In Admiration of John Wesley and Methodism

Three hundred years ago, in 1725, John Wesley was ordained as a minister. Hardly anyone has been more instrumental in the spread of the Christian faith than Wesley. 

(John Wesley, c.1766)

Early on a February morning when John was five years old, a fire broke out in the rectory. All the large family except John, who was sleeping on the top floor, were able to flee to safety, and they all thought the boy had perished in the fire. But he was “miraculously” saved by escaping through a window.

John never forgot the significance of that event and not long before he died in 1791, he penned a statement he thought would be fitting for his grave marker. It began, “Here lieth the Body of John Wesley, A Brand plucked out of the burning.”*¹

The first chapter of a recent book about “John Wesley, the fearless evangelist,” begins with an account of that February 1709 fire. In the concluding paragraph of that chapter, the author writes,

In that nearly tragic event from his childhood, he saw a providential deliverance and the call on his life to help deliver those who would otherwise be engulfed in the spiritual flames of the wrath of God to come.*²

Wesley graduated from Christ Church, Oxford University in 1724. Then following in his father’s footsteps, at the age of 22 he was ordained as a minister in the Church of England in October 1725.

After his ordination, John wrote in his diary, “Leisure and I have taken leave of one another. I propose to be busy as long as I live.” And busy he was! During his lifetime, Wesley is said to have ridden 250,000 miles on horseback and to have preached over 40,000 sermons!

The most important event in Wesley’s spiritual life occurred on May 24, 1738, a month before his 35^th birthday. This was not long after he had returned to England with a strong sense of failure. In October 1735, he and his younger brother Charles had embarked as missionaries to the colony of Georgia.

Wesley was deeply impressed by the faith of the Moravian missionaries he met aboard the ships both going and returning from the “new world.” In contrast to the terror he felt when strong storms threatened the ships, the Moravian Christians were calmly singing hymns.*³

Back in England, Wesley sought out the Moravian Christian community on Aldersgate Street in London and went to one of their services on the evening of May 24. There he felt his heart “strangely warmed,” and that was the beginning of a “new” John Wesley.

Shortly thereafter, Wesley returned to Oxford and delivered a sermon titled "Salvation by Faith," based on Ephesians 2:8: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God" (NKJV).

Wesley’s preaching about salvation by faith alone was not well received by the Church of England (CoE). He soon experienced considerable opposition, especially after he began “field preaching” in 1739. The latter was preaching outside rather than in a “proper” CoE church building.

Wesley began to form small Methodist groups across England, but he never broke with the CoE. However, in 1784 the Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in the U.S. by Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury, and from the 1820s until 1967, Methodism was the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S.

For 240 years now, Methodism has had significant positive impact on the U.S. and countries around the world. It has been a leading force in evangelism by fueling religious revival and emphasizing personal faith and salvation.

Methodists in the U.S. have also been in the forefront of social reform, being deeply involved in social justice movements, including abolitionism, temperance, and women's rights.

According to their website (see here), the United Methodist Church is now

… a worldwide connection of about 10 million members in more than100 countries including Africa, Asia, Europe and the United States. United Methodists are people of God who share a common mission and values. The church and its members are called to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

Thank God for all the good done by John Wesley and Methodism!

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*¹ These words come from Zechariah 3:2 in the Old Testament. A more contemporary English translation renders these words as “a burning stick snatched from the fire” (NIV). Roy Hattersley (b. 1932) is a prominent British politician and author. Among his many books is The Life of John Wesley: A Brand from the Burning (2002).

*² These are the words of author Jake Hanson in his book Crossing the Divide (2016). The last ten words sound similar to Jonathan Edwards’s famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (1741), although I doubt that Wesley himself would have phrased it that way.

It is interesting to note, though, that Wesley, who undoubtedly became one of the greatest preachers and theologians in British history was born in June 1703, and Edwards, generally recognized as one of the greatest preachers and theologians in American history, was born in October 1703.

*³ The Moravian missionaries were sent by Herrnhut, the community of faith established by Nicolas Ludwig, Count von Zinzendorf in 1722. At that time, it was a part of Saxony in the Holy Roman Empire. It is now in Germany and roughly only ten miles from the borders of Poland and of Czechia.

The Moravian Church traces its beginning back to Jan Hus, the Czech reformer who was burned at the stake in 1415. The last part of my November 20, 2019, blog post was about Hus and ends with a reference to the founding of the Moravian Church in 1727.

Remembering Jonathan Edwards

Martin E. Marty, the eminent church historian, wrote earlier this week about the Sept. 26-28 conference feting Billy Graham. In his article, Marty averred that Graham is “on the Mt. Rushmore of Protestant American shapers such as Jonathan Edwards and Martin Luther King.”

Everyone knows who Graham and King are. But what about Edwards, who was born 310 years ago today, on October 5, 1703? (That was about four months after the birth of John Wesley, whose influence in England was perhaps even greater than Edwards’s in New England.)

The Connecticut-born Edwards is certainly worth remembering and honoring, even by those of us who don’t agree with some of his emphases.

About six weeks ago, I finished reading James Wm. McClendon’s book “Systematic Theology: Ethics” (1986). I was surprised when I found that “Sarah and Jonathan Edwards” is a chapter in that book. Jonathan and Sarah (Pierpont) married in 1727, when she was only 17. McClendon states that they “were lovers,” and that their love “drew them heavenward in a union at once spiritual and uncommon” (p. 131).

Edwards, a Puritan, became the pastor of a Congregationalist church, First Church of Northampton, Mass. He succeeded his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard who had served as pastor there for 60 (!) years, from 1669 to 1729.

Edwards was also a leader of the “Great Awakening,” a revival movement that started in 1734 and lasted for around 25 years. His emphasis on personal religious experience called infant baptism into question.

Thus, according to church historian Justo González, “many Congregationalists and Presbyterians, led by the Awakening’s emphasis on personal experience, eventually rejected infant baptism and became Baptists. Entire congregations did so” (“The Story of Christianity,” II:289).

Edwards is best remembered for delivering the most widely known sermon in the United States: “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” preached in July 1741. That sermon has often been included in anthologies of American literature.

“The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire.” This is a quote from Edwards’s famous sermon, but I’m afraid it would not have the same effect now as it did 270 years ago.

Edwards’s most widely read book is the biography of a young missionary to the Native Americans who died at the age of 29 in 1747. It is titled “The Life of David Brainerd” (1749), and has never gone out of print, having positively influenced a great many missionaries through the years.

In the winter of 1758, Edwards traveled down to New Jersey to become the president of the college which later became Princeton University. When a smallpox epidemic struck the region, in order to serve as a model and example to his students Edwards received a smallpox vaccination—but he tragically contracted the disease and died that March.

During his short time in New Jersey, Edwards had stayed with his daughter, Esther. She was the widow of the first president of the college, Aaron Burr, who had died in Sept. 1757. So Jonathan was the grandfather of Aaron Burr, Jr., the third Vice-President of the U.S.

Marty asked his readers to decide who they would select for the fourth face on the “Mt. Rushmore of Protestant American shapers.” Who would be your pick?