Archive: What a Renewed Methodism could mean

By Dennis Kinlaw

March/April 1987

THE PROGRESS OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD in human history has seldom been uniform or unilinear. It has been more a matter of starts and stops. The history of Israel in the Old Testament illustrates this. So does the long story of the Church since Pentecost.

Some eras have seen the light of the Gospel burn brightly and effectively. Others have seen that light almost extinguished. At times it has appeared that the light might even go out and darkness would prevail. But then the fire of God has broken out afresh, and the light has shined brightly again.

Little wonder that believers in a day and a culture like ours look back with nostalgia to the periods when the fire of the Spirit seemed to burn more vigorously. They are like the Psalmist who found himself crying out, “Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?” (Psalms 85:6, KJV). The psalmist longed to see God show His glory again.

There is a yearning like that in our day. A significant host of people are praying for the renewing flame of the Spirit to blaze again among God’s people. One friend of mine is aggressively seeking 1,000 men in his state who will commit themselves to pray from five to seven a.m. every day. His concern is revival in his part of our great land.

Many United Methodists are among those in the larger body of Christ who feel this burden. They look at their church’s tragic loss of membership over these last few years. They lament even more the impotence of that church at its inability to renew itself, to say nothing of its inability to renew the nation. They look back upon our history and the earlier glories of Methodism, and they find themselves praying: “Do it again, Lord! You did it among us in the 18th-century when we were born. You did it those robust days of our 19th-century youth. Do it now in the days of our maturity. Without it we die. Lord, do it again!”

That yearning is strong because of the greatness of our need. It is augmented though by some other factors. There are positive elements with the other major traditions within historic Christianity, elements in our situation that make United Methodists feel that their church, now wallowing like a great, beached whale that cannot find the waters again, has a potential to make it a special instrument in the hands of the Spirit of Christ. The devout Methodist sees a strategic agent in Methodism that makes its present sickness seem demonic. It is as if its problems were the result of an infection cleverly inflicted to neutralize a significant threat to the kingdom of evil.

But there are some factors still present in United Methodism that could make it an especially suitable renewal base for the Spirit. These are of such a nature and have such implications for the larger body of Christ that true revival within Methodism could have a very broad impact beyond its own boundaries. It is as if a special dispensation of the Gospel had been committed to us, a dispensation which we are now allowing to dissipate.

What are these factors? Let me mention just a few.

The first is the geographical spread of the Methodist church. It is not a regional church. It is almost omnipresent in our society. This is part of the priceless heritage left to us as a result of the evangelistic passion of the early circuit riders. They had a commission with a universal character. They felt they were “to publish the gospel in the face of the sun.” They almost did. The result is that Methodist churches are about as ubiquitous as the United States Postal Service. If real revival came to United Methodism, few areas in this country would be left untouched.

A second factor is sociological. The United Methodist Church is such an American church. There is a social centrism about it that the Spirit could use. Many of Methodism’s sister denominations, because of special factors in their histories, tend to be identified with particular regions, their own national, ethnic, racial or class origins. These are inhibiting factors that, on occasion, limit evangelistic outreach. Methodism does not have these particular limiting characteristics. A little knowledge of our history puts this in perspective.

When the Revolutionary War erupted in this country, American Methodism was very English. The preachers were Britishers whom John Wesley had sent to America. The Methodists were clearly associated with the Anglican Church. When the war broke out, all the English preachers except for Francis Asbury returned to their homeland. He, at some personal danger, cast his lot with the colonists. When they became an independent nation, he identified with that new nation, not his motherland. In 1784, he led American Methodists in the break with their brothers and sisters in Britain. Methodism became an American church. In that sense, it was the first truly American church, a character and a position from which it was to benefit greatly in the future.

Other elements must be cited here. Think of the passion for evangelism that seemed to consume the early Methodist preachers and the theology that informed that passion. Their goal was not renewal of their Anglican church. It was the conversion of the North American continent to Christ. Their concern for souls forced them to appeal across ethnic, racial, class and territorial lines. Their burden was as broad as they believed the love of God to be. Wherever any person could be found, he or she was fair game for conversion. Their great success made Methodism a part of almost all of American life.

The result was that in the 19th-century Methodism had a broader acceptance than any other denomination in this country. That is why historians like C. C. Goen and Winthrop F. Hudson could speak of this country in the 19th century as “the Methodist age in America.”* We, their descendants, have dissipated much of this heritage. Still, enough remains that the United Methodist Church could be a unique instrument to influence this nation if it were really quickened by the Spirit.

A third factor is theological. Methodist theology and its historical development in Wesley has common elements with the other major traditions within historic Christianity. This gives Methodism a unique potential as a base for true ecumenicity. When the Spirit moves in power, He always breaks across our barriers and brings people together. Revival is no more compatible with theological imperialism than is the Holy Spirit with theological indifference. That is why the roots of ecumenism are really in revival, sometimes to the embarrassment of some ecumenists. Consider then, several points Methodism has in common with very divergent theological traditions.

Methodists share with the Reformed churches their strong emphasis upon human sinfulness and the necessity for divine grace. We are at home with  Calvin and Luther on original sin and sola gratia (grace only). Salvation is God’s work. Confidence in any human activity is misplaced. Predestination is another matter. The universal love of God for every person and the accountability of every man for his own character and destiny condition us here. Wesley was as firm as the Reformers and modern evangelicals about the necessity of justification by faith. But he saw that as a beginning, not an end. The end is conformity to the image of Christ, that holiness without which no one can see the Lord. Personal holiness is not just to be a passion. It must be a possibility. So Wesley is linked at one end with the Reformers and at the other with mystics and pietists of Catholic and Eastern origins.

Methodism has an emphasis on the sacraments that differentiates it from the Anabaptist, and the Free Church tradition. Its links here are with that apostolic line that includes the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Calvinist and Eastern Orthodox traditions. Yet the Methodist emphasis upon the necessity of personal regeneration makes the Baptist, the Quaker and the Salvation Army believer know that the true Methodist is a genuine Christian brother or sister.

In Wesley’s writings there is the emphasis upon church tradition, as well as the apostolic faith. Wesley was sensitive to what God had done through the ages and wanted to identify with that. Yet, as he put it, he was “a man of one Book.” Here we find a clear and authentic tie with the fundamentalist and the inerrantist, who hold so strongly to the normative role of the Scripture for the church.

The Holy Spirit’s work in quickening, renewing, cleansing and empowering was at the heart of Wesley’s theology. Wesley’s emphasis upon the Spirit is a key factor in the emergence of the modern charismatic movement. Wesley would certainly have been as uncomfortable with some of what he would have called “enthusiasm” in this movement, as many in it would be with his high-churchmanship. Yet there is a significant commonality here.

There is even a tie in Wesley with modern theological liberalism in its concern for social reform. No one can ignore Wesley if he is looking for a model of passion for social justice. Wesley’s concern for “social holiness” theology.

The case could be extended. It is enough to say that there is a base in Methodist theology with a unique potential. It has points of contact with every segment of the body of Christ. It could be that it is theoretically God’s best base for revival. But will it come?

Recently a friend of mine was discussing the possibility of Methodist renewal with one of America’s most knowledgeable observers of the religious scene. His conclusions were negative. He sees little interest in genuine renewal at the leadership level. What he sees is concern to fund pension programs, subsidize small churches and maintain the structure. The future for Methodism? He envisions a continuation of the steady flight of the more devout from the church of their ancestors. “History,” he says, “is not on the side of seeing top-heavy bureaucracies change.”

My first reaction to this was heartache. Then memory began to work.

Has revival ever been dependent upon or initiated by the religious structures? In Israel, it was not from the priests and the temple that the authentic word came. It was from the outside, from the prophets. In 38 A.D. the hope of the world was not in the Sanhedrin. The Church began in an Upper Room, not the temple courts. And in our own history, it was in the fields, not in Wesley’s beloved Anglican churches, that the awakening came. The primary human factors, Wesley’s “veterans,” were laymen, not priests of the apostolic succession.

But even here, we must be careful. The one who led those “veterans” was a loyal son of the church and valiantly refused to leave it. That was traumatic for Wesley. But there is an important lesson for us. It was the very thing that kept him from breaking with the church and his past that shaped Methodism into the unique vessel that it has been and is. Revival may not come from the structures. but it must, if it is to be more than short-lived, have long and clear roots.

*C. C. Goen, “The ‘Methodist Age’ in American History,” Religion in Life, XXIV (1964-65), pp. 562-72, and Winthrop F. Hudson, “The ‘Methodist Age’ in America.” American History, XII (1974), pp. 3-17.

Dennis F. Kinlaw, a United Methodist elder, now retired from the Kentucky Conference, is President in ASbury College in Wilmore, KY. He has a Ph.D. in Mediterranean Studies from Brandeis University and is a senior editor for Christianity Today.