Wesleyans Among the Protestants 1

October 31 marks the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. I'm celebrating it in three ways on this blog:

• The IWU Monday reading group will be going through Alister McGrath's Christianity's Dangerous Idea, which gives a sketch of the Protestant Reformation.
• I plan to read through the Book of Concord, which is a comprehensive collection of Lutheran confessions.
• I plan to blog on Sunday's an engagement with the Reformation from my Wesleyan perspective (not the Wesleyan Church's perspective, but a Wesleyan perspective). This post begins this third goal.

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1. A tradition is like a family. Not everyone in the family looks exactly alike. Over time, with intermarriage with other families, new features emerge that do not look at all like our ancestors. Our grandchildren and great grandchildren have minds of their own. Sometimes things that were very important to us are discarded without a thought by our descendants.

In that sense, the Wesleyan tradition--or any tradition--is not bound by John Wesley. Certainly if some Wesleyan group were to diverge so far from Wesley that it held none of his characteristic beliefs or practices in common with him, we could wonder why they still used the name. Nevertheless, it would still be their right, for what a word means today is a matter of what it means today--not what it meant two hundred and fifty years ago.

The American branch of Wesleyanism has inevitably been affected dramatically by its context. America was Frontier country and Baptist country. Even the United Methodist church, which officially still baptizes infants and holds more closely to John Wesley's theology, has many a Methodist Baptist in its pews. In the democratic spirit of America, many people freely move from church to church, providing a good cross-fertilization of tradition.

2. So what is the Wesleyan tradition? What is distinctive about it over and against other traditions? We should keep in mind the possibility that over time what was once unique has disappeared. We should also keep in mind that, if we are truly Protestants, we are certainly free to reinvent ourselves in accordance to what we believe is truest to Scripture. Some Protestants have taken the protest further, feeling free to reinvent themselves in accordance to what they believe is true.

It may very well be that, for some, what makes them Wesleyan is primarily historical. That is to say, if you trace the story of an organization back in time, it goes back in some way to John Wesley. Others may come from the outside yet discover something about the beliefs and practices of the man that they find attractive. They may feel enough of an affinity for the tradition that they feel that the label fits.

Again, that tradition is living. It is not merely about the man himself. It is about the Methodists and Wesleyans and Nazarenes and Free Methodists and scores of other little groups that have related in some way to the family. My friend Keith Drury likes to say that The Wesleyan Church is something more like the great grandchild of the man than the child or even grandchild.

So one is either Wesleyan historically or ideologically in some way. We will leave it at that for now.

3. Wesley was a Protestant. He was a Protestant in two ways. He was a Protestant historically. He was a Protestant because he was an Anglican of the eighteenth century, and the Anglican Church of the 1700s was Protestant.

We will discuss soon enough the idea that the Anglican Church was a "via media" or "middle way" between Roman Catholicism and what I call the "high" Protestantism of Luther and Calvin. For example, the Wesleyan tradition is not bound to the same understanding of the "solas" that Lutherans and the Reformed have (i.e., grace alone, faith alone, Scripture alone, Christ alone, glory to God alone). The Anglican Church was born on a different path, one that retained more of catholicism than the Lutherans and Calvinists did.

Wesley was also a Protestant ultimately because he rejected the Catholic church of his day. [1] He called himself a "man of one book," and implicitly took his side with Luther on that issue. [2] Nevertheless, to America's Baptistified version of Wesleyanism today, much of his thinking will seem quite catholic to some.

4. It is often said that Wesley was an eclectic thinker. I personally like to think of this trait as a family characteristic. I believe that Wesleyan thought can be systematized, but its flavor is more focused on practice than theology. Wesley is often considered to be one of the original "evangelicals" in both his focus on evangelism and social justice.

So Wesley's thinking was a mixture. The recipe started with a common catholic foundation as filtered through Anglicanism. Then there was Luther's idea of justification by faith filtered through his Pietist encounters. Then there was Calvin--a lot of Calvin--but with an Arminian twist. Finally, there was England and the rise of the Enlightenment. There was individualism. There was the worth of the everyday individual.

This was the making of Wesleyan theology.

Next Week: The Anglican Via Media

[1] He could be quite vitriolic in relation to the Pope of his day.

[2] In the Preface to Wesley's sermons. However, given that this expression may go back to Aquinas, it counts less for Wesley's Protestantism than one might think at first.

Post-Christian Wesleyan Movement 2

Had a stimulating breakfast with Dave and Dina Horne, area directors for Europe with Global Partners. They stimulated some thoughts along the lines of an earlier post I made on letting the Wesleyan movement begin. (P.S. Don't blame them for the random thoughts that rattle around in my head)

One is that Wesley really was ministering in a sort of "post-Christian" England. I don't mean post-Christian in the sense that no one believed in God or Christ any more (although there were several David Humes and Jeremy Benthams running around). I mean post-Christian in the sense that the fire had gone out. It was, in a sense, burned over ground for Christian business as usual.

But it makes me wonder whether a "Wesley" model would work better in places like England, Europe, and Russia today than a "plant a church" model. Wesley did not plan to start or plant churches. He set up small groups, little house churches, if you would, within the established church (bands, societies).

So if I were to go as a missionary to England, I think the precisely wrong model would be to rent a space to have Wesleyan worship services that compete with the local Anglican church. And, ironically, that isn't even the Wesley model. The Wesley model was to set up small groups of people who attended the local Anglican church on Sunday morning.

In Germany, you would set up small groups made up of Lutherans and Catholics. In Russia, you would set up small groups of Orthodox. The goal would not be to get them out of the church they are in but for them to become vibrant Lutherans, Catholics, and Orthodox believers. If something else comes of it, that's fine too. But he goal would not be indoctrination of theology but changed lives. If the heart comes, the head will follow.

I know I'm pretty late to the game with these ideas... what, am I fifty years late?  two hundred?  Please excuse me for being excited about what for me was new spark.

Let the Wesleyan Movement Begin!

Don't get me wrong, there is such a thing as a Wesleyan theology and there can even be a Wesleyan denomination. But I was reminded yesterday by John Wright of Point Loma that Wesley didn't set out to start a church but to "reform the nation, particularly the Church, and spread Scriptural holiness over the land."

For some reason I have never applied this insight to the Church today. It has always only been for me a historical reminder that many of those who have started new churches were only originally trying to reform the church they were in.  Sure, we know the charismatic movement, which has found its way into just about every Christian tradition there is. I also believe that there are evangelical Catholics, evangelical Anglicans, evangelical Wesleyans, and so forth.

But what struck me yesterday in a way it never has is that you can have Wesleyan Anglicans, Wesleyan Catholics, Wesleyan Baptists, and even Wesleyan Reformed! What would a Wesleyan movement of this sort look like, one that was not so much a church but a revolution within many churches?

1. Transformed Heart
Wesley, like the other "evangelicals" of the 1700s, preached for conversion and life change. He took from the Pietists the idea of assurance--you can know if you are on your way to heaven. He believed God wants to change you through the cross of Christ, to "save" you, and you can know it when he does.

What you believe is significant, but far more important is that God has grabbed hold of you, that you are in a "personal relationship" with him. This is God's doing, although we can put ourselves in the path of his grace by going to the "places" we know he hangs out, places like Scripture, baptism, communion, church, doing good to others. In other words, we can avail ourselves of the means of grace.

Whatever the denomination, a "Wesleyan" is someone who believes God wants to transform our hearts and walk through life in fellowship with us--and we can know he is there with us.

2. A "Generous Orthodoxy"
Someone with the heart of a Wesleyan is more concerned about the state of your heart, than with the specific ideas in your head. It's not that your ideas aren't important. Scripture is of central importance to a Wesleyan and what we believe. Orthodoxy is very important and a key assumption of what is in the head of a transformed heart.

But because of Wesley's focus on the heart, it is not as important that we iron out all our theological differences with each other. Just as a Baptist or a Catholic can speak in tongues, so a Reformed person or an Anglican can have a transformed heart. "If your heart is as my heart, then give me your hand."

Whatever the denomination, a "Wesleyan" is someone who is orthodox in faith and looks to Scripture for understanding but who is "generous" toward those whose interpretations and understandings may differ from theirs, especially if they demonstrate a transformed heart.

3. Mature Love
Wesley was optimistic about the power of God to change your life in a concrete, evident way. He did not believe that it was inevitable that you would fail to do the right thing. While he did not deny that a person could accidentally wrong someone else, the "sin" that mattered most to God was when a person intentionally did something you fully knew God didn't want you to do.

What Wesley saw in the New Testament was that God was not primarily interested in whether we measured up to some absolute standard of perfection but whether or not we were allowing the Holy Spirit to empower us to do God's will. He believed God actually wanted to make us holy people in this sense. He believed God wanted to give us a truly mature love for God and others, which he called "perfect love" in his 1700s language. And God has given us the Church to hold us accountable and urge us on to do good.

Whatever the denomination, a "Wesleyan" is someone who is optimistic about God's desire to empower us to do the right thing even here on earth. We do not have to live lives of constant moral defeat but can actually, by the Spirit's power, do the good we know we ought to do.

4. Whole Person, Whole Society, Whole Creation
Wesley did not see God's desire to transform lives as just a matter of our hearts and intentions. Rather, God wants to save everything, "to the uttermost." God is concerned not just with our souls, but with our families and our economics and our society and by extension even the creation. Wesley did not see helping others as something in competition with saving souls. God cares especially for the lost sheep, which biblically includes the poor and the stranger, and so should we.

Wesley was concerned about social justice in England in the 1700s. His heirs were concerned with the plight of slaves and the rights of women. And it is consistent with his spirit to view ourselves today as stewards of God's creation.

Whatever the denomination today, a "Wesleyan" is someone who believes that God wants us to help those who are in need in the most robust way possible. A "Wesleyan" works to see unjust structures in society changed and to make the world a better place.

Let the movement begin!
One reason it has always been difficult to identify a distinctively Wesleyan theology historically is because Wesley really did not aim to create a distinct tradition. What he aimed to do was to see the Church reformed from within!

So if your heart is as my heart, let the revival begin... in whatever church you may call home!