by Chris Ritter
Billy Abraham called the Methodist Revival a “hiccup of the Holy Spirit.” While it bears marks of the culture in which which it sprang, it came as a complete surprise to it. The American wing of this sovereign torrent, The Great Awakening, had a Calvinistic flavor. Under Wesley, the European wing was decidedly Arminian: “All must be saved, all can be saved, all can know they are saved, and all can be saved completely.” It would be this Free Grace strain that would resurface on the American frontier as a Second Great Awakening. Calvinists, like the poor, we will have with us always. But Arminian Methodism has proved uniquely capable of adapting to new mission fields. If we accept Pentecostal/Charismatic expressions as forms of Wesleyanism, Methodism continues as the fastest growing type of Christianity on the planet. What are its characteristics?
First, Methodists are conversionist. They represent a form a Christianity that calls people to a personal, transformational experience of God’s grace marked by deep repentance and leading to new birth. Since George Whitefield convinced John Wesley to “be more vile” and preach in the highways and byways, the world has never been the same. Methodists were contrasted with the formalists whose faith was based in observance of ritual. Methodism is religion of the transformed heart.
Relatedly, Methodists are evangelical. The roots of the word “evangelical” are found in Luther. But evangelicalism started with Wesley and his cohort. The authority of the Bible, Atonement through the Cross, the call to conversion, and urgency of Christian mission are the essential hallmarks identified in The Routledge Research Companion to the History of Evangelicalism. Evangelicalism is not to be conflated with Fundamentalism, a late Nineteenth Century development that arose as a reaction against Modernism. Wesley was an Oxford don and embraced learning across all disciplines.
Methodists are proto-Pentecostal. They embrace the living power of the Holy Spirit. Methodists pray expecting something to happen. The energy for personal transformation and ministry is alien to our human nature. God’s grace is the primary actor and our response impacts every level of our being, including our emotions and affections. Wesley understood it in terms of Romans 5:5, the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Spirit. Methodists were called “enthusiasts” because of their spiritual focus and force. The Wesleyan experience of perfecting/sanctifying grace subsequent to conversion was eventually interpreted as the Baptism in the Holy Spirit by later Pentecostals and Charismatics. The ministry of Methodists evangelist Phoebe Palmer represents this transition.
Methodists are orthodox. John Wesley never wanted to change Christianity. He wanted to recover it. While admittedly irregular in style, Methodists sought to preach and teach nothing but classic Christianity. Wesley saw himself as a “man of one book.” If you cut him, he would bleed Bible. The ecumenical impulse of early Methodism was not evidence of laissez-faire doctrinal commitments, but a drive to partner with diverse players who shared the same urgent mission.
Methodists are accountable. Whitefield called his converts “ropes of sand” compared to Wesley’s. The organizational genius of Wesley allowed him to invent a unique system of sustainable transformation through voluntary relationships. Methodists watch over one another in love. They meet together for transparent conversation about the state of their own hearts. The accountability expected of all Methodists started at the top and worked its way down.
Methodists are busy. Faith being dead without works, Methodists are people of practical action… a true expression of the Protestant work ethic. Wesley sought to elevate the human condition. This started from the inside, but did not stop there. Methodism built a school before it built a church. The derogatory epithet “Methodist” likely stems from outsiders observing what seemed to them hive-like activity. Quite literally, Wesley was opposed to recess.
The missionary zeal of Methodism and its love for primitive Christianity causes it to be quite elastic in terms of form. Wesley was a very satisfied Anglican as the doctrine was sound. But he completely stepped outside the forms of the Church of England to shape the Methodism movement. It was para-church because matters of organization were adiaphora. Methodism values the mission too much to be a slave to structure. Form follows function. Where it won’t, Methodists create work-arounds.
Some types of Methodism have embraced more of the original characteristics than others. But American Mainline practice tends contrary to them all. Conversion gives way to self actualization. Manifestations of the Spirit give way to respectable religious practice. The drive toward primitive orthodoxy gives way to a wide, sagging theological tent. Gathering for mutual accountability is replaced with gathering to not judge one another. Social action based on Kingdom priorities is replaced with a “social witness” based on myths of human progress. As Mainline-ism replaced Methodism, the native elasticity of form calcified in the interest of institutional preservation.
Methodism’s pillar of fire has moved beyond its legacy denominations. We might say United Methodism systematized the Mainline neutralization of Methodism that had been happening for decades leading up to 1968. David Watson calls the theological pluralism on which The United Methodist Church was built a “slow-acting poison,” the effects of which are now obvious. Yet we can still find gleams of original Methodism in evangelistic missions, the small group movement, intercessory prayer meetings, Pentecostal expressions, the Alpha Course, the Emmaus community, etc. Many United Methodists live out of the original legacy.
The Global Methodist Church hopes for a further recovery. But the Methodist story proves that ecclesial forms are not essential to spiritual revival. Methodism assumes a dead church in need of reform. In the Large Minutes, Wesley addressed Methodism’s purpose: “Q: What may we reasonably believe to be God’s design in raising up the Preachers called Methodists? A. To reform the nation and, in particular, the Church; to spread scriptural holiness over the land.” A new denomination may be needed, but it cannot in itself recover Methodism among Methodists. That will take another hiccup of the Holy Spirit.
People Need Jesus 
Excellent synopsis. I smiled at the line in the 1st paragraph: “The American wing of this sovereign torrent, The Great Awakening, had a decidedly Calvinistic flavor.” My experience, having bounced around various denominations prior to the last quarter century is that few, if any, of the Calvanist-ic groups remain unaffected by Wesleyanism, and they are the better for it.
Several years ago while visiting friends, they invited us to their EPC service. It happened to be John Calvin’s birth date. I sat for close to an hour listening to everything I’ve learned, believed, and practiced as a Methodist PK blasted. I was not the better for it.
In this piece you remark that Whitefield called his converts “ropes of sand” compared to Wesley’s. I was wondering if you could direct me to the actual comparative qoute.
“My brother Wesley acted wisely,” Whitefield said. “The souls that were awakened under his ministry he joined in societies, and thus preserved the fruit of his labor. This I neglected, and my people are a rope of sand.”
Thank you for this……you learn if you ask….
It seems Whitefield’s only spiritual posterity might be those among the Welsh.
Chris, it sounds like you could have written the “definition” essay which I argued was missing in my review of The Next Methodism!
Chris,
Yes, an excellent synopsis. The leadership of the American branch of our UM denomination is as far removed from what you say as east is from west. You say, “the Global Methodist Church hopes for a further recovery”. With all due respect, you do not seem to see the GMC as the true answer. At this juncture, what choice do we have? The UMC can be reformed and there will be no need for division, or the GMC will be the vehicle for Wesleyan Methodism to be revived and continued out of this once great denomination? Please, where do you stand?
Blessings
Bill Anthony
Thanks. I am much less optimistic than I once was about the reformation of the UMC. It is a machine designed to perpetuate the status quo. I have been part of the planning work for the GMC. This recent “get out when you can” reality is new wrinkle that the church I serve is still processing.
The best of the Methodist narrative (the parts we love to recount) turns out to be the founding drama up through the calving of the holiness movement. After that comes the prosaic epilogue, an institutional story few care to revisit (like re-reading the conference journal). GMC leaders must separate themselves from this corpse. Leave behind what remains of a despoiled, despotic, and dead sect. Stop circling the corpse. Leave it! Go out into the sunlight, get some fresh air, and write the new story of Methodism.
Once again, we read of a binary choice: UMC or GMC. Not so. Already congregations have left for the even more conservative Free Methodist Church, the most progressive United Church of Christ, the new (2009) Anglican Church in North America that is not in communion with The Episcopal Church, and some have chosen to disaffiliate and become non-denom.
And zero have joined the GMC… because it doesn’t exist yet. The reason for the scattering, I think, is because the primary alternative to the UMC has not yet been available. That changes May 1.
Of course your response is accurate, because the GMC exists now only as a logo, a website, a “Transitional” BODD that can change, and most likely will, after the first GC. But your phrase ” primary alternative ” is just another way of saying binary choice. We’ll see. come May 1
No matter where orthodox Methodists are going, they just can’t subscribe to this “new revelation”:
Various progressives in the UMC are claiming a new revelation, and that God is doing a new thing. From leading voices, a new progressive theology is emerging as a key, essential component of their vision of the future United Methodist Church. It is one that radically transforms the traditional Scriptural understanding of Christian love to a new love understanding that places full-inclusiveness at its center with relation to human sexuality and marriage. It is an inclusiveness that calls for the welcoming, accepting, and affirming of Biblically underscored sins of sexual immorality and ceremonially celebrating a reordering of God’s created order for marriage, even amongst and directly involving ordained clergy. A liberal bishop initiated a description of this new theology in a 2021 document entitled, “Love Is Making Room”, while other liberal positions supporting this are now emerging.
This is one of the best synopsis I have read to date. There is much evil afoot in the world today. We are certainly on the front lines. BTW my ancestry goes back to the beginnings of Methodism and then I have Moravian ancestry prior to that. I continue to wonder what my ancestors think of all of this!
While progressives are labeling the Global Methodist Church as exclusionary, divisive, judgmental, and fundamentalist, it will be the preserver of Orthodox Wesleyan Methodism and Biblical authority. In it’s Book of Doctrines and Discipline, the GMC addresses the sexual ethics and marriage conflict in the present UMC by stating: we believe that human sexuality is a gift of God that is to be affirmed as it is exercised within the legal and spiritual covenant of a loving and monogamous marriage between one man and one woman (Exodus 20:14, Matthew 19:3-9, Ephesians 5:22-33). We are saddened by all expressions of sexual behavior, including pornography, polygamy, and promiscuity, that do not recognize the sacred worth of each individual or that seek to exploit, abuse, objectify, or degrade others, or that represent less than God’s intentional design for His children. While affirming a scriptural view of sexuality and gender, we welcome all to experience the redemptive grace of Jesus and are committed to being a safe place of refuge, hospitality, and healing for any who may have experienced brokenness in their sexual lives (Genesis 1:27, Genesis 2:24, 1 Corinthians 6:9-20).
I don’t know if you’ve had this conversation with someone, or if you’ve had the thought yourself. The positive framing of suffering throughout the Christian Testament is both stunning and liberating. https://www.faimission.org/