Philip Wingeier-Rayo: Was John Wesley a Missionary to Georgia?

Today's piece is by Dr. Philip Wingeier-Rayo. Dr. Wingeier-Rayo is Professor of Missiology, World Christianity and Methodist Studies at Wesley Theological Seminary and author of the forthcoming book, John Wesley and the Origins of Methodist Missions.

It is widely assumed that John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, was a missionary to Georgia. I have seen this matter-of-fact statement multiple times in biographies about John Wesley’s life and ministry. If, indeed, Wesley was a missionary, was he commissioned? What entity or missionary agent sent him? This blog will reflect on this assumption and raise some questions about its veracity.

Background

Wesley graduated from Christ Church, University of Oxford, in 1724 and was ordained a deacon in the Church of England in 1725. After assisting his father in parish ministry in Epworth and Wroot, he was ordained an elder in 1728. When Wesley’s father, Samuel Wesley, became ill in 1734 he unsuccessfully attempted to convince his son to succeed him as rector in Epworth. As John wrestled with whether or not to go to Epworth he wrote his father on November 15, 1734 with his decision: “The question is not whether I could do more good to others there or here, but whether I could do more good to myself; seeing wherever I can be most holy myself, there, I am assured, I can most promote holiness in others. But I am equally assured there is no place under heaven so fit for my improvement as Oxford.”

Epworth, Georgia or remain in Oxford?

Another of Samuel Wesley’s connections, John Burton, was a trustee of the Colony of Georgia and entered into correspondence with Wesley about America. The trustees were unhappy with the ministry of missionary Quincy Adams and wished to replace him.

Meanwhile, John Wesley had returned to Oxford where he was leading a group of students, including his younger brother Charles, on their spiritual quest for holy living. The group, known as the Holy Club—and later Methodists—sought to renew themselves and the church in the spirit of Primitive Christianity. The spiritual quest of the Oxford Methodists, including the Wesley brothers, could be described as mysticism. Wesley’s goal was to work out his salvation by faith and trembling (Phil. 2: 12-13). He also felt a sense of persecution and the desire to suffer on his faith journey.[1] When John Burton proposed mission work in Georgia, Wesley saw this as an opportunity to suffer and work out his salvation.

So, Wesley turned down his father’s invitation to succeed him at Epworth because he felt that Oxford was the best place to pursue his spiritual growth. Burton’s invitation, on the other hand, captured Wesley’s imagination. When General Oglethorpe, the de facto governor of Georgia, brought the Yamacraw chief, Tomochichi, to England to meet with King George, Wesley became even more fascinated with the idea of evangelizing Native Americans. This opportunity aligned with his vision of self-sacrifice and recovering the spirituality of early church in Jerusalem, who shared all things in common. While Europeans had been corrupted, Wesley held the belief that Native Americans were pure and closer to Primitive Christianity, embodying a communitarian lifestyle.

Motivation to go to Georgia

After his father’s passing on April 25, 1735, Wesley consulted his mother, Susanna, about going to Georgia as a missionary, to which she responded, “Had I twenty sons, I should rejoice they were all so well employed, though I should never see them more.”[2] With his mother’s approval, he recruited his younger brother Charles and Oxford Methodists Charles Delamotte and Benjamin Ingham, and they embarked for Savannah on December 10, 1735. On board the ship, Wesley wrote John Burton about his motivation for going to America:

“My chief motive, to which all the rest are subordinate, is the hope of saving my own soul. I hope to learn the true sense of the gospel of Christ by preaching it to the heathens…But you will perhaps ask, Can’t you save your own soul in England as well as in Georgia? I answer, No, neither can I hope to attain the same degree of holiness here which I may there, neither, if I stay here knowing this, can I reasonably hope to attain any degree of holiness at all.”

In other words, Wesley’s motivation for going to preach to Native Americans was intimately tied to his own spiritual journey toward holiness. Of this momentous vocational decision, Kenneth Collins writes in his biography, John Wesley: A Theological Journey: “upon further reflection and prayer, Wesley finally decided to accept the invitation to become a missionary…” (p. 55).

Was John Wesley a missionary?

John Wesley volunteered to go to Georgia to evangelize Native Americans without any conversation of official missionary status. At the time, there were many volunteer societies functioning in England, but two primarily had to do with overseas missions: The Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Both of these societies were formed by Thomas Bray, in 1698 and 1701, respectively. The former provided Christian literature for priests and the later focused on supporting priests to minister among the colonists. Bray was an Anglican priest who traveled to Maryland and saw the need for spiritual care among the colonists, as well as the enslaved Africans and Native Americans in the British colonies.

While Wesley knew of these societies, he did not go to Georgia under their auspices. Rather, his invitation came from the Georgia Trustees via John Burton and General Oglethorpe. During his voyage and unbeknownst to him, however, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts held its annual meeting on January 16, 1736, and approved John Wesley, retroactively, as a missionary in Georgia. The SPG recorded in its journal: “…he had nearly arrived in Georgia by the time he was approved without consultation as a SPG missionary.”[3] The SPG re-assigned Adam’s £50 missionary salary to Wesley, but he did not accept these terms and saw himself as a volunteer missionary. His vision was to evangelize the Native Americans, and he did not consider himself an SPG missionary. After Quincy Adams was dismissed from his post, General Oglethorpe asked Wesley to not leave Savannah “destitute of a minister.” Meanwhile, Charles became an assistant of Oglethorpe and Secretary of Indian Affairs for the colony and did not seek a missionary designation either.

Conclusion

The SPG Journal for the following year, 1737, lists John Wesley as an SPG missionary, but with no salary. The 1738 SPG journal states that “Wesley thought of himself as an independent volunteer missionary.”[4] Wesley also did not fulfill all the requirements of SPG missionaries, for example, sending regular reports and updates to the society. He did, however, receive funding and books from the SPCK, which he utilized, and he gave an account with receipts. Although John Wesley did not receive a salary as a missionary, the SPG continued to include his name in their journals. So, was Wesley a missionary to Georgia? In spite of multiple unqualified accounts, this assumption joins the list of Wesleyan hagiography. While the SPG would like to claim him, Wesley saw himself as a volunteer missionary and not an official missionary of the SPG.

[1] Geordan Hammond, “John Wesley’s Mindset at the Commencement of His Georgia Sojourn: Suffering and the Introduction of Primitive Christianity to the Indians,” Church History, October 2008, vol.47, No. 1, pp18-25.

[2] Moore’s Life of Wesley, vol. I, p.234.

[3] SPG Journal, 16, January, 1736, vol.6, fo.305, SPG Archives, Rhodes House Library, Oxford, p.146.

[4] SPG Journal, 21 July 1738, vol.7, fos.26:1-2. Also see Wesley letter to the SPG, July 6, 1737, Works of John Wesley, Bicentennial Edition, 25:516.

Kirk Sims: Is the Essence of Methodism about Method?

Today's post is by Rev. Dr. Kirk Sims. Rev. Dr. Sims is a United Methodist missionary with the General Board of Global Ministries, serving as a consultant and theological educator based in Prague. He is an ordained elder in the North Georgia Annual Conference.

One misconception about Methodism is that we are all about method. In fact, it’s in our name! Yes, Wesley and the other members of the Holy Club of Oxford had a method to their pursuit of living holy lives. When others used “Methodists” in a derisive way, they embraced it as a name of honor. And yes, Methodists have been known for keeping meticulous records and holding to a Book of Discipline.

However, to conclude that we are primarily about method is to miss the essence of what it means to be a Methodist. In his widely distributed pamphlet, John Wesley described “The Character of a Methodist.” According to Wesley, “We do not place our religion, or any part of it, in being attached to any peculiar mode of speaking, any quaint or uncommon set of expressions. … Nor do we desire to be distinguished by actions, customs, or usages, of an indifferent nature.”

Rather, he described a Methodist as “one who has the love of God shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost given unto him.” Wesley chose to speak in general terms. A Methodist gives thanks in all things, prays without ceasing, loves neighbors, keeps God’s commands, serves, does good, and thinks and lets others think.

Wesley does not define Methodists by a method, but by a way of life and commitment to Christ.

Sure, Wesley had his forms, but even in his lifetime, he would innovate and adapt based on what he was seeing in society and what was working—all for the aim of ensuring a people with the love of God shed abroad in their hearts. According to Howard Snyder, “John Wesley saw that new wine must be put into new wineskins. So the story of Wesley’s life and ministry is the story of creating and adapting structures to serve the burgeoning revival movement.”

Wesley could see that some things may work in one context but not another. For instance, even though he embraced an episcopal polity, he was certain to say that was not the only way prescribed by the apostles or the scriptures. And when he chose an edited version of the Articles of Religion for what would become the Methodist Episcopal Church, one phrase remained.

“It is not necessary that rites and ceremonies should in all places be the same, or exactly alike; for they have been always different, and may be changed according to the diversity of countries, times, and men’s manners, so that nothing be ordained against God’s Word. … Every particular church may ordain, change, or abolish rites and ceremonies, so that all things may be done to edification.”

For Wesley, forms were secondary to a living and active faith. In fact, Wesley said, “I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I am afraid, lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power.” A living [Methodist] faith is not about perpetuating forms of religion but a living faith.

The early Methodists borrowed and innovated. Wesley learned and adapted the approach of bands from Peter Böhler and the Moravians, and he sort of stumbled into the concept of classes in Bristol. The high churchman “submitted to being more vile” through field preaching as he met people where they were. Francis Asbury knew he could not simply be appointed superintendent for America. The democratic culture demanded that he be elected by Conference. As the faith spread, circuit riders saw that the camp meeting was an effective means of evangelism, so they embraced that form.

In fact, Methodism is at its best when it uses forms that fit cultural contexts and point to deeper meanings. When the emphasis has been on making the love of God shed abroad, we have often seen growth—when we are less worried about maintaining a strict method or form.

In the latter half of the 20th Century in the US, many churches began to use instruments in worship similar to the style of music that people listened to in their free time. Methodists in India saw the value of retreating in culturally relevant ways, and Christ-centered Ashrams developed there. In many African contexts, it is fitting to express joy through dance, and many Methodists have incorporated collective dance into their worship. And in recent days, we have seen innovation in the digital realm.

As Methodists, our “method” is to point people to a living faith, one where the love of God is shed abroad.

Viviana Pinto: Methodism and Public Theology: A Critical Moment

Today's post is by Rev. Viviana Pinto. Rev. Pinto is a pastor of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Argentina and Director of Training for the Centro Metodista de Estudios Wesleyanos (CMEW). It originally appeared (in Spanish) on the website of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Argentina (IEMA) as part of a series organized by CMEW. It appears here in translation with the author's permission and with the assistance of CMEW.

Speaking loudly and clearly

Methodism, which seeks to incarnate itself in Latin America, is very silent in the face of the brutal advance of neoliberalism, disinformation, and lawfare as strategies for weakening democracies, as has been cited in previous articles.

One can observe an expansion of social inequality, which combines the naturalization of oppressions, the idea of meritocracy, and the illusion of individual opportunities. To this is added the subordination of democracy to the defense of property, which places the market in the center of the scene and hides those who manage it.

At the same time, in this realm of fictions and fallacies, the manipulation and installation of common sense hinder communication in the communities.

Before the pandemic, it was already observable that the majority of believers, without realizing it, lived locked up in their own “echo chambers.” Thus, they also sought to relate in church services and activities primarily with those with similar views. Then, with the isolation and the virtual realm into which the pandemic forced us, this phenomenon increased. Many people chose to stay in the virtual realm, thus magnifying the effect of their echo chambers, distancing themselves from contact with the surrounding world and dialogue with the most contrasting reality.

In these circumstances, it became much more difficult to generate community bonds capable of challenging the logic of common sense and the skills to dialogue with what is different, to “think and let think,” as Wesley put it.

At the same time, disrespectful, fanatical, violent, and disqualifying modes and models were fostered by the media and social networks. They seek to channel discontent through situations that will not be resolved through the discharge of these violent expressions. In social networks, they find a privileged space of impunity. From these spaces, people are motivated to imitate violence, while others end up withdrawing to avoid aggression or confrontation.

The installation of lawfare in many countries of the continent has been a strategy that grew with the use of legal instruments for the persecution of political and social leaders and activists. This has violated the fundamental rights of the people affected and seriously weakened the democratic system, creating conditions for the application of regressive public policies and even promoting coups. These practices have been unfolding on the continent, conditioning electoral processes, the political agenda, and public opinion. Recent examples of this scenario are the assassination attempt that has hit institutional life in Argentina and the serious acts of violence in Chile and Colombia, fostered by this dangerous and anti-democratic breeding ground.

Our silence...

While the continent is going through these attacks, our ecclesial communities are impoverished, exhausted, and with weakened bonds of communion. As the philosopher Byung-Chul Han well defined, each individual lives in situations of self-exploitation, often without deciphering the mechanisms that oppress her/him. S/he has a great fear of what is different, of hurting or being hurt.

In these circumstances, it becomes increasingly difficult to find spaces for dialogue, to recognize the mechanisms that impoverish and oppress us, and to generate networks that allow us to see beyond what we are shown and understand what is happening on a global level.

Trying to respond with a public word that allows communities to feel represented, or with a word of social, prophetic, and transforming testimony, becomes something perceived as a great risk.

At the same time, in the midst of the phenomenon of lawfare, the churches fear denouncing conditions and arbitrariness that work against democracy. They are afraid of being perceived as biased, of generating adverse reactions or schisms within the churches, of “losing people” or “generating violent reactions on social networks,” which leads to an anti-prophetic silence that is often hidden under the discourse of “we must take care of the Church from within”.

Is it time to retreat, take refuge, and seek a “neutral” position so as not to run risks and not to make waves?

Or will it be as Dante Alighieri says in The Divine Comedy, “The darkest reaches of hell are reserved for those who choose to remain neutral in times of moral crisis”?

The Gospel of Matthew says, “Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven. Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth …”

These words always sound harsh to us, but did Jesus shy away from conflict? Did he seek to get along with the powerful? Sustain the status quo?

So, can we ignore him in the people that suffer? If we keep quiet, the stones will cry out. If we pass by the tables of the money changers in order to avoid conflict, we will become accomplices. It is difficult to talk about this Jesus who did not come to bring peace, but is it possible to have peace with the system that plunders, destroys, and annihilates?

Perhaps, if we prioritize “taking care of the church from within,” remaining “neutral,” in a prophetic paralysis in the midst of such a complex time, should we not accept our complicity? Should we not accept that we do not incarnate the body of Christ for this reality? That we are not recognizing Jesus the friend of the marginalized, Jesus the prophet, Jesus the healer, Jesus the liberator?

While the forces of robbery are unleashed on this continent, devastating life, as we have been saying, reliable voices must intertwine in defense of the dignity and autonomy of the Latin American and Caribbean peoples and of life as a whole. The church knows that raising your voice is a risk, yes, but one that must be taken.

Following Jesus is taking on the conflict as he did, confronting the forces of exclusion and death.

How not to be biased or partisan in the world of disinformation…?!

If we remember Wesley, we can see that, immersed in the reality of his time and afflicted by the poverty and scarcity to which the people were subjected, he thought and spoke about each area of the economic system that generated it.

He faced the conflicts of his time at the risk of his own security and his academic and ecclesiastical position. He remained like a pariah from the church and the official academy. But he was faithful to the gospel. He proposed immersing himself in reality to rediscover the path and the answers found in the image of God in the neighbor who suffers.

For example, for Wesley the fundamental cause of economic problems was the great inequality between rich and poor. With this understanding, he promoted laws and taxes on luxury products. He did not avoid the conflict. Likewise, in his fight against the slave trade, he did not limit himself only to writing condemnatory treaties, but until his last days he worked politically with abolitionist parliamentarians, such as Wilberforce, so that they would not cease their fight against the “execrable villainy.”

Here we have a first clue – the encounter with reality and with the image of God in the other, the analysis of situations and not of reports, but also actions of care and impact for transformation.

Another key for Methodism and its long history of broad ecumenism will be to seek collective and committed responses with those who share territories and those who contribute their perspectives from other places. Seek to broaden one’s view beyond the borders of what we know immediately. In this way, raise one’s voice with a powerful and fruitful prophetic testimony, without fear. Bring good news. Confront, transform, and humanize society in defense of all life.

God allow us, in a crucial time like the present, not to hide behind a cloak of neutrality, but to take on the conflicts that are necessary in following Jesus and reflect his transforming power in this reality.

Pablo Bordenave: Evangelization in Context: The Great Commission or the Great Omission?

Today's post is by Lic. Pablo Bordenave. Lic. Bordenave is Chaplain at Colegio Ward in Buenos Aires. It originally appeared (in Spanish) on the website of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Argentina (IEMA) as part of a series organized by the Centro Metodista de Estudios Wesleyanos (CMEW). It appears here in translation with the author's permission and with the assistance of CMEW.

“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” These words from the Gospel of Matthew that carry the title of “the Great Commission” point to one of the most discussed tasks within the Christian churches throughout the centuries. This topic is discussed so much that some have called those words “the great omission,” implying that it is the task that the church has forgotten.

David Bosch, author of the book Transforming Mission, says about this text of Matthew:

“It is inadmissible to lift these words out of Matthew’s Gospel, as it were, allow them a life of their own, and understand them without reference to the context in which they first appeared. Where this happens, the ‘Great Commission’ is easily degraded to a mere slogan, or used as a pretext for what we have in advance decided, perhaps unconsciously, it should mean. … One thing contemporary scholars are agreed upon, is that Matthew 28:18–20 has to be interpreted against the backdrop of Matthew’s Gospel as a whole and unless we keep this in mind we shall fail to understand it. No exegesis of the ‘Great Commission’ divorced from its moorings in this gospel can be valid.” (p. 57)

How good it would be if our ideas of evangelism/mission of the church had as a backdrop, that is, as a general context, the message of the gospel that became flesh in Jesus of Nazareth!

Juan Stam, a Latin American theologian, began an article on theology of evangelism entitled “God as a starting point for a theology of evangelism.” He said, “Where should evangelism start from? From heaven to arrive at the earth? That is what the title would seem to indicate. From the church to go out into the world? That would be another approach. Or from the world to then bring it to the gospel?”

Stam was looking to point out these perspectives, problematizing a little and showing the complexity of the theme of evangelization. These questions are enough to show at least that there is not a single “correct” way to evangelize, that this task can be assumed from different places or perspectives and that each of these different places have their own risks of distorting that message we are looking to transmit.

As you can see, the theme is fundamental.

If Jesus is our example both in works and in his humanity, the first thing we would have to say is that much of our failure to communicate the gospel in our Latin American contexts is largely due to our lack of dialogue with the culture, to our ignorance of it or worse still to the rejection of many historical and cultural traditions.

Jesus not only dialogued with the culture of his time, but he incarnated himself in full humanity to be able to establish that dialogue and that it may be fruitful. Not knowing our Latin American culture and intending to have a discourse more typical of other latitudes or past centuries is not having the person of Jesus as a backdrop.

Imitation of North American models

Stam says in his article, “It is necessary to highlight, in the nineteenth century, due to its projection in Latin America, the gigantic movement of ‘religious revivals’ with its emphasis on repentance and conversion and which was also characterized by its emotionalism and the mobilization of masses around a great evangelist. This is how names like James McGready, Charles Finney, Dwight L. Moody, Billy Sunday, and today Billy Graham are remembered. It is not surprising that Latin American evangelicalism, born largely in the heat and thanks to the pioneering effort of the North American Church, has always fallen to the temptation of copying the same patterns, reducing ‘evangelism’ to a function that can be called mimetic: of imitation.”

Without a doubt, if those preachers did their job well in those times, it was surely because they understood their cultures and knew how to enter into dialogue with them. We do them little favor when we only seek to imitate them in form and content.

The good news that we have to communicate must be incarnated in the culture of our time and our land in order to bear the fruit of justice. For this reason, as Latin Americans we are called to our own path of incarnation with our cultures. Evangelism is proclamation, but it is also incarnation. For this, our participation in the life of our cultures is indispensable.

On the contrary, the fundamentalist theology that has spread throughout Latin America has managed to live and practice the evangelistic task in fundamental terms of separation between faith and culture.

In Wesley we find a deep link between good news and culture. His concept of good news, deep and radical, led him to fight against the “execrable villainy of slavery,” and also to venture into the economy, health, and medicine, and to criticize those who transformed these tools given by God for the well-being of God’s children into personal gain. For Wesley, just as the Roman Terence mentioned, “nothing human was alien to him,” and we can add, neither was the non-human: for Wesley, animals and the entire creation enter in dialogue with the Good News of salvation. For Wesley, evangelism (although he never used that term) was to open the space for an enriching and salvific dialogue between God and all of his creation. He never thought of the good news as something to be imposed, on the contrary, “Think yourself, and let think. Use no constraint in matters of religion. Even those who are farthest out of the way never compel to come in by any other means than reason, truth, and love.” (Sermon 37, “The Nature of Enthusiasm).

The Uruguayan pastor Emilio Castro said, “The biggest obstacle to evangelism is the Church worried about its own existence. It would be amusing, if it were not pathetic, to see entire denominations preoccupied with completely secondary questions of form or doctrine…while revolutionary ferment rages in the streets and fields of Latin America.”

The good news of Jesus always seeks the horizons, not confinements. It is an encounter, not a hunt for candidates to be “converted.” And if the church remains self-absorbed and silent on this, “the stones will cry out.” It is time to find new questions to answer. That would be a promising start for a new church in Latin America.

Questions for reflection

1. If to evangelize you have to enter into dialogue with culture as Jesus did, what keys do you think the text of Phil 2: 5-11 gives us to understand Jesus' relationship with human culture?
2. How do you organize an evangelistic journey in light of these words of Wesley: “Beware you are not a fiery, persecuting enthusiast. Do not imagine that God has called you (just contrary to the spirit of Him you style your Master) to destroy men's lives, and not to save them. Never dream of forcing men into the ways of God. Think yourself, and let think. Use no constraint in matters of religion. Even those who are farthest out of the way never compel to come in by any other means than reason, truth, and love” (Sermon 37)?
3. If the context of the Great Commission should be the rest of the gospel of Matthew, look for characteristics to carry this good news today in the following three passages:
   Matt. 5: 1-12
   Matt 12: 1-8
   Matt 15: 21-28

Pablo Oviedo: The Challenge of a Mission that Troubles

Today's post is by Rev. Lic. Pablo G. Oviedo. Rev. Oviedo is a pastor of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Argentina and Professor of Theology at Universidad del Centro Educativo Latinoamericano (UCEL). It originally appeared (in Spanish) on the website of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Argentina (IEMA) as part of a series organized by the Centro Metodista de Estudios Wesleyanos (CMEW). It appears here in translation with the author's permission and with the assistance of CMEW.

In this series of essays on the challenges facing Latin American Methodism, a key dimension is the theological vision of mission. We are led to review it even more when one of the most dangerous concepts that has managed to implant neoliberalism in our societies is that of “common sense,” that is, the uncritical acceptance of what is given or of what is “politically correct” since it is accepted as truth by many or by the majority.

Common sense in mission?

As has been said, “common sense is the most common of the senses” and leads us to accept the established or the obvious without accepting other alternatives or encouraging us to question. There are many social researchers who call us to question common sense, even when today many of the digital and communication media take care of increasing it.

In this direction, the apostle Paul reminds us in his letter to the Romans chapter 12:2, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Mission is a divine action, not of the church. Mission is Missio Dei. The church participates in the same work of God in the world, work that seeks to save and liberate humanity and creation from all oppressions. The task of the church, as sent, is to see, hear, call, guide, point, help, incarnate, and show solidarity as part of the testimony of God's work. Mission points towards the horizon of the kingdom of God. Mission demands leaving the church building. It is letting ourselves be challenged by what is happening beyond our congregations and involving the church with those who today suffer the effects of the globalization of the financial system of Mammon and its injustices: racial, gender, socio-economic, etc.

We start from the reality of this Latin American continent, which nominally mostly considers itself “Christian,” but which is the most unequal region in the world.

Let's look at just a few dimensions on which Wesley enlightens us. He does not give us recipes but only tools to reflect together. What is the mission that God entrusts to us today? How do we testify to Jesus today? These are questions that we must answer personally and as a community.

Wesley and mission

As a general framework, we must say that for John Wesley the mission of the church was the reason for the existence of the church, both in its institutional life and in its movement dynamics.

In this framework, his statement “The world is my parish” is understood, one that expressed the purpose of the work that God was doing in his time, not to form a new sect, but to reform the nation, in particular the church, and to spread scriptural holiness over the land.

A first example where Wesley did not accommodate the common sense of his time, was in open-air preaching. This event forever changed the movement that was beginning. Some believe that the key day of Methodism was April 2, 1739, in Bristol and not just May 24, 1738, in Aldersgate Street. According to Wesley, that day he decided to be “more vile,” to preach in the open air and to incarnate himself in the struggles of his people.

He reports in his diary: “At four in the afternoon, I submitted to be more vile and proclaimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation, speaking from a little eminence in a ground adjoining to the city, to about three thousand people. The Scripture on which I spoke was this… ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.’”

Using the text of Luke 4 was inspired, since this event not only started the movement from the four walls of the temples, but also interwove it and embodied it in the struggles of the workers in general and of the miners, who would be protagonists of the Methodist movement. In this sense, Methodism became the religion of the incipient industrial societies and adopted a critical attitude towards the instrumental reason of industrial society. Methodist Christians were among others, founders of trade unions and political parties, social activists and fighters against slavery. If Wesley had relied on “common sense,” he would never have gone to Bristol to preach in the open air.

If Latin American Methodism, which was at the forefront in the fight for secular laws and individual liberties at the end of the 19th century, a pioneer in the ecumenical movement in the mid-20th century, and in the fight against dictatorships and for the defense of human rights in the 70s and 80s, would have followed common sense, it would not have generated these experiences and testimonies of mission. How do our preaching, liturgies, and spirituality express the struggles, the needs of our peoples, and the liberating will of our God?

A second example in which Wesley did not follow the criteria of his time was in relation to economics. Although Wesley was loyal to the King, he strongly criticized the foundations that supported the empire. In relation to this, he wrote his article “Thoughts on the Present Scarcity of Provisions” of 1773. This article arises from the terrible socio-economic reality that England was experiencing towards the end of the 18th century: large rises in prices of essential foods, shortages of basic products, increasing poverty, and social degradation, contrasted with the accumulation of wealth by the new rich, the aristocracy, and the British nobility.

In the same address, Wesley poses the questions that arise from that reality: “Why are thousands of people starving, perishing for want, in every part of the nation? … But why have they no work?... But why is food so dear?” He answers that the State must play a primary role in the economy, because it is the one that must regulate and control to prevent prices from skyrocketing and monopolies from winning, while the popular masses do not participate in that distribution of wealth.

In another writing, sermon No. 61, “The Mystery of Iniquity,” Wesley gives a word to the church. It is a preaching that constitutes a brief treatise on history and theology on the dangers that lurk for the Body of Christ. He goes through all the Scriptures, then continues through the history of the church up to the present. He argues that the love of money, power, and honor are the main reasons that lead the church at different times in its history to its ruin.

He states: “As long as the Christians in any place were poor, they were devoted to God. While they had little of the world, they did not love the world; but the more they had of it, the more they loved it. … But still remember, riches have, in all ages, been the bane of genuine Christianity!”

This issue is key in our time, since we live under the power of a globalized world financial system that generates poverty and destroys creation in all the planet. And as Christians and Methodists, we must face that idolatrous reality. It calls us not only to prophetically denounce the “economic priests” and political governments that are complicit in it, but also to review our priorities in mission, so that our mission objectives and programs are not governed by the love of money, success, or power that is the undoing of the church, as Wesley reminds us.

Another example contrary to “common sense” Wesley marks through the phrase, “Religion must not go from the greatest to the least, or the power would appear to be of men.” (See his diary on May 21, 1764; in 1783, he says it again in his diary.)

For Wesley, “from the greatest to the least” would correspond to the wisdom of the world that is foolishness to God, so that the glory is not for men but for God. It is a radical principle, which is drawn from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians 1:28. “God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are.”

It is urgent to take into account this vision of decolonization and assertion of the dignity of those who have been excluded or subdued in the mission of the church, “the least.”

This helps us clear up the false dichotomy between evangelism and prophetic social action, or between “compassionate conservatism” and structural assistance programs.

Seeing the works of mercy as means of grace and not works of paternalistic charity changes everything.

The grace that emerges from new ways of relating to God and other people leads us to a new perspective. In such an individualistic context as the one in which we live, the mere fact of seeking an encounter with the other experiences a new creation.

Being able to live the mission not “from top to bottom” but from the “mutuality” that the Spirit creates, in diversity and equality, is in itself transformative.

“Unless we begin to live our lives mutually and without wanting to control each other in our relationships with God and with each other, the new creation will be just another pious illusion, and we are back where we started.” (Joerg Rieger, Grace Under Pressure: Negotiating the Heart of the Methodist Traditions (Buenos Aires, Aurora, 2015 p. 29) [Quotation translated from the Spanish version].

In other words, a priority of the mission of God today means returning to the works of mercy in a renewed way. Especially service together with others in need renews us in our works of piety, in our relationship with God, and prophetically makes injustice visible.

The mission of the Christian faith today in Latin America is to do it from the margins. God's design for the world is not to create another world but to recreate what God has already created in love and wisdom. Jesus began his ministry by stating that to be filled with the Spirit is to set the oppressed free, to restore sight to the blind, and to announce the coming of the kingdom of God (Luke 4:16-18, the same text that Wesley chose in Bristol).

He undertook the fulfillment of his mission by opting for those who are on the margins of society, and not from a paternalistic charity, but with the aim of challenging and transforming everything that denies life, including the cultures and systems that generate and sustain widespread poverty, discrimination and dehumanization, and exploit and destroy people and the land. Mission from the margins is a call to understand the complexities of global power dynamics, systems, and structures and local contextual realities. So, mission from the margins invites Christian churches to rethink and sense mission as a vocation inspired by the Spirit of God, working for a world in which fullness of life is possible for every person.

Assuming this hermeneutic-theological key of mission from the margins pushes us to encounters of grace and mercy with those who also evangelize us, since they are the face of the crucified and risen Jesus who comes to meet us, to transform us. And in that meeting, claim all the faces and excluded or subordinate groups such as indigenous peoples, women in their fight for gender equality and against gender-based violence, creation as a mistreated common home, and so much more.

In these times of dispute over the Latin American Methodist identity, we dream of a Methodism guided by the Spirit of Jesus the Christ, which troubles us in our “common sense” and allows us to build communities of mission, alternatives to the dominant spirit of our time. So be it.

Questions for reflection

1. What is “common sense” in the mission of God? How do we look for it and interpret it?
2. What does it mean to start with mission from the margins? Why should we do so? What is the biblical theological key?
3. How do we connect the affirmation, “Being able to live the mission not ‘from top to bottom’ but from the ‘mutuality’ that the Spirit creates, in diversity and equality, is in itself transformative,” with our ecclesial practices?

Daniel Bruno: An Anti-ecumenical Methodism?

Today’s post is by Rev. Daniel A. Bruno of The Argentine Methodist Church. It was originally written as a Facebook post for CMEW (El Centro Metodista de Estudios Wesleyanos – The Methodist Center for Wesleyan Studies of The Argentine Methodist Church, in English translation). It is translated by David W. Scott with assistance from Facebook Translate and republished here with permission.

"A phantom travels Latin America, the ghost of anti-Ecumenism." This paraphrase of that old manifesto may help synthesize the worrying situation which is traversing the evangelical world in Latin America and unfortunately a good part of Methodism too.

Large and historic Methodist churches on our continent are descending from a pioneering path of ecumenical leadership to lock themselves in an atmosphere of intolerant self-pleasure against the different.

No doubt, this phantom doesn't come alone. It is part of "a climate of the time," a conservative, intolerant wave that affects all walks of social, cultural, economic and of course also religious life of our region.

The strange thing for Methodism is that, having a rich history that points from its origins to a path of opening of eyes and of mind, today it intends to twist the obvious with conservative and orthodox stances with which Wesley would never agree.

We will shortly point out some of those characteristics of Wesleyan thought that made it different amidst an atmosphere of intolerance that persisted from the previous century and against which Wesley wanted to fight.

In a wide array of sermons and treaties, Wesley refers to “thinking and letting thinking,” applied to various aspects of Christian life. We’ll briefly stop on Sermon 39, “The Catholic Spirit,” which could well be translated as “The Ecumenical Spirit.”

Wesley takes as his base the text of 2 Kings 10:15 where Jehu meets Jehonadab son of Rekab and instead of reprimanding him for certain worship practices not shared by Jehu (see Jeremiah 35), he only asks him, “Is your heart as mine?” “Then give me your hand.”

Wesley also had his "climate of the time," but he managed to avoid it. The 17th century was the scene of fierce wars and bloodbaths for religious matters. Religious wars had divided and separated theologically and ecclesiastically a myriad of Christian expressions. In Wesley’s time, that remorse of the past had led to building great walls of containment both in doctrinal and ecclesiastical practices and regulations to keep churches and estranged groups separate and “conflict free” within the same church or between different denominations.

In this context, in 1750, Wesley published Sermon 39, after he and his preachers had experienced misunderstanding and persecution by the leaders of the Anglican Church. Wesley emphasized that persecution arose from lack of tolerance, and one of the reasons was the absence of freedom of thought in the Church. Wesley says:

“Every wise man, therefore, will allow others the same liberty of thinking which he desires they should allow him; and will no more insist on their embracing his opinions, than he would have them to insist on his embracing theirs. He bears with those who differ from him, and only asks him with whom he desires to unite in love that single question, ‘Is thy heart right, as my heart is with thy heart?’”

Wesley is clearly not making a call to single thought (orthodox), but neither, on the other extreme, to doctrinal laissez faire, laissez passer. The oneness he seeks is not at the level of doctrines or customs, where, he admits, everyone can hold that which he finds most true. The oneness he seeks is found on the human level of love and tolerance.

This attitude entails a double challenge, on the one hand, that holding one's own ideas demands a constant attitude of self-criticism, because “although every man necessarily believes that every particular opinion which he holds is true; yet can no man be assured that all his own opinions, taken together, are true. Nay, every thinking man is assured they are not, seeing humanum est errare et nescire: "To be ignorant of many things, and to mistake in some, is the necessary condition of humanity." This, therefore, he is sensible, is his own case. He knows, in the general, that he himself is mistaken; although in what particulars he mistakes, he does not, perhaps he cannot, know.” And on the other hand, this attitude demands respect for the other, although they are considered mistaken. This would prevent what Wesley would call the “inquisition,” that sectarian and condemnatory attitude that was the origin of the bloodiest and most embarrassing passages in church history.

“We may, secondly, observe,” Wesley claims, “that here is no inquiry made concerning Jehonadab’s mode of worship; although it is highly probable there was, in this respect also, a very wide difference between them.... Nor has any creature power to constrain another to walk by his own rule. God has given no right to any of the children of men thus to lord it over the conscience of his brethren; but every man must judge for himself, as every man must give an account of himself to God.”

All of this invites us to think about the habits and attitudes that we, as individuals and as the church, adopt in the face of differences. We must recognize that, at the beginning of the twentieth century, almost all Latin American Methodisms did not have this sermon in mind at all when they made the controversy against Catholicism a battle for ideas, for membership, and territory.

Neither do certain Methodisms that abandon ecumenism and deny both “thinking”, in both free action and criticism of reason, and “letting think”, as an action of tolerance in the face of difference, have this sermon in mind today.

Without a doubt, Wesley's tremendous phrase: " God has given no right to any of the children of men thus to lord it over the conscience of his brethren," should be a guide to help revise our affirmations, our judgments and prejudices.

It's a call to the churches to return to preaching a gospel of grace that frees. It is also a call to people to defend their right to a free conscience, freedom of conscience that should not be feared as a threat to the church, but on the contrary, value it as a loving gift from God.

When the subjectivities of peoples are increasingly manipulated by powerful media corporations creating false realities, this Wesleyan assertion is good news to be preached and an inalienable human right to be defended.

In this sense, the "catholic spirit" is not exhausted in good relations with brothers and sisters in faith who think differently, but advances through territories of global ecumenical values, both in the religious field, as well as scientific, ethical, and politic fields.

In times of the resurgence of conservative fanaticism, yesterday and today, Wesley, in his Sermon 37 “The Nature of Enthusiasm” advises us not to act like the "enthusiasts" who are persecuting others:

“God did not call us to destroy other people's lives but to save them. Don’t you ever think of forcing others to get into the ways of God. Neither, others should be forced to think like you. ... “Think and let think.” Do not force anyone on matters of religion, nor forces to enter by means other than reason, truth and love.”

Daniel Bruno: ¿Un metodismo antiecuménico?

La publicación de hoy es del Rev. Daniel A. Bruno de la Iglesia Metodista Argentina. Originalmente fue escrito como una publicación de Facebook para CMEW (El Centro Metodista de Estudios Wesleyanos). Se vuelve a publicar aquí con permiso.

“Un fantasma recorre América latina, el fantasma del antiecumenismo”, esta paráfrasis de aquel viejo Manifiesto tal vez ayude a sintetizar la preocupante situación por la que está transitando el mundo evangélico en América Latina y lamentablemente buena parte del metodismo también.

Grandes iglesias metodistas históricas de nuestro continente están desandando un camino pionero de liderazgo ecuménico para encerrarse en una atmósfera de autoplacer intolerante a lo distinto.

Sin duda, este fantasma no viene solo. Es parte de “un clima de época”, una ola conservadora, intolerante que afecta todos los ámbitos de la vida social, cultural, económica y claro también religiosa de nuestra región.

Lo extraño para el metodismo es que, teniendo una rica historia que señala desde sus orígenes un camino de apertura de mirada y de mente, hoy se pretenda torcer lo evidente con posturas conservadoras y ortodoxas con las que Wesley jamás hubiese acordado.

Brevemente señalaremos algunas de esas características del pensamiento wesleyano que lo hizo distinto en medio de una atmósfera de intolerancia que perduraba del siglo anterior y contra la cual Wesley quería combatir.

En una amplia cantidad de sermones y tratados, Wesley se refiere al “pensar y dejar pensar”, aplicados a diversos aspectos de la vida cristiana. Nos detendremos brevemente en el sermón 39 “El espíritu católico”, el cual bien podría ser traducido como “El espíritu ecuménico”.

Wesley toma como base el texto de 2 Reyes 10, 15 donde Jehú se encuentra con Jonadab (recabita) y en lugar de reprocharle ciertas prácticas culticas no compartidas por Jehú (ver Jeremías 35), este solo le pregunta: “¿Es tu corazón como el mío?”, “Entonces, dame tu mano”.

Wesley también tuvo su “clima de época” pero supo evitarlo. El siglo 17 fue escenario de feroces guerras, y baños de sangre por asuntos religiosos, las guerras religiosas habían dividido y separado teológica y eclesialmente a un sinnúmero de expresiones cristianas. En la época de Wesley, aquella rémora del pasado había llevado a construir grandes murallas de contención tanto doctrinal como de prácticas y reglamentaciones eclesiales para mantener separadas y “sin conflicto” a las iglesias y a grupos distanciados dentro de una misma iglesia o entre denominaciones distintas.

En este contexto, en 1750, Wesley publicó el sermón 39, después de que él y sus predicadores habían experimentado la incomprensión y la persecución de los líderes de la Iglesia Anglicana. Wesley enfatizó que la persecución surgía de la falta de tolerancia, y una de las razones fue la ausencia de libertad de pensamiento en la Iglesia. Dice Wesley:

“Toda persona sabia por lo tanto permitirá a otros la misma libertad de pensamiento que desea que ellos le permitan; y no insistirá en que ellos abracen sus opiniones más que lo que admitirá que ellos insistan para que él abrace las de ellos. Tolera a quienes difieren de él, y solamente plantea a aquel con quien desea unirse en amor una sola pregunta: ‘¿Es recto tu corazón, como el mío es recto con el tuyo?’”

Es claro que Wesley no está haciendo un llamado al pensamiento único (ortodoxia), pero tampoco, en el otro extremo, a un laissez faire, laissez passer doctrinal. La unidad que busca no está en el nivel de las doctrinas o las costumbres, las cuales, admite, cada uno puede sostener la que le parece más verdadera. La unidad que busca se encuentra en el nivel humano, del amor y la tolerancia.

Esta actitud conlleva un desafío doble, por un lado, que sostener las ideas propias demanda una constante actitud de autocrítica, porque las ideas propias hay que sostenerlas “salvo que usando la razón descubras que están equivocadas”, y por otro lado el respeto por las del otro/otra, aunque se las considere equivocadas. Esto evitaría lo que Wesley llamará la “inquisición”, esa actitud sectaria y condenatoria que fue origen de los pasajes más sangrientos y vergonzantes en la historia de la iglesia.

“En segundo lugar, podemos observar”, afirma Wesley, “que no hay ninguna inquisición acerca del modo de adoración de Jonadab, aunque es muy probable que hubiera en este aspecto una amplia diferencia entre ellos….ninguna criatura posee poder alguno para constreñir a otro a andar según sus propias normas. Dios no ha otorgado derecho alguno a ninguno de los humanos a enseñorearse así de la conciencia de sus hermanos, sino que cada uno debe juzgar por sí mismo, pues cada uno de nosotros dará a Dios cuenta de sí.”

Todo esto nos invita a pensar sobre las formas y actitudes que, como personas y como iglesia, adoptamos frente a las diferencias. Debemos reconocer que, a principios de siglo XX, casi todos los metodismos latinoamericanos no tuvieron para nada presente este sermón cuando hicieron de la controversia contra el catolicismo una batalla por las ideas, por la feligresía y por el territorio.

Tampoco lo tienen presente hoy ciertos metodismos que abandonan el ecumenismo y reniegan tanto del pensar, en tanto acción libre y critica de la razón, como del dejar pensar, en tanto acción de tolerancia ante lo diferente.

Sin duda, la tremenda frase de Wesley: “Dios no ha otorgado derecho alguno a ninguno de los humanos a enseñorearse así de la conciencia de sus hermanos”, debería ser una guía que ayude a revisar nuestras afirmaciones, nuestros juicios y prejuicios.

Es un llamado a las iglesias para volver a predicar un evangelio de gracia que libera. Es también un llamado a los pueblos a defender su derecho a una conciencia libre, libertad de conciencia que no debe ser temida como amenaza por la iglesia, sino por el contrario, valorarla como un don amoroso de Dios.

Cuando las subjetividades de los pueblos se encuentran cada vez más manipuladas por poderosas empresas mediáticas creadoras de realidades falsas, esta afirmación wesleyana es buena noticia a ser predicada y un derecho humano inalienable a ser defendido.

En este sentido “el espíritu católico” no se agota en las buenas relaciones con hermanos/as en la fe que piensan distinto, sino que avanza por territorios de valores ecuménicos globales, tanto en el ámbito religioso, como también en el científico, ético y político.

Para los tiempos de resurgimiento de fanatismos conservadores, de ayer y de hoy Wesley en su tratado contra los entusiastas, aconseja que no actuemos como los “entusiastas” que andan persiguiendo a los demás.

Dios no nos llamó a destruir la vida de los demás sino a salvarla. “Nunca se te ocurra forzar a otros a entrar en los caminos de Dios.” Tampoco, se debe forzar a otros a pensar como tu. … “Piensa y deja pensar. No obligues a nadie sobre cuestiones de religión, ni los fuerces a entrar por medios que no sean la razón, la verdad y el amor”.

The World Is Not My Parish

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

One of the most beloved John Wesley quotes for many of those engaged in international Methodism is “I look upon all the world as my parish,” which is often recast as “The world is my parish.” The quote continues, “Thus far I mean, that, in whatever part of it I am, I judge it meet, right, and my bounden duty to declare unto all that are willing to hear, the glad tidings of salvation.”

I recognize that this is me being contrarian, but I think there are issues in the unreflective use of this quotation, and I want to explain why.

First is the issue of historical intent. The line comes from a letter by Wesley, excerpted in his journal in an entry dated June 11, 1739. The full letter and the context of the journal entry make it clear that Wesley is trying to justify to himself and the recipient of the letter his irregular (by Church of England standards) practices in service of leading the Methodist revival movement, most notably his decision to preach in parishes where he was not the priest in charge. Despite some rhetorical references to other areas of the world, Wesley was not at all talking about international mission.

Actually, other than his very early and rather painful experience in Georgia, Wesley was not that interested in international mission. He was focused on the revival in England. He was initially reluctant to send preachers outside of England. He was skeptical of the international missionary enthusiasm of Thomas Coke, the real father of international Methodist mission.

And that’s okay. We don’t need Wesley to have been a strong supporter of international mission to see that practice as genuinely Methodist. We certainly don’t need to take Wesley quote out of context to feel that there is value in international mission connections among Methodists today.

But the real issue I have with the quote is not the way in which it is used outside of its historical context. The real issue I have is in how the possessive pronoun used – my – has the potential to reinforce some unfortunate tendencies among US Methodists.

Put succinctly, if the world is my parish, then my understanding of the world is centered on me, my ministry, and my actions. It is a view of the religious landscape of the world in which I am the most important actor.

This sort of attitude on behalf of Western Christians is exactly what colonial mindsets are made of. If Western Christians regard their own ministry as the most important thing about global Methodism, if the rest of the world is just a screen onto which to project their own proclamation of the gospel, that ignores and devalues the deep and real faith of non-Western Methodist (and other Christian) leaders and church members. Westerners thinking of the world as their parish perpetuates notions of Westerners as the heroic saviors of the rest of the world.

That does not necessarily mean that there is no valid insight from or application of this Wesley quote. Wesley was saying that mission ultimately overrides structure. This is a point that I wholeheartedly agree with, and this blog has posted numerous articles that make that point, both by me and by others.

But if we accept that mission trumps structure, then we must ask “whose mission”? Here, I point to the slogan Thomas Kemper popularized among United Methodists: “Mission is from everywhere to everywhere.” In this day and age, mission cannot be just regarded as the mission of Westerners or of US Americans.

Nor should it be thought of as an individual’s mission. Mission is God’s mission, which God calls Christians to participate in as a body, not merely as individuals. We each have unique roles in God’s mission, but mission as a calling is shared.

Therefore, if we are going to talk about a world parish, we should say, “The world is our parish.” Yes, let us lift up the value of international mission connections. Let us affirm that mission is more important than structure. But let us recognize that God’s mission is one to which Christians from around the world are called to participate in together.

And, we can also look for other quotes to inform our understanding of and imaginations about our participation in God’s mission. The quote from early Methodism that I most like to use for mission is from Thomas Coke, the person most responsible for early international Methodist mission efforts. He said, “Oceans are nothing to God, and they should be nothing to his people, in respect to the affection they bear one another.”

This quote is perhaps less snappy than “The world is my parish,” but Coke was actually talking about international mission here. Moreover, this quote emphasizes mutual love and affection among Christians, rather than centering one’s view of the world on one’s own sense of ministry. Affirming that “Oceans cannot limit the affection we have for one another” emphasizes the relationship and mutuality that is at the heart of modern missiology.

Ultimately, a good Methodist understanding of mission goes beyond any quick slogan. It looks to inspirations from our Methodist heritage, including the ministries of the Wesleys, Coke, Asbury, and other early leaders, but it also takes seriously what Christians collectively have learned about mission in the several centuries since. Nor does it need to collapse our contemporary understandings of mission with that of our eighteenth-century predecessors. It recognizes that God’s calling continually pushes our understandings of church practices in new, more expansive directions, which after all, was Wesley’s point, wasn’t it?

Sung Il Lee: How Shall They Believe?

Today's post is by Rev. Dr. Sung Il Lee. Rev. Dr. Lee is a missionary of Global Ministries and Missionary Practitioner in Residence at Candler School of Theology.

What does Wesley’s understanding of religions, as I described in my last post, mean for our practice of mission and evangelism? Wesley is concerned that “there are many heathen nations in the world that have no intercourse either by trade or nay other means with Christians of any kind” (#63. §24). Wesley, quoting Romans 10:14: “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” emphasizes how God miraculously sends his gospel message to the unevangelized in the form of a negative question:

Yea, but is not God able to send them? Cannot he raise them up, as it were, out of the stones? And can he ever want means of sending them? No: Were there no other means, he can “take them by his Spirit,” as he did Ezekiel. (Ezek. 3:12) or by his angel, as he did Philip, (Acts 8) and set them down wheresoever it pleaseth him. Yea, he can find out a thousand ways to foolish man unknown. And he surely will: For heaven and earth may pass away; but his word shall not pass away.” (#63. §24).

In relation to this, the unevangelized cannot be blamed for failing to accept Christ, since they have never heard of him. So, Wesley believes in an impartial God who “never, in any age or nation, ‘left himself’ quite ‘without a witness’ in the hearts of men; but while he gave them rain and fruitful seasons imparted some imperfect knowledge of the Giver. He is the true light that still, in some degree, enlighten every man that comes into the world” (#113. The Difference Between Walking by Sight and Walking by Faith. §9). Here Wesley carefully expresses the possibility of salvation for the unevangelized but leaves the possibility of salvation to their own Master, saying:

Nor do I conceive that any man living has a right to sentence all the heathen and Mahometan world to damnation. It is far better to leave them to him that made them, and who is “the Father of the spirits of all flesh;” who is the God of the Heathens as well as the Christians, and who hateth nothing that he hath made. (#125. On Living without God. §14).

In another sermon, Wesley said that “if there be no true love of our neighbor that springs from the love of God, … does it not follow that the whole heathen world is excluded from all possibility of salvation?” (#91. On Charity. VI. §3). On this basis, he argues:

I believe the merciful God regards the lives and tempers of men more than their ideas. I believe he respects the goodness of the heart rather than the clearness of the head; and that if the heart of a man be filled (by the grace of God, and the power of his Spirit) with the humble, gentle, patient love of God and man, God will not cast him into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels because his ideas are not clear, or because his conceptions are confused. Without holiness, I own, no man shall see the Lord; but I dare not add, or clear ideas. (#125. §15).

Chester Gillis evaluates that even though concern for salvation is unique to religion, to John Wesley, “ethics, moral discourse and behavior, and ritual are not exclusively the domain of religion.”[1]

In the light of Wesley’s views, when it comes to Christian witness in a pluralist world, I hold the view that if we put our trust in Christ, we can listen to others without fear of losing our faith. And we can share with them the new life that we ourselves have found.[2] The way Wesley witnessed to the skeptic in his days gives us an example of how to share our testimonies with people of other faiths today. Wesley urges us to avoid replying with rational arguments, because even if rational arguments were successful in convincing, they would nonetheless leave the skeptic imprisoned within the realm of previous experience. Instead, he told us to let “experience speak to experience.”[3]

Wesley invited the skeptic to attend the meeting of a local society and become a member of a class, which proved to be the best apologetic method, because it invited a skeptic to be open to a new community of experience. Runyon said that Wesley shared his daily experiences of God's presence in his life and appealed to the testimonies of members of society, which opened up the existence of a reality where rational arguments can be met in reality. “Testimony functioned as a temptation to believe. Experience speaks to experience, not in some arbitrary way but as a catalyst that may trigger a response in those willing to risk participating in the same reality.”[4] And when participation in spiritual reality happens, it is experienced as self-certification. “Reason can then function … to compare the new faith-relation with the understanding of other members of the community, with the wider tradition, and with the Scriptures. In this process faith will grow and be enriched and the range of experience expanded.”[5]

In conclusion, I like Wesley’s humble attitude toward other religions, and I love to see his evangelistic enthusiasm that nevertheless leaves the possibility of salvation in other religions in the hands of God, beyond the limits of evangelism and mission. I like to interpret his inclusivistic attitudes as the enthusiasm of an evangelist who has the heart of Christ, who wants all men to be saved and know the truth of God.

In writing these articles, what I paid most attention to was doing my best not to let my intentions or greed distort what Wesley intended. In the case of theologians who insist on dialogue with other religions, I have often experienced that their intentions or greed distort their understanding of someone else’s intentions.

After being a Georgia missionary, the young Wesley returned to England to become a missional leader who revitalized the nominal Church of England. It should be remembered that Wesley considered that, in any era, more harmful than any other religion was Christianity that had lost its moral character (holy tempers), that is, a nominal Christianity that was too institutionalized to give room for the Holy Spirit to work.

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[1] Chester Gillis, Pluralism: A New Paradigm for Theology (Louvain: Peeters Press, 1993), 131.

[2] Paul G. Hiebert, Anthropological Insights for Missionaries (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1985), 224.

[3] Theodore Runyon, The New Creation: John Wesley’s Theology Today (Nashville: Abingdon, 1998), 158.

[4] Ibid., 158

[5] Ibid., 158

Sung Il Lee: Wesley’s Attitude towards Other Religions

Today's post is by Rev. Dr. Sung Il Lee. Rev. Dr. Lee is a missionary of Global Ministries and Missionary Practitioner in Residence at Candler School of Theology.

In Wesley’s sermons, I found that his concept of “religion” was very different from the term we use today in missiological and theological circles. Philip R. Meadows confirmed that: “The idea of ‘true religion’ has specific content, informed by the Christian scriptures … So. Wesley asserts that as there is one God, so there is one religion and one happiness for all men. God never intended there should be any more; and it is not possible there should.”[1] Thompson correctly says that Wesley “combined the Catholic accent of ‘work’ and the Reformation emphasis of ‘faith alone’ into ‘faith working in love.’ Thus, Wesley transformed Christianity from the personal and philosophical exercise of a few into a practical and public witness of many for Jesus Christ.”[2] Wesley concluded “that true religion, in the very sense of it, is nothing short of holy tempers. Consequently, all other religion, whatever name it bears, whether pagan, Mahometan, Jewish, or Christian; and whether popish or Protestant, Lutheran, or Reformed, without these is lighter and vanity itself” (#91. On Charity. III. §12).

According to Randy Maddox, Wesley was not only acquainted with the comparative studies of the four major religions—Christianity, Judaism, Mohametanism, and paganism, but also tended to organize religions in these categories.[3] Wesley sorted faith into several categories: materialist faith, deist faith, the faith of a Jew, and that of a heathen or Mahometan. In relation to the faith of Jew and that of a heathen, he viewed them as the “faith of servant.” “There is no reason why you should be satisfied with the faith of a materialist, a heathen, or a deist; nor indeed with that of a servant” (#106 On Faith. I. §13). However, he said that “we cannot doubt that many of them, … still retain (notwithstanding many mistakes) that faith that worked by love” (#106 On Faith. II. §6).

Wesley had two different attitudes toward other religions: First, he judged religions in terms of morality. In relation to this, all religions, including Christianity, have inward experience and outward practice. Outward practices are supported by inward experiences of religions. “True Christianity cannot exist without both inward experience and outward practice of justice, mercy, and truth; and this alone is given in morality” (#125 On Living Without God. §14).

Thompson mentions that Wesley placed unchanged Christians and heathens on the same level. In other words, he gave equal level of standing between those who experience the holy regardless of their religion.[4] Wesley affirmed that this mystery of iniquity made these Christians little better than heathen nations, asking “have they more justice, mercy, or truth, than the inhabitants of China or Indostan?” (#61. §29) and that it was one of the “causes of the inefficacy of Christianity” (#116. Causes of the Inefficacy of Christianity). In terms of morality, he judged with careful observations that there is no superiority of Christianity over other religions, for he saw how Western Christianity was far from true Scriptural Christianity, in that “true Christianity cannot exist without both the inward experience and outward practice of justice, mercy, and truth; and this alone is given in morality” (#125. On Living Without God. §14).

Many of us do not want to compare in this way, but Wesley rooted out the sprout of pride from unchanged Christians. During Wesley's experience as a missionary in Georgia, he observed deeply how formal and nominal Christians’ low morality and atrocities toward Indians and black slaves were hindering the progress of the gospel. Wesley deplored the lower morality of many so-called Christians more so than that of people of other religions. Here we see how Wesley thinks importantly of Christian sanctification.

Second, Wesley viewed religions in terms of revelation. In the sermon entitled The Case of Reason Impartiality Considered, he argued that “the foundation of true religion stands upon the oracles of God. It built upon the prophets and apostles, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone” (#70 The Case of Reason Impartially Considered, I. §6). According to Wesley, other religion also has truth, and God works in other religion,[5] though Wesley could be critical of other religion’s understanding of truth as well. In Sermon #63 The General Spread of the Gospel, Wesley viewed Islam as “miserable delusion,” “a disgrace to human nature,” and “a plague to all that are under their iron yoke” (#63. §3). He also placed “the faith of a Jew above that of a heathen or Mohometan” (#63. §5), but he judged that “the veil is still upon their hearts when Moses and the Prophets are read” (#63. §6).

Still, Wesley does not argue for an absolute discontinuity between Christianity and other religions. Instead, he emphasizes the “imperfection of human knowledge” (#69. The Imperfection of Human Knowledge). “Although we are well apprised of this general truth that all things are governed by the providence of God, … how little do we comprehend of God’s providential dealings with them?” (#69. II. §3). In addition, the mystery of iniquity “still hardens their heart, and still blinds their eyes, lest at any time the light of the glorious gospel should break in upon them.” (#106. On Faith. I. §6). The gods of this world “make the heart of this people waxed gross, their ears dull of hearing and their eyes closed” (#106. I. §6). For this reason, creation, including religions, is groaning to perfection. Both the imperfection of human knowledge and the works of the gods of this world keep them under the veil upon their hearts in order not to know the mystery of Christ, even though prevenient grace is available to all equally through God’s creation.

Here I want to search an answer from Wesley for a question: “What do other religions make to stand upon the oracles of God, that is, the foundation of true religion?” He surely did not draw a clear demarcation between Christian and other religions but made it clear that “true religion is heart religion, a religion of love, which Wesley describes as scriptural Christianity or possessing a faith that worketh by love.”[6] Most importantly, he emphasizes the religion of the heart as the essentials of true religion. In “On Charity,” Wesley concludes “that true religion, in the very essence of it, is nothing short of holy tempers. Consequently, all other religion, whatever name it bears, whether Pagan, Mahometan, Jewish, or Christian; and whether Popish or Protestant, Lutheran or Reformed; without these, is lighter than vanity itself (#91. III. §12). In terms of emphasizing the religion of the heart, the religion of holiness, Wesley is open to interreligious dialogue.

Wesley puts no emphasis on institutional religion, but rather on the inner religion or the religion of the heart. In general, looking at Wesley's understanding of religion in its own way, perhaps Wesley viewed from the point of view of revelation that true religion is a religion that not only knows the miserable reality of humanity and provides a solution, but also helps to restore the image of God. Wesley seems to understand that a religion that does not know the reality of humanity and cannot offer a solution is a false religion “which does not imply the giving of the heart to God (#114. The Unity of the Divine Being. §15), and a religion that knows the reality of humanity but cannot provide an exact solution is called a pseudo-religion. “If it does not lead to the recovery of the soul, even if it is called Christianity, it is just a false religion and pseudo-religion.”[7]

In my next post, I will describe what Wesley’s understanding of religion means for our practice of mission and evangelism.

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[1] Philip R. Meadows, “Candidates for Heaven: Wesleyan Resources for a Theology of Religions,” Wesleyan Theological Journal 35:1 (2000): 110.

[2] Nehemiah Thompson, “The Search for a Methodist Theology of Religious Pluralism.” In Ground for Understanding: Ecumenical Resources for Responses to Religious Pluralism, 93-106. Edited by S. Mark Heim (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 95.

[3] Randy L. Maddox, “Wesley as Theological Mentor: The Question of Truth or Salvation through Other Religions” Wesleyan Theological Journal 27 (1992): 7–29.

[4] Thompson, 99.

[5] Thompson, 106.

[6] Meadows, 110.

[7] Dong-whan Kim, “Original Sin,” 8/1/2017. http://www.sermon66.com/news_view.html?s=index&no=214841&s_id=4386.

Sung Il Lee: The Late John Wesley’s Understanding of Mission

Today's post is by Rev. Dr. Sung Il Lee. Rev. Dr. Lee is a missionary of Global Ministries and Missionary Practitioner in Residence at Candler School of Theology.

Having looked at the missiology of the “middle” Wesley, I would like to now examine the “late” John Wesley’s understanding of mission. I see 1767, the year Wesley published “A Plain Account of Christian Perfection,” as a watershed dividing “middle” Wesley and “late” Wesley. From the point of view of sanctification, the “late” Wesley's understanding of mission in a qualitative sense, including economic perfection, led to a more mature Methodist movement. In this post, I would like to deal with the qualitative characteristics of the Methodist missional movement.

In his journal, Wesley emphasized Christian perfection in "The Character of a Methodist," saying:

These are the same principles and practices of our sect; these are the marks of a true Methodist; that is, a true Christian, as I immediately after explain myself: ‘by these alone do those who are in derision so called desire to be distinguished from other men.’ (P. ii.) ‘By these marks do we labor to distinguish ourselves from those whose minds or lives are not according to the gospel of Christ.’ (p.12). (John Wesley 1951, 186)

The “late” Wesley’s emphasis on Christian perfection deepened his Methodist movement in two ways: One is that the qualitative transformation in domestic missions accelerated, saving Britain from the negative consequences of the French Revolution, a result of the Methodist movement bringing about socio-political and economic changes in Britain.

The other is that on September 4, 1771, John Wesley commissioned 26-year-old Francis Asbury and Richard Wright as American missionaries (Hong-ki Kim 2013, 193), and the era of American missions began. In this regard, the “late” Wesley saw mission as the transformative power to change persons as well as the world.

The nature of mission for Wesley must be understood in terms of how Wesley understood human beings and salvation. Wesley saw the Lord's "death as the only sufficient means of redeeming man from death eternal, and his resurrection as the restoration of us all to life and immortality" (Wesley, "Salvation by Faith," I.5). Sin caused a loss of relationship with God, but Wesley saw fallen man “as living, not now under a covenant of works, but under a covenant of grace” (Chong-nam Cho 1984, 257). And salvation through “justification by faith through grace” brought restoration of the broken relationship with God. Wesley articulated his concept of salvation in terms of relationship with the Lord by likening the process of salvation to a house. “Prevenient grace serves as the porch, justification as the door, and sanctification or holiness as the room of the house” (Runyon 1998, 27).

Original sin, in Wesley’s view, leads to both the temporal and spiritual death of humanity. “Holy love of God” (Wesley, "Justification by Faith," IV.1) always “‘comes before’(pre-venio) we are conscious that God is seeking us out” (Runyon 1991, 27). That is prevenient grace that reawakens the spiritual senses to let sinners hear the call of God and respond to salvation in terms of supernatural gift of God (Runyon 1998, 31-32). Since humanity inevitably commits sin, prevenient grace must now issue in what Wesley calls convincing grace and a more active role must be taken by the Holy Spirit in convicting men and women of their guilt in the sight of God. Conviction of sin and repentance lead to justification by grace through faith. In this sense, with the manifold operation of the Holy Spirit, Wesley understood mission as participation in the drama of God’s redemption. It purposes not only to “renew our hearts in the image of God” (Wesley, "Original Sin," III.5), but also "to reform the nation, especially the church, and to spread scriptural holiness." (Hong-ki Kim 2013, 153).

Wesley did not understand sin and salvation in solely individualistic terms, though. Wesley stressed that “Christianity is an essentially social religion” that cannot survive in isolation (Wesley, "Upon Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount IV," I.1). It is God’s work to change the lives of men and women. In this sense, Christians are called to live out their Christian testimonies in human society, comprised of good and evil persons (Hynson 1984, 118). Wesley regarded the spiritual relationship of Christians as analogous to the community of the Holy Spirit that “becomes a transforming community in the larger human society” (Ibid, 121).

According to Hynson, Wesley understood the task of the church as, first, “fostering the Christian life of its members through the means of grace it provides,” and second, “to stimulate the practice of love in all the relations of Christians to their neighbors outside the Church” (Hynson 1984, 128). In other words, “the church is marked by love… The moral demand of love is to regard every person as neighbor, to avoid partiality, and to act from the motive of concern.” (Ibid). As Jesus taught us to live out “the Christian lifestyle based upon a new motivation, not the old ‘eye for an eye’” (Ibid), the church as a missionary community cannot withhold the Good News from the world but is “toward conversion or transformation, not accommodation or capitulation. (Ibid, 128). Wesley’s “purpose in the Methodist societies was not to raise up a new church, but to reform the nation and the church and to spread scriptural holiness across the land” (Hynson 1984, 129).

By nature, Christians cannot be remained as isolated individuals. In the close relation between the individual and the society, the church can expect a series of chain reactions, like a domino theory, from the individual Christian. If each Christian applies his/her personal holiness to their social contexts, in which they can demonstrate Christian influence, the world gradually will become the kingdom of God.

Thus, changed individuals transform the world by their Christian influence and actions. As a channel of God’s blessing, “Whatever grace you have received of God may through you be communicated to others” (Runyon 1998, 163). The love of God should “flow through us to all the world’s creatures, especially to those in need and distress” (Ibid). In this sense, mission includes not only individual but also social dimensions. Runyon says, “Orthopathic experience expresses itself in orthopraxy as faith is at work in service. True Christianity cannot exist without both the inward experience and outward practice of justice, mercy, and truth” (Ibid, 164).

In "Upon Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount IV," Wesley made it clear that as a lamp cannot light the whole world and a handful of salt cannot prevent the rottenness in the whole world, there is a clear limitation of a Christian's influence in a society. However, a believer or a Christian community who “have need daily to retire from the world, at least morning and evening, to converse with God, to commune more freely with our Father which is in secret” (IV) can only be the “divine favor which is in you, to spread to whatsoever you touch; to diffuse itself, on every side, to all those among whom you are” (I.7). The reason is that Christianity is "essentially a social religion" (I. 1), when Christians communally "that every holy temper, and word, and work of yours, may have an influence on lo them also" (I.7). The intensity is increased, and the concentration of salty taste is naturally strengthened. It is sure that Wesley proclaimed this sermon with a prophetic conviction that as the collective “we,” the stronger the light of Christians, the saltier the Christian life, the more the corrupt and decayed British society, and even the whole world, will change and be transformed.

It is interesting to note how Wesley measured the degree to which society had been changed into a new social state. According to Jennings, “economics has a central place in Wesley’s project of transforming the nation and spreading scriptural holiness throughout the land” (1990, 15). Whether the enterprise of scriptural Christianity could be said to succeed or fail can be judged only by the transformation of the nation linked to economic issues. In this sermon, Wesley gave “three rules of gaining, saving, and giving ‘all you can’” (Jennings 1990, 165). With these rules, Wesley once lamented that “Methodists have proven all too willing to gain and even save but have failed utterly to give with the same willingness” (Jennings 1990, 165). These three rules certainly serve as one of the ways in which Wesley measures how Methodism transformed the nation.

In the awakening of the Wesleyan tradition, Holy Spirit-filled Christians in the community of the Spirit could transform the evils of society, liberate the oppressed from their bondage, and reform their organization. The revival movement recharged them to continuously work in the world. Without the power of the Holy Spirit, who can transform his/her society? No human beings have the power to change even bad habits by his/her own efforts. In conclusion, true revivals that impact mission fields to be transformed are God’s witness to urge unbelievers repent and believe in Jesus and to transform nominal Christians from selfish, self-centered lives to Christ-centered lives.

Works Cited:
Cho Chong-nam. 1984. “John Wesely’s View of Fallen Man” 248-264. In Theology of John Wesley. Seoul: Korean Christian Publishing House.
Hynson, Leon O. 1984. To Reform the Nation. Grand Rapids, MI: Francis Asbury Press of Zondervan Publishing.
Jackson, Thomas, editor. 1872 Edition. The Sermons of John Wesley. http://wordsofwesley.com/lib.cfm
Jennings, Jr. Theordore W. 1990. Good News to the Poor: John Wesley’s Evangelical Economics. Nashville, TN: Abingdon.
Kim Hong-ki. 2013. A Methodist Church History: From John Wesley to Henry Appenzeller. Seoul: KMC.
Runyon, Theodore. 1998. The New Creation: John Wesley’s Theology Today. Nashville: Abingdon.
Wesley, John. 1951. The Journal of John Wesley. Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library.