, leaders say, is the low-key, non-judgmental approach. Guests are encouraged to ask questions. There’s no pressure to make a faith commitment or join a church.
“One of the key ingredients to Alpha’s success has been in making guests feel relaxed, accepted, and open to the gospel message,” said Gerard Long, president of Alpha USA.
The Alpha course was first developed in an Anglican church, Holy Trinity Brompton in London, in the late 1970s, as an introductory Bible study for new church members. Over the years, Alpha morphed into a “crash course” in the basic principles of the faith, and spread around the world.
Today, churches of every major denomination in all 50 states and 169 countries host Alpha courses; they’re also offered in prisons, homes, schools, coffeehouses, and businesses. Since its inception, Alpha course leaders say, more than 19 million people have taken the course worldwide. Some 3 million have taken the course in the United States.
Alpha’s curriculum is centered on a series of video lectures by the Rev. Nicky Gumbel, an Oxford-educated lawyer who later became a minister at Holy Trinity Brompton. He combines humor, personal reflections, and passages from a variety of theological sources to address questions like “Why does God allow suffering?” “Why and how do I pray?” and “Is Christianity irrelevant?”
Mr. Long, who left a career in finance to lead the Alpha program in the U.S., says the organization has set a goal to reach 18 million in the U.S. by 2020. In 2007, after a period of declining numbers, Alpha’s U.S. organization put regional teams in place to help support Alpha programs at local churches and promote growth. That has paid off with growth of about 20-25 percent in overall participation every year since 2007.
Among United Methodist churches, the number hosting Alpha courses peaked at 765 in 2002, decreased to about 400 in 2004, and, with 500 currently hosting Alpha courses, is now steadily increasing.
Lives transformed. One church that has succeeded in sustaining its Alpha program is the Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas. Some 7,500 people have taken the course since the church began offering Alpha about 11 years ago, according to Jeff Kirby, minister of adult discipleship and men’s ministry.
Resurrection’s secret: When visitors turn up at Christmas and Easter at the church, they learn about the Alpha course.
“It’s an easy invite,” said Mr. Kirby. “Alpha introduces people to the essentials of the Christian faith without holding a Bible over their heads and telling them, ‘You gotta believe right now.’”
In the course, guests feel safe asking questions — any questions, no matter how simple or challenging.
“It starts at a pre-suppositional level,” Mr. Kirby said. “We’re exploring the meaning of life, and questions like ‘Why are we here?’ and ‘Is there a God?’”
All Alpha gatherings begin with a meal and casual conversation, and that’s key.
“For many, they have a sense of belonging before they begin believing,” Mr. Kirby said.
Like other Alpha leaders, Mr. Kirby eagerly shares the numbers of guests who have taken the church’s Alpha course, but doesn’t have firm numbers as to how many actually ended up joining the church.
“I’d say the majority do,” he said, adding that many people who were already part of the church became more involved after attending Alpha.
Steve Peterson had been attending Church of the Resurrection for years, but never met Mr. Kirby until the two happened to be seated together on a flight a year ago. Mr. Kirby invited him to try the Alpha course.
Mr. Peterson liked what he saw.
“You find out that a lot of people have the same questions you do,” he said. “It’s basically just a conversation with other people who are trying to find their way. There’s no rules, no homework, it’s really non-threatening.”
Mr. Peterson had been attending church fairly regularly, but he says he was “drifting a bit” by the time he encountered Alpha. He calls the course a “spark plug to get me engaged.” He has since taught two Alpha courses at the church.
Ron Smith had a similar experience. He’d attended Church of the Resurrection sporadically for about seven years when he first took an Alpha course shortly after retiring as a police captain in the Kansas City, Missouri, police force. Now he leads Alpha courses in two prisons.
After years in law enforcement, he says he’d become “very cynical about the offender population” and had no interest in volunteering in a prison. But now, by way of his Alpha involvement, he serves through a variety of faith-related programs at the Lansing Correctional Facility, the U.S. Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, and the Military Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth. He is also helping lead a faith-based recidivism reduction program at the penitentiary.
“I can only attribute all this to the Holy Spirit,” he said. “You see some real, tangible benefits to people who are desperately in need of repairing their broken lives, mending their families, becoming responsible citizens. Alpha is a pathway to better things.”
Mr. Charlton, who is now director of course development for Alpha USA, echoes that. He’s seen broken marriages healed, drug addicts turned around, lukewarm church members turned into devoted and engaged Christians.
“Evangelism is not just a great responsibility,” said Mr. Kirby. “It is so exciting to watch God transform people’s lives.”
“When you introduce people to the real Jesus, and invite them in a way that’s accessible to them, and do that in an atmosphere of hospitality and acceptance . . . it’s amazing what happens,” Mr. Charlton said.
And that’s the genius of the Alpha course, according to Mr. Long.
“Young people want the opportunity to ask questions, not to be told, ‘This is the truth, you’d better believe it,’” he said. “That doesn’t work with this culture. In Alpha, there’s no problem if you disagree. That’s OK.”
‘Too charismatic’? While serving in Alabama, Bishop Will Willimon encouraged churches there to adopt the Alpha course as a way of reconnecting with their communities, with good results.
“Alpha is particularly great for churches wanting to reach young adults and young professionals,” Bishop Willimon said. “It’s real. You don’t feel like you’re getting a bunch of church talk.”
At the same time, he calls the Alpha course “unashamedly theological.”
“Alpha is about Jesus,” he said. “The most interesting things we have to say to the world tend to be theological. That, to me, commends Alpha.”
A few pastors in Alabama told Bishop Willimon they felt the Alpha course was “too charismatic” and put too much stress on the Holy Spirit. That’s a concern that other Alpha leaders report hearing from local pastors. But Bishop Willimon, who’s now professor of the practice of Christian ministry at Duke Divinity School, doesn’t see that as a problem.
“As Wesleyans, it’s kind of hard to overstress the Holy Spirit,” he said.
Several of those interviewed for this story did say they learned about the Holy Spirit in Alpha in a way they hadn’t encountered before in church.
“We’re unapologetic for talking about the Holy Spirit,” said Mr. Kirby. “Speaking in tongues is touched on . . . but it’s not presented as a high bar of Christianity.”
‘Get up and go’ Peggy Lively sees the movement of the Holy Spirit in her experience with Alpha. Fifteen years ago, she says she was awakened in the middle of the night by a voice that told her: Get up and go. In the two years that followed, she pondered the words and what they meant. Then she heard about the Alpha course.
“I had a physiological reaction,” Ms. Lively recalled. “Immediately, I knew it was what I supposed to do.”
That was the beginning of the Alpha course at Trinity United Methodist in Arlington, Texas. After 13 years, the course has introduced the Christian faith to hundreds of people. Many participants ended up joining Trinity, but Ms. Lively cautions that the course’s ultimate purpose isn’t just to bring folks through the doors.
“It’s not really there just to bring new members to your church,” she said. “But many felt they belonged here and wanted to join.”
Participants aren’t required to talk or to share during the course. “Some will take the entire course and not say a word,” Ms. Lively said. “And then at the end of the course they’ll say, ‘It’s changed my life.’”
When this article was published, Mary Jacobs was a staff writer for The United Methodist Reporter. Reprinted by permission of The United Methodist Reporter.
