Page 4202 – Christianity Today (2024)

1703 John Wesley born

1707 Charles Wesley born

1709 John rescued from fire at Epworth rectory

1714 John admitted to Charterhouse School

1720 John begins studies at Christ Church College, Oxford

1725 John ordained a deacon

1726 Charles enters Christ Church; John elected a fellow at Lincoln College, Oxford

1729 Charles founds Holy Club

1735 Samuel Wesley dies; John and Charles leave for Georgia

1736 Charles returns to England

1737 John flees America after relationship with Sophy Hopkey fails

1738 May 21: Charles finds himself "at peace with God"

May 24: John feels his heart "strangely warmed"

1739 Following Whitefield's example, John preaches outdoors

1742 Brothers establish orphanage and Sunday school

1747 Charles meets Sally Gwynne; John publishes Primitive Physick

1749 Charles breaks up John's relationship with Grace Murray; John officiates at Charles's wedding

1751 John marries Mary Vazeille

1755 John and Mary separate

1756 Charles's last nationwide preaching tour

1757 The first of Charles's three surviving children, Charles, Jr., born

1765 Charles stops regularly attending Methodist annual conferences

1775 John publishes A Calm Address to Our American Colonies

1780 John publishes the Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists

1788 Charles dies

1791 John dies

The Methodist Movement

1714 George Whitefield born

1730 Holy Club member William Morgan urges visitation ministry to ill and imprisoned

1732 Whitefield enrolls at Oxford; Holy Club blamed for Morgan's death, attacked in Fog's Weekly Journal

1733 Whitefield joins Holy Club

1735 Whitefield becomes first Methodist to experience "full assurance of faith"

1736 Whitefield leads Holy Club

1738 John Wesley visits Herrnhut

1739 Whitefield begins preaching outdoors, makes first trip to America

1740 Methodists break with Moravians in London, begin meeting at the Foundery

1741 Calvinist/Arminian debate between Whitefield and John Wesley; Thomas Maxfield, a layman, begins preaching without permission

1743 John Wesley issues An Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion, an apologetic for Methodism

1744 First Methodist annual conference

1749 John Wesley publishes A Plain Account of the People Called Methodists

1753 Whitefield publishes hymnal

1763 Maxfield joins enthusiast sect, claims "angelic" perfection

1766 John Wesley offers A Plain Account of Christian Perfection

1768 Oxford administration expels six Methodist students; Methodist chapel opens in New York

1769 Whitefield makes seventh and final trip to American colonies

1770 Whitefield dies

1771 Francis Asbury sails to America

1776 Methodists in America number 4,921

1778 The Arminian Magazine debuts

1784 John Wesley names Asbury and Thomas co*ke "superintendents" of work in America, issues prayer book, The Sunday Service of the Methodists in North America

1787 Richard Allen starts the Free African Society, precursor to the African Methodist Episcopal Church

1788 John Wesley rebukes Asbury and co*ke for calling themselves "bishops"

Culture, Religion, and Politics

1703 Jonathan Edwards born

1707 Isaac Watts' Hymns and Spiritual Songs published; J. S. Bach's first work published; Act of Union unites England and Scotland as Great Britain

1714 Hanoverian George I becomes king of England

1715 First Jacobite uprising in Scotland seeks to restore Catholicism in Britain

1722 Herrnhut, a Moravian settlement in Saxony, founded by Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf

1728 William Law's A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life published

1732 George Washington born

1733 Colonel James Oglethorpe founds Savannah, Georgia

1740-41 Great Awakening peaks

1741 Jonathan Edwards preaches "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"

1742 First performance of G. F. Handel's Messiah

1756 Amadeus Mozart born

1760 George III becomes king of England

1770 Ludwig von Beethoven born

1775 American Revolution begins

1787 William Wilberforce begins crusade against slave trade in Britain

1789 French Revolution

Copyright © Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

After spending just one day in America, John Wesley already had grave concerns about the new colonies. He wrote in his journal on February 19, 1736, “Beware America, be not as England!”

Just over a year earlier, John and Charles Wesley had stood at their father’s bedside as he died. John was asked to accept the Epworth parish, but he declined because he needed the spiritual rigors of the Oxford Holy Club.

Three months later one of the trustees of the Georgia colony challenged John and the Holy Club to go to America and minister to the Indians and colonists.

John worried about leaving his mother, but she spiritedly responded, “Had I twenty sons, I should rejoice that they were all so employed, though I should never see them more.” Instead, only two sons boarded the America-bound Simmonds, and she saw them both again within two years.

On February 4, 1736, the Simmonds came within view of the shoreline of Georgia. John read in his Bible, “A great door and effectual is opened,” and he added this prayer, “Oh let no one shut it!”

Although the Wesleys came to Georgia to preach to the Indians, they soon discovered that the leaders of the colony needed them for other duties. Charles became personal secretary to the colony’s governor, Colonel James Oglethorpe, and John served as parish minister to the colonists in Savannah.

Almost immediately, Oglethorpe turned against Charles. The colonel forced Charles to sleep on the floor of a hut, and when this arrangement made him desperately ill, Oglethorpe denied his request for a bed. Bewildered, Charles finally discovered that two women had been spreading vicious rumors about him.

Oglethorpe apologized for his behavior and reinstated Charles’s privileges, but Charles remained unwell and discouraged. Soon afterward, the colonel ordered Charles to return to England and put down reports that Georgia was in shambles. Charles was only too happy to go.

In the meantime, John had fallen in love with one of his Savannah parishioners, Sophy Hopkey (see “The Matchmakers“). For various reasons, however, he couldn’t bring himself to propose to her, and finally she gave up on him and became engaged to a Mr. Williamson. John thought he would die of grief. He even made out his will.

Following Sophy’s marriage, John threw himself into his work. He tried to be the Williamsons’ pastor, but of course it did not work. Five months later John refused to serve Mrs. Williamson Holy Communion. No doubt jealousy played a role in his decision, though he said he rejected her because he knew of unconfessed sin in her life.

Wrath from all over the colony fell upon John’s head, and the Williamsons sued for defamation of character. The trial dragged on for months, and finally John told his journal, “I saw clearly the hour was come for leaving this place.”

In spite of local ban, he left for England on December 2, 1737, and arrived home two months later. His missionary career was over.

Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

O Come and Dwell in Me

O come and dwell in me,
Spirit of power within,
And bring the glorious liberty
From sorrow, fear, and sin.

Hasten the joyful day
Which shall my sins consume,
When old things shall be done away,
And all things new become.

I want the witness, Lord,
That all I do is right,
According to thy mind and word,
Well-pleasing in thy sight.

I ask no higher state;
Indulge me but in this,
And soon or later then translate
To thine eternal bliss.

O for a Heart to Praise My God

O for a heart to praise my God,
A heart from sin set free,
A heart that always feels Thy blood
So freely shed for me!

A humble, lowly, contrite heart,
Believing, true and clean,
Which neither life nor death can part
From Him that dwells within.

A heart in every thought renewed,
And full of love divine;
Perfect and right and pure and good,
A copy, Lord, of Thine!

Thy nature, gracious Lord, impart;
Come quickly from above,
Write Thy new name upon my heart,
Thy new best name of Love.

—Charles Wesley

Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

The story of the Wesley brothers doesn’t end with their deaths. Their influence continues not only in the Methodist denominations (most prominently the United Methodist, Free Methodist, African Methodist Episcopal, Nazarene, and Wesleyan churches), which total some 25 million adherents worldwide, but in the countless lives touched by the hospitals, schools, orphanages, prison ministries, and other tangible expressions of Methodist holiness.

To trace the Wesleys’ legacy in today’s sprawling Methodism, Christian History interviewed Tom Oden, a lifelong Methodist and professor of theology at Methodist-founded Drew University in Madison, New Jersey.

In what ways were John and Charles Wesley products of their times?

Both men were deeply rooted in Anglicanism (from their father) and in rigorous Puritan piety (from their mother). They both wanted to experience salvation in its fullness, but the world they lived in did not encourage such a quest for inward and outward holiness. The Anglican Church in the early eighteenth century was self-satisfied and hardly energetic in seeking to live out the gospel.

Oxford University, when they were there, was undergoing something of a revival of interest in ancient Christian sources—patristic writings, the Eastern church fathers, the desert monastics—that centered on the search for holy life. Rather than see this as an academic exercise, the Wesleys took it personally.

In addition, John Wesley read William Law, Jeremy Taylor, and other writers seeking “Christian perfection.”

In the Holy Club, he founded what we’d call a support group for those who wanted to pursue holy living—not merely private piety but public acts of charity and service. John Wesley never saw himself as an innovator. He was just taking seriously what the church said it believed. He was just actualizing the tradition.

How did the movement change after the deaths of its founders?

The Methodist movement quickly became identified with the holiness revival tradition and the camp meeting movement, which focused on gospel preaching and a quest for holiness informed by grace. The Holy Spirit was expected to enter a person’s heart and transform life in both its private and public aspects.

At the same time, Methodists were ministering to orphans and prisoners, making loans, and in the 1840s, establishing the beginnings of world missions. By 1840 the Methodist Episcopal Church, with 580,098 members, was the largest denomination in America. The emphasis on both inward and outward holiness continued until end of nineteenth century.

At turn of twentieth century, Methodism, like many other denominations, began adapting to a progressive and liberal view of social change. Philosophic idealism and the social gospel movement had a secularizing effect. Many Methodist bishops were trained at Boston University and were influenced by “Boston personalism,” which led to a more humanistic outlook among the denomination’s leaders, even as the grassroots remained pietistic.

What caused the splits in the U. S. movement?

During the American Revolution, Methodist pastors here identified with the revolution. Many Anglican clergy fled to Canada or England. So the Methodists in the United States clearly broke from the Church of England.

Wesley saw it happening and reluctantly gave his blessing. The Anglican church dissolved in North America, leaving the Methodist Episcopal Church. The Methodist societies in Ireland and England didn’t split as quickly, but after Wesley’s death, they too eventually broke away.

In 1816 the African Methodist Episcopal Church was formed with the support of Francis Asbury, who consecrated Richard Allen as first bishop of the new church.

In 1843, the Wesleyan Methodist Church split off to protest the toleration of slavery by the Methodist Episcopal Church.

A year later, largely over the same issue, the Methodist Episcopal Church split into the Methodist Church and the Methodist Church South. Southern Methodist University’s name reflects this. The north’s counterparts were schools such as Syracuse, Northwestern, Drew, and Boston University.

The Free Methodist Church was formed in 1860 over the issues of free pews (not rented), freedom for slaves, and free worship.

In 1939 the northern and southern churches reunited as the Methodist Church, and in 1968 this group merged with the Evangelical United Brethren to form the United Methodist Church.

In what ways is today’s Methodist church a continuation of the Wesleys’ movement?

Today there’s a modest but significant refocusing of Wesleyan influence. At the 1988 Methodist General Conference, doctrinal standards were more sharply defined. Wesley’s Standard Sermons, his Explanatory Notes on the New Testament, and his 25 Articles of Religion were affirmed as foundational.

Of course, different groups emphasize different things. Liberals emphasize Wesley’s social concern—his opposition to slavery and his championing of the poor. Conservatives focus on sanctificationist themes that enable social action to be viable.

What would John Wesley not recognize in today’s Methodism?

The huge bureaucracy of the United Methodist Church. I say this because John Wesley was clearly dismayed when Thomas co*ke and Francis Asbury began referring to themselves as “bishops.” Wesley’s Methodism was focused on teaching, accountability, acts of service, caring for the poor and orphans and prisoners and others in need.

In his sermon “The Lord’s Vineyard,” Wesley describes the Lord’s vineyard as overgrown with weeds. At end of his life, he’s already despairing that his movement is becoming another institution.

He also wouldn’t recognize the vast and independent executive branch of the United Methodist Church, which is supposed to carry out the will of the General Conference, but now is directing its own way. Because of the enormous endowments accumulated over the years, the headquarters is not strictly accountable to the will of the congregations.

So church agencies find ways to speak apart from the will of the General Conference, for instance, on partial-birth abortion. The stress today in the United Methodist church is the issue of accountability.

Early in Methodism, Thomas co*ke championed global missions. What has happened to that vision?

In the UMC, the General Board of Global Ministry has $500 million in assets. If you talk to those on the board, they’ll mention their concerns for evangelism and preaching, yet the percentage of missionaries focused on these areas is small. The real energy is in social-action projects—digging wells and building schools, hospitals, and such.

The endowment is large enough that the board doesn’t need to be too attentive to the preferences of congregations or even bishops. In recent years, the board has been criticized for its anti-American, anti-capitalism, pro-gay agenda. In Central America, it was clearly identified with liberation theology and visibly supported the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.

Recently, an alternative mission organization called the Missionary Society has been established, and this group is already sending more preaching pastors abroad than the Board of Global Ministry.

How is Methodism worldwide different from the American brand?

In Africa and Asia, especially, Methodism is more doctrinally centered on salvation by grace through faith and seeking the holy life. Even in British Methodism, the doctrinal focus is stronger—Wesleyan hymns and piety are more prominent. And Methodism has long been associated with the Labor Party (Margaret Thatcher—a Methodist and a member of the Conservative Party—being a notable exception).

In India in 1870, Methodist bishop William Taylor developed a self-supporting, self-determining church. This concept of an indigenous church not dependent on outside funding eventually moved to China and developed into what’s known today as the Three-Self Church.

What is the relationship between the Methodist, holiness, Pentecostal, and charismatic movements?

Until the 1880s, the holiness movement was essentially strong Wesleyan teaching on sanctification. Holiness preaching also affected some Presbyterian, Congregational, and Quaker groups. In effect, it was an ecumenical revivalist movement.

The movement split in the late 1800s as some argued for entire sanctification as a definite and distinct “second blessing” subsequent to conversion. This produced Nazarene and holiness churches. Pentecostals shared that emphasis but added a focus on glossolalia.

The charismatic movement has influenced Methodism much as it has Anglicanism and Catholicism. Most charismatics wouldn’t think of themselves as following a Wesleyan emphasis but simply following the Holy Spirit.

Is there a conscious effort now to recover the legacy of John Wesley?

Within the UMC are 12 renewing movements, all committed to recovery of Wesley’s emphases. The Good News movement has been a voice for reform for 30 years. In the last six years, the Confessing Movement, a grassroots lay movement of half a million people, has emerged for the renewal of doctrinal integrity.

What has been the Wesleys’ most significant contribution?

The recovery of ancient ecumenical teaching and the focus on small group accountability, grounded in scriptural study and prayer, attentive to social responsibility. These priorities weren’t unique to their movement, but they were more intensified than in many others.

The Wesleys were considered radical because they took so seriously the faith and the ethical responsibilities that they considered incumbent on all Christians.

Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

In 1785, at age 82, John Wesley wrote a wrenching letter to his 77-year-old brother Charles, who had for several years been openly critical of John's leadership in the Methodist movement.

"Do not hinder me if you will not help," the older brother scolded. "Perhaps, if you had kept close to me, I might have done better. However, with or without help, I creep on."

The story of early Methodism is, of course, more than the tale of these two brothers. But the development of the movement cannot be fully comprehended without them—both of them.

Dynamic duo

John was 4 years old when Charles was born (eight weeks premature) in 1707. Charles was only 6 when John went off to Charterhouse School in London. The childhood years in Epworth did not allow much time for the two boys to be brothers.

Although Charles also went to school at Westminster, near London, three years after John, they probably did not see much of each other. They got their first opportunity to grow closer when both attended Oxford University in the late 1720s.

As a young student at Christ Church College, Charles had a personal "reformation" in 1728. His older brother, who preceded him (again by about four years) in the quest for a meaningful faith, provided practical suggestions for pursuing the holy life. Within a matter of months, they shared many of the methods of thinking and acting that soon became characteristic of the people called "Methodists."

John Gambold, a friend of both at Oxford, described Charles as being "deeply sensible" of John's seniority: "I never observed any person have a more real deference for another than he constantly had for his brother." Gambold felt that Charles imitated his older brother so much that, as he said, "could I describe one of them, I should describe both."

Among their similarities: Both brothers were published poets, as were their father, Samuel, Sr., their older brother Samuel, Jr., and one of their sisters, Kezzy. Although neither brother composed music, both were musicians—John played the flute and Charles played the organ.

Both were ordained in the Church of England, as was their father. Both attended Christ Church at Oxford. Both had a transforming spiritual experience. Both married. In some cases, older brother John preceded his younger brother. In other matters, however, Charles took the lead, such as in his spiritual awakening and his marriage.

When John decided to become a missionary to Georgia in 1735, he convinced Charles to go along. Charles noted in his journal that his older brother always had the "ascendancy" over him and, even though Charles dreaded taking holy orders, John talked him into it so that Charles could assist with the parish work in the new colony.

Although he was hastily certified (ordained as both deacon and elder within two weeks instead of the usual interval of two years), Charles took his clerical position seriously. And although John would consistently say from then on that he would live and die a "Church of England man," Charles was actually the one who held closest to the Established Church as the century wore on. In that arena, he became his older brother's conscience.

The brothers' relationship was prickly at times. But they had a trusting respect for each other that allowed personal tensions to produce positive results when larger issues were at stake.

Warmed hearts

When the brothers set sail for Georgia, John had been preaching for a decade, but his younger brother was fresh from under the bishop's ordaining hand. Charles spent part of his time on the ship copying several of John's sermons so he could use them in Georgia.

Neither John nor Charles, however, had a positive experience in Georgia. Both of them lost favor with the political powers they were supposed to assist. Charles, ill and depressed, left for home within half a year. John lasted a year longer, then decided it was better to return to England than face the grand jury indictments his enemies had concocted (see "Wesleys in America," page 14).

Though the brothers' missionary efforts bore little fruit, their interaction with some German Pietist settlers they met while crossing the Atlantic had important consequences.

The settlers, a band of Moravians, had remained calm during a potentially deadly sea squall, which greatly impressed the Wesleys. Seeking to have the same depth of spiritual assurance, the brothers sought out Peter Boehler, who became their spiritual tutor.

Boehler's message was simple: a proper faith will result in a clear sense of assurance of salvation. One cannot have one without the other. And such a faith will be accompanied by love, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. At the same time, one will become free from fear, doubt, and sin. Such a heart-centered experience was necessary for one to become a true Christian.

Charles was the first to have this "Moravian" experience of assurance. On May 21, 1738, he powerfully sensed Christ's forgiving presence. "I felt a strange palpitation of heart" was his own unpoetic description.

John joined the friends who came to Charles's lodgings that evening to rejoice with him, pray, and sing a hymn. John was thrilled for his brother, but his heart must have churned as he went back out into the darkness to face his own doubts and questionings.

Three days later, John experienced assurance himself. The setting was a small religious society meeting in Aldersgate Street. The catalyst was a Pietist classic: Martin Luther's preface to the Book of Romans. Also in the Pietist tradition, the experience included an intense sensation. As John described it, "I felt my heart strangely warmed."

It is no surprise that these two Moravian-inspired experiences would be expressed in terms of heart imagery. Especially noteworthy, however, is the fact that both brothers found the sensation "strange." Nevertheless, John's account of his Alders-gate experience, as reported in his published journal, became the normative pattern for many of his followers.

Conflicted minds

Just as the brothers' spiritual journeys were not identical, their theology and ecclesiology diverged at a few points.

Regarding the process of salvation, Charles seems to have had an earlier sense that the "almost Christian," the one who is struggling with the faith, should be reckoned as having the "faith of a servant." John persisted longer in believing that the "almost Christian" was no Christian at all, because he had not yet experienced spiritual assurance.

John struggled with this question for many years, eventually modifying his opinion to allow "exempt cases"—persons who had not experienced assurance but who were surely real Christians. In his later years, he even allowed that one should take Scripture seriously when it says that a person who simply "fears God and works righteousness" is accepted by him.

In general, where the brothers disagreed on theology, John felt it was best if each proceeded with his own strengths. Thus he encouraged Charles to continue emphasizing sanctification as the gift of God's grace in a moment (instantaneous) while he continued to stress the importance of growing in holiness through nurture and grace (process). Since both approaches would meet the same goal—to spread scriptural holiness across the land—both were beneficial.

Overall, the brothers differed less on theology than on the proper organization for their movement. Both were concerned about the relationship between Methodism and the Church of England. Neither wanted Methodism to become a dissenting religious sect.

Had the Wesleys not taken this issue seriously, Anglican prejudices against enthusiasm and government policies under the Act of Toleration might have radically restricted the Methodist movement. But the question of how distinct the Methodists could be while remaining within the Church of England was often a point of contention. Three flashpoints in this conflict highlight the differences between the brothers.

Lay preachers

Once George Whitefield had convinced the Wesleys that outdoor preaching, though unusual, had good precedent in the Sermon on the Mount, the next major issue for them was whether or not laity would be allowed to preach. This practice also had precedents within the Church of England, but it was even more irregular than open-air sermons.

Charles was only lukewarm toward outdoor preaching, and he questioned the large numbers that George and John reported at their gatherings. Charles viewed lay preaching even more skeptically. John, however, was convinced (by his mother and his own observations) that lay preachers, such as Thomas Maxfield, could be channels of God's redeeming grace.

As the movement grew and the need for preachers far exceeded the number of Anglican clergy who were associated with Methodism, John appointed more lay preachers to serve the societies. None were set apart for such service, however, until they had been examined for "gifts, grace, and fruits."

Charles began to question not only some of the particular people John was appointing but also the practice itself. John responded in the 1750s by putting Charles in charge of examining the preachers. Though clever, this move did not solve the problem.

Charles insisted that lay preachers have the "gifts" for the work, so he subjected candidates to rigorous examination. He even sent some back to their day jobs. John was less exacting, because, as he said, "Of the two, I prefer grace before gifts."

The brothers' views collided, for instance, in the case of a tailor whom John had made into a preacher. Charles noted proudly to a friend, "I, with God's help, shall make him a tailor again."

John feared that his brother's high standard was causing a dearth of preachers. He asked Charles to ease up a bit so that there would be enough leaders to meet the growing needs. As long as he had the power, though, Charles was relentless in his attempt "to purge the Church, beginning with the laborers."

Charles engaged several clergy friends to help lobby his older brother against the use of lay preachers. Such efforts simply increased ill-feeling between the brothers, which spread to a number of related issues.

John's conviction that lay preachers should work full-time, combined with his hesitance to pay them a sufficient allowance, rankled Charles. Charles thought that such an arrangement gave John unconscionable control over the preachers' lives. John "ruled with a rod of iron," to use Charles's phrase.

In a bold letter to a friend, Charles argued that preachers must be allowed to earn money on their own. With such support, they would not have to depend entirely upon John "for bread," and this would help "break his power … and reduce his authority within due bounds."

Charles also felt that such a change would serve "to guard against the rashness and credulity of [John's] that has kept me in continual awe and bondage for many years."

Unfortunately, this letter made its way into John's hands. John quickly scratched off a nasty note to Charles, accusing him of dipping into the funds of the society for his expenses when John was already providing him an allowance of 50 pounds, plus a healthy annuity of 100 pounds from the book funds. Although the sum was more than double what John allowed himself, John failed to consider that Charles was married with three children.

In these conflicts over lay preachers, the brothers mediated each other's extreme views. John kept Charles from being too harsh on preachers' abilities, and Charles reminded John of the preachers' legitimate financial needs.

Ordination

When the lay preachers and their flocks pushed for ordination, so that sacraments could be distributed within the societies, John at times appeared close to giving in. Charles mounted a frontal attack, certain that such a step was not only totally inappropriate but also would result in a separation from the Church.

In one resulting attempt to cement the preachers in a common covenant, John and Charles produced separate documents for them to sign—John's stressing the need for common loyalty, while Charles's also stated a commitment "never to leave the communion of the Church of England."

As Charles once said, John's first object was the Methodists, and then the Church; Charles's first concern was the Church, and then the Methodists.

John crossed the Rubicon on this matter when the American colonies signed the Peace of Paris in 1783, severing political and ecclesiastical ties with England. Under those circ*mstances, John saw the need for American Methodists to have ordained clergy to administer the sacraments.

His ordination of two preachers as deacon and elder for that task, and his setting apart of Thomas co*ke and Francis Asbury as general superintendents (they assumed the title "bishop" later), was done in private—against the advice of, and without the knowledge of, his senior preachers, including Charles.

Such actions were exclusively reserved, under canon law, for bishops. Charles's reaction was predictable in its substance, but not in its form. The poem he wrote attacking John was merciless in its rhetoric:

So easily are Bishops made
By man's or woman's whim?
Wesley his hands on co*ke hath laid,
But who laid hands on him?

John argued that in such a "case of necessity," where the Church either had no jurisdiction or refused to act, he had simply responded as a New Testament bishop, providing for the needs of the body of Christ. John recognized his difference of opinion with Charles on this matter: "You say I separate from the Church. I say I do not. Then let it stand."

If John had ignored Charles's anxiety in this matter, the Methodists might have found themselves out of the Church before their time. On the other hand, if John had acquiesced to Charles, the American Methodists would never have received ordained preachers. They likely would have been forced to remain a subset of the Anglicans who weathered the Revolution and eventually became the Protestant Episcopal Church. Instead, by the nineteenth century, the Methodists were the largest Protestant denomination in the United States.

Hymns

The Methodists were known as a singing people, largely through the poetic work of the Wesleys. And though the brothers sometimes disagreed in this area, their collaboration produced better results than either one could have achieved alone. As John described the relationship to Charles, "I may be in some sense the head and you the heart of the work."

Although Charles is better known as a hymnwriter, John had published poetry more than a decade before Charles. John even published a hymnal alone in America. When Charles's poetry began appearing in 1738 and beyond, it was generally in collections published under the name of both brothers.

In most instances, John had the final editorial say in what was included and how it was worded. His selection and editing of Charles's work included both literary and theological criticisms. John would publish, as he wrote in the preface to the 1780 hymnal, "no doggerel; no botches; nothing put in to patch up the rhyme; no feeble expletives. … no cant expressions; no words without meaning."

The more or less definitive Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists included 525 hymns. Most were written by Charles, though John contributed some, including translations from German. All of the hymns passed under John's editorial pen—a vital step.

John examined adjectives theologically. Occasionally he found Charles's hymns too effusive, too Moravian. John amended some of his brother's amatory phrases: "When, dearest Lord" became "When, gracious Lord." John excluded "Jesus, Lover of My Soul" from the 1780 collection entirely.

Besides needing literary and theological revision, many of Charles's poems had as many as 20 verses. John picked the best verses and occasionally divided a long poem into more than one hymn.

Charles did not always accept his brother's limits. Shortly after John worked out an agreement with Whitefield and the Calvinist Methodists to avoid contentious terminology, including any reference to "sinless perfection," Charles worked that particular phrase into one of his new hymns. Also, on more than one occasion, Charles slipped small collections of hymns to publishers without his brother's knowledge.

The 1780 hymnal truly reflected the brothers' symbiotic relationship. This "little body of experimental and practical divinity" provided the most popular and lasting channel for spreading the Wesleyan theology.

Though the impact of the brothers' hymns, and especially Charles's, should not be underestimated, the hymns' success has in some ways obscured Charles's larger contributions. As John said late in life, "His least fame was in his hymns."

"My company is gone"

In the later years, Charles spent more and more time with his family, especially his musician sons Charles and Samuel. He still preached in the London societies, but he rarely attended the annual Methodist preachers' conferences after 1765.

John perceived that his brother was removed from the mainstream leadership of the movement. Nevertheless, he maintained some hope that Charles would stand by his side, sometimes fancying his brother as his potential successor.

When Charles contracted what would become his final illness in 1788, John still assumed that his brother would outlast, if not succeed, him. As he rode out on his itinerant rounds, John sent his brother advice to get out of bed and exercise on horseback, a regimen that had saved his own life in similar circ*mstances.

The shocking news of Charles's death caught up with John in the north country. The depth of his feeling for Charles could not be contained, even in public. At the first service he was leading after receiving the news, John broke down crying during a hymn when he came to Charles's words, "My company before is gone."

Like a good Anglican, Charles was buried in the graveyard of the parish church he attended in Marylebone Street. John, on the other hand, had for some time doubted the necessity of being buried in consecrated ground. "How deep is it consecrated?" was his skeptical question. Consequently, John's burial in 1791 took place behind the Methodist New Chapel in City Road.

That building itself embodied the ambiguity of the Methodists' ecclesiastical situation. More than just a preaching house, it was built on a sacrament plan—the first Methodist building to include an altar and communion rail. Never mind that the structure was set back from the street in accord with the legal requirements for a dissenting meeting house.

In the end, John was one of the few still convinced that the Methodists had not separated from the Church of England, since they had neither exited by dissent nor been expelled by excommunication.

Although John may have protested that he lived and died "a Church of England man," his epitaph makes no mention of the established Church. Instead, it reflects more of Charles's view on the matter.

The inscription points out that John's life intention was "to revive, enforce, and defend, the pure apostolical doctrine and practice of the Primitive Church." These words bear testimony to the fact that Charles ultimately was unable to keep his brother within the fold of the Church.

Richard P. Heitzenrater is William Kellon Quick professor of church history and Wesley studies at Duke Divinity School.

Copyright © by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

Any list of resources on the Wesley brothers is necessarily incomplete, because so much has been—and continues to be—written about them. A simple card-catalog search on the title “John Wesley” turns up books by Albert Outler, Vivian H.H. Green, John Pollock, and other experts from both sides of the Atlantic. Resources on Charles are less plentiful but by no means scarce.

Rather than attemping an exhaustive guide, the following list highlights several reliable texts, giving special emphasis to authors found in this issue.

Life stories

Among the many biographies of John, Henry D. Rack’s Reasonable Enthusiast (reprint, Epworth, 1989) stands out as a classic. It’s not an easy book to find, but it provides a wealth of insights.

Another rare find, Elsie G. Harrison’s Son to Susanna (R. West, 1937) offers a psychologically informed take on John’s personality. Her ideas are not universally persuasive, but her perspective is unique and valuable.

Richard P. Heitzenrater, author of the lead article for this issue (“A Tale of Two Brothers“), contributes Wesley and the People Called Methodists (Abingdon, 1994) and The Elusive Mr. Wesley (Abingdon, 1984) to this category. Charles Yrigoyen, Jr., who wrote the article “Start the Presses,” also wrote John Wesley: Holiness of Heart and Mind (Abingdon, 1996).

Charles Wesley has received much less biographical attention than his brother, but several books will at least introduce you to his character. These include A Heart Set Free by Charles Dallimore (Crossway, 1988), Charles Wesley, Poet and Theologian by S. T. Kimbrough (Abingdon, 1991), and Charles Wesley: Man with the Dancing Heart by T. Crichton Mitchell (Beacon Hill, 1994).

Researching other aspects of the brothers’ lives opens the door to a wide range of books. In preparing this issue, we found Arnold A. Dallimore’s biography Susanna Wesley (Baker, 1993), Jan Morris’s The Oxford Book of Oxford (Oxford, 1978), and The History of the University of Oxford (edited by L.S. Sutherland and L.G. Mitchell; Oxford, 1986) very useful.

Words, words, words

Both John and Charles were prolific writers, and study of their writing has been similarly prolific.

Richard Heitzenrater has edited some ambitious collections, including a CD-ROM with Sermons and Hymns of John Wesley (Abingdon, 1999) and, with Albert Outler, John Wesley’s Sermons: An Anthology (Abingdon, 1991). He has also done extensive work on the 34-volume Works of John Wesley, published by Abingdon.

Randy L. Maddox, who wrote “Be Ye Perfect?,” has focused his work on Wesley’s theology. His books include Responsible Grace: John Wesley’s Practical Theology (Abingdon, 1994) and Aldersgate Reconsidered (Abingdon, 1990). As an editor, with Theodore Runyon and Rex Matthews, he compiled Rethinking Wesley’s Theology for Contemporary Methodists (Abingdon, 1998).

S. T. Kimbrough’s writing centers on Charles’s theological and literary contributions. His books include A Heart to Praise My God (Abingdon, 1996) and The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley (Abingdon, 1988).

For a quick read of the juiciest bits from John’s personal writing, we recommend The Journal of John Wesley, abridged by Christopher Idle (Lion, 1986). Betty Jarboe contributes Wesley Quotations (Scarecrow, 1990). John and Charles Wesley: Selected Writings and Hymns, from the Classics of Western Spirituality series (Paulist Press, 1981), is also a handy reference.

As helpful as books are, the fastest way to access a broad selection of both Wesleys’ writing is the Web. The Christian Classics Ethereal Library (www.ccel.org) and the Wesley Center for Applied Theology site (http://wesley.nnu.edu) are excellent.

For an extensive list of Wesley resources, see www.churchresources.org/theology/bibliography.htm. For links and free historical images, see http://gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/wesley.

Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

Thuso Siziba was one of the lucky ones. He had a job, to begin with. Forty percent of Zimbabweans don’t. But Thuso earned enough to eat one good meal a day, in a country where that isn’t to be taken for granted. He knew almost as many languages (three) as he had shirts (four). He had severe problems with his eyes but no money for treatment.

Thuso was my partner in ministry in Masvingo, Zimbabwe. Poverty such as he and countless others experience is slow, grinding, and pervasive, wearing ruthlessly on the societies over which it lords. The numbers are telling: two million people in Africa alone die of AIDS each year; 33,000 children die every day from largely preventable diseases; between 1943 and 1992 an estimated 149 major wars plagued our world, the majority of which took place in developing countries. But the pain of poverty runs far deeper than numbers can measure.

In spite of the vast need, donor fatigue has forced international organizations and U.S. government initiatives to operate with continually shrinking budgets. Globally, the World Bank reported that official development finance dropped an astonishing 29 percent between 1990 and 1996. Nationally, the 1999 U.S. Census Bureau indicates that between 1995 and 1997, U.S. foreign aid for economic assistance was reduced by 19 percent.

In the face of these trends, evangelical development efforts have grown steadily, and their performance has not gone unnoticed. USAID has been increasingly willing to fund organizations such as World Vision, Opportunity International, and World Relief, accounting for as much as 40 percent of their annual budgets. Indeed, evangelicals seem poised to help fill the emerging development gap in a great and mighty way. But do they have a strategy? A solution? If so, is it any different from the World Bank’s?

The evangelical community is concerned first and foremost with spreading the gospel of Christ, as it should be, for the Christian message alleviates spiritual poverty. But poverty cannot be compartmentalized. Often the best way to address spiritual poverty is to do so in tandem with more visible poverty areas.

If evangelicals accept the challenges of material and political poverty through out the world as a Christian responsibility—indeed, as an opportunity to exercise love—then how are they measuring up to this challenge? To be honest, the evidence is mixed. On the plus side, centuries of missions experience have resulted in a range of effective development approaches that offer great potential for development agencies in general, secular as well as religion-based. On the minus side, evangelicals need to broaden their vision and make their organizations more relevant to the global demands of the twenty-first century. But we begin with what evangelicals do well with respect to development: reconciliation, leadership training, and incarnational ministry.

Evangelical Strengths

In the early 1990s South Africa was at the boiling point. Political violence and human-rights abuses were rife, and it was far from certain whether the imminent elections would bring celebration or bloodshed. One evangelical group, African Enterprise, helped to tip the scales toward peace by providing reconciliation exercises.

African Enterprise took leaders from both sides of the conflict to secluded, relaxed environments and asked them to enter into dialogue. The retreats in variably began in a relationally frigid atmosphere, but as the room thawed, the participants were able to achieve the first step of reconciliation: an honest recognition of the problem. The dialogue allowed personal stories of injustice to emerge, and the starkly one-sided views each had brought to the retreat gradually became more balanced. At times the shift of view was emotionally painful. When a white politician appeared skeptical of a black counterpart’s story of abuse, for in stance, the victim stood up, took off his shirt, and showed the deep scars across his back. The white politician could no longer deny that evil had been done; it had a human face.

But this was only the beginning. The evangelical sponsors knew that repentance must follow a right understanding of the conflict. If the truth that is uncovered brings shame to those most responsible for the problems, they may try to find new ways to hide their crimes rather than repent. Such a reaction in these retreats would have seriously jeopardized their outcome, as it would have hindered the third aspect of the reconciliation process: forgiveness. Thus, the sponsors led participants to offer humble repentance, opening the door for a more natural and authentic proclamation of forgiveness.

More natural—but still not at all easy. For while forgiveness calls for the perpetrator to take the intensely vulnerable position of repenting, the victim is asked to do no less than follow Christ’s example and, however deep the scars may have been, to let go of all thoughts of revenge and retribution. Even more than this, the highest order of reconciliation calls upon both parties to restore a fully functional relationship in all its being.

African Enterprise achieved a high degree of success, contributing to peaceful elections in a way secular development agencies could not. Words such as repentance and forgiveness are theological at their core, and Christian agencies tend to be the ones most comfortable in applying them to particular situations.

A second evangelical development strategy is leadership training. Christian NGOs, continent-wide evangelical associations, and other Christian organizations increasingly rely on indigenous leaders to build up the church. And they do so with arguably more dedication and en during results than most World Bank or government training programs. How are the differences accounted for, and what can others learn from this faith-centered approach?

The evangelical strategy is to lift leaders out of their communities and put them through an intensive training program. Numerous Bible institutes and mission organizations offer programs that vary in time and scope, but always include some form of biblical education. Other areas of study often include conflict resolution, meeting procedure, communication, public speaking, decision-making skills, time management, negotiation skills, listening skills, problem solving, goal-setting, and action-planning.

In following this format, evangelicals touch on a number of leadership elements that are simply missing in standard secular or World Bank efforts. The most obvious of these is the moral dimension. A story is told of secular development workers facilitating a leadership seminar in the Philippines. Much to the chagrin of these workers, the group insisted that each day begin with Scripture reading. But the facilitators gradually began to realize that the devotional time somehow augmented their work during the rest of the day. They learned that people long to attach spiritual meaning to what they do, a fact which is central to all evangelical endeavors.

Furthermore, evangelical training programs bring together people who are of like mind, with the conscious aim of creating a community. A unity is fostered among the fellow students as they study, eat, and sleep together that does not die at the commencement ceremony. Rather, tremendous spiritual and psychological value is derived from the awareness that there are others out there working for the same cause and against the same obstacles, even if they are not working side by side.

A mark of evangelical success is that the students can be trusted to return to their communities and take up their posts without oversight. Their autonomy helps to instill a true sense of ownership both within themselves and with in the people they serve. The result is often a growing church or an increasingly effective organization.

Obviously, secular developers are not going to train pastors. But with slight modification, this strategy could be used for any community leaders, including teachers, government extension workers, and even NGO personnel. Morally infused training can also allow local leaders to achieve this kind of ownership and motivation in areas other than faith, including agriculture, managing personal finances, and basic hygiene habits.

A third effective development technique employed by evangelicals is the incarnational strategy. This approach is modeled after the ministry of Christ, who instead of reaching out to us from on high, “took upon him the form of a man,” and in doing so made his message infinitely more understandable to those he was trying to reach. Bruce Olson, a missionary to indigenous tribes in South America, provides an excellent illustration of how evangelicals can effectively employ the same strategy.

Olson’s call was to the Motilone tribe in Colombia, a group that was not receptive to outsiders. After narrowly escaping martyrdom upon his arrival, Olson settled into the Motilone community and spent the next several years learning their tonal language (never before translated). He came to understand their value system, their myths, their social structure, even their dietary patterns, and integrated himself into the Motilone way of life. Olson’s patience and efforts at integration eventually allowed him to act as a catalyst for significant development. Before he left, the Motilones had made significant advances in health care and literacy, and the entire tribe had gone through a conversion experience.

The evangelical approach stands in contrast to that of many secular development workers, who do not actually enter into the indigenous culture. Rather, the career of the individual is invested in development while he continues to live a western lifestyle and maintain a social circle of other expatriates. There are exceptions to the rule. Though they use secular terms, Peace Corps volunteers also employ the incarnational strategy in the work that they do. It has, however, been standard mission and development methodology for centuries, and when the Peace Corps was being shaped in its early years the founders consulted certain Christian groups who were living and working with the poor abroad.

Strategic Shortcomings

Evangelicals clearly have valuable contributions to make in the development arena. But they must also examine their weaknesses. Many evangelicals in the trenches of missions and development work—especially but not only younger Christians—believe that evangelicals fall far short of the mark in a number of development areas.

Many of these shortcomings can be linked to one common cause: fear of being co-opted by agendas seen as antithetical to Christian commitments. Often, secular development agencies will advocate policies that run counter to evangelical beliefs, and so potentially productive partnerships must be forgone. But in passing up these partnerships, evangelicals take on the moral responsibility of establishing their own response to these issues. Two areas in which they have not yet provided a satisfactory alternative response include gender issues and serving as a moral voice in our globalized world.

First, evangelicals have by and large not heard the cry of the downtrodden when it has come from women. The campaign for women’s rights in the developing world is often associated with the pro-abortion, anti-family movement sponsored by secularized women’s groups in the West. In response, evangelicals too often either merely react against this movement (without providing a Christian alternative, perhaps reframing the issue without the language of “rights,” as Stanley Hauerwas and others have urged) or simply ignore the issue altogether.

Evangelicals must first recognize the terrible condition in which most poor women currently find themselves, from the very beginning of life. Because boys are valued more highly than girls in many developing countries, the girls in the family go hungry when resources are short. In Latin America, for instance, 31 percent of female children are underweight, compared to 17 percent of their male counterparts. Tens of millions of female infants—no one knows exactly how many—have been aborted or abandoned in Asia in the last decade alone, simply because of their gender. According to noted development ethicist and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, the problem is so extensive that men now significantly outnumber women, especially in China. Even if females live to adulthood, their situation is bleak. The UN estimates that of the 1.3 billion people currently living on less than one dollar a day, 70 percent are women.

The degradation of women leaves the family unit in disarray—a problem to which evangelicals should be particularly sensitive. Women often must care for children without the help of the father. If they are uneducated, they are both more likely to have families too large for their means and less able to provide their children with even basic care. Statistics show that an in crease of even one year of female primary education is associated with a significant drop both in the infant mortality rate and in the total fertility.

It is clear, then, that evangelicals need at the very least to be active advocates and practitioners of female education and improved women’s health care. If a girl is educated in basic literacy and health, then when she becomes a mother, she is going to be able to better care for her children. Sadly, because evangelicals have not more actively pursued even these basic policies, many of the accusations made against them by groups like the World Bank are justified.

Evangelical voices are also conspicuously absent from top-level global development debates. Recent conferences in Rio de Janeiro, Cairo, Kyoto, and Seattle have created binding treaties between nations and have directly influenced international financial flows earmarked for certain types of development work. The issues debated are often morally charged, and have included global population, the environment, gender, and trade. A variety of actors, including nation states, multi national corporations, and NGOs have been involved. But evangelicals have not had a presence in such forums.

Evangelicals should involve themselves in these debates for several reasons. First, the church has a responsibility to proclaim relevant biblical and moral norms in the public square, which is a distinctly different role from that of an interest group with a specific agenda. The church should bring a moral or redemptive voice into the international political dialogue, while at the same time remaining detached from the political contest.

Finally, evangelicals must be humble about the extent to which they can solve poverty on their own, and realize that further cooperation with others is necessary. The more involved evangelicals are in forming the policies of possible future partners, the more they will be able to agree with the strategies and ideologies they encounter in the field.

Conflicting Priorities

If evangelicals are often crippled by fear of being co-opted by secular agendas, they are also hamstrung by conflicting priorities. This is true especially in the field, where tight budget restrictions discourage innovation. For example, a mission may in principle agree that more emphasis should be put on female education and health care, but when they receive a $500 donation they have to decide how that money will be spent. Should they initiate new programs in these areas, or should they try to maintain a church planting program already in existence?

Two Scripture passages best symbolize the dilemma: the Great Commission and the Sermon on the Mount. The Great Commission is really the bedrock passage of the evangelical community. One of the evangelical movement’s defining moments, the Lausanne International Conference on World Evangelization (1974), was devoted to gaining consensus on the precise content of the Evangel, or the Good News of Jesus Christ. There was further discussion concerning the reason the Evangel must be communicated, the appropriate strategies for doing so, and the results that can be expected. To guard against the watering down of the gospel, the Lausanne Covenant explained in no uncertain terms the distinction between socio-political engagement and evangelism. And since that landmark conference, evangelicals have steadfastly maintained their commitment to spreading the Evangel, or following the Great Commission. The global growth of the movement is evidence of the strategy’s success.

The other argument, the one more characterized by the Sermon on the Mount, also affirms the centrality of evangelism to the evangelical. But it then reminds evangelicals that they are not called solely to evangelistic minis try. This side of the debate understands evangelism to be that act by which the seeds of Christianity are planted, but asserts that the fruit of conversions al ready made must be more diverse than just further proclamation. Indeed, the participants in the Lausanne Congress recognized that Christian ministry en compasses more than evangelism. Christ himself augmented his evangelistic message with ministries of healing, cleansing, and liberating. Thus, according to the Sermon on the Mount argument, evangelicals today should shape their budgets in ways that are consistent with Christ’s example.

Evangelicals naturally approach the needs of people already in the church through holistic ministry. The strategy often changes, however, when they approach non-Christians, as it is difficult to advocate socio-political and economic outreaches to nonbelievers before first introducing them to the life-giving Evangel. Inadvertently, evangelicals have put boundaries on their love for others. They have grasped with clarity their call to further the cause of Christ and his Kingdom; apparently not so clear is how feeding poor Muslim children, say, accomplishes this mission.

We return, in the end, to the needs of Thuso and others like him. They have placed before us both a wonderful opportunity and a great responsibility; may we have the vision and will to rise to the occasion.

Stephen Offutt recently received a master’s degree from the John Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies and is now living and working in El Salvador.

Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture Magazine.Click here for reprint information on Books & Culture.

Basic Christianity— with an Oxbridge Accent

Having recently arrived in the States after spending many years in evangelical circles in the United Kingdom, I was most interested to read Bruce Hindmarsh’s piece [September/October].

So many of his observations on the kind of evangelicalism which is associated with John Stott were accurate and perceptive that it came as a surprise to see two major faux pas in what he wrote, the one factual and the other, on his own admission, quite speculative. Both concern the late Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

The factual error is that Lloyd-Jones did not call on evangelicals to leave their denominations at the Evangelical Alliance meeting in Central Hall, Westminster in 1966 which was chaired by John Stott. What the Doctor said then was known in advance to those who had invited him to speak and it is now published in Knowing the Times (Banner of Truth Trust [1989], pp. 246-57). He called evangelicals to come together, not uttering one word about separation. His message was positive and was pro-unity and not separatist let alone schismatic. To tell the truth, he believed that evangelicals were already guilty of the sin of schism because they were separated church-wise from each other. It was in 1967 that he issued the call to withdraw and this was in the interests of “gospel purity” as David Bebbington rightly noted.

Secondly, Hindmarsh speculates on what might have happened if Lloyd-Jones’ call had been heeded and envisages the possibility that he would, Machen-like, have led “Reformed evangelicals into an ‘Orthodox Anglican Church.'” To anyone who knew Lloyd-Jones this is not credible. First, he had no ambition to be a leader of any denomination. He confessed he had no blueprint for ecclesiastical structures and no gift for administration. That oversight on Hindmarsh’s part is perhaps pardonable. But to entertain the notion that Lloyd-Jones could become a leader of an “Anglican Church”, even an “orthodox” one, requires a stretch of the imagination which is just impossible. Lloyd-Jones was a non-conformist, a Dissenter: Anglicanism is by definition episcopalian. While there is no doubt that his preaching and wisdom would have been a formative and pervasive influence among orthodox churches, the church scene which he argued for was that of a fellowship of independent churches whose confessional statement was evangelical and Calvinistic.

To the books on evangelicalism which Hindmarsh reviews so helpfully another has just been added. It is by Iain Murray and is entitled Evangelicals Divided. This book describes the real difficulties which the evangelicalism associated with Billy Graham and John Stott has raised for a large number of evangelical people and churches in the United Kingdom and also in the United States as well. Perhaps Hindmarsh will review this book in your pages.

Hywel R. JonesWestminster Theological SeminaryEscondido, Calif.

Bruce Hindmarsh replies:

Professor Jones claims that Lloyd-Jones did not call on evangelicals to leave their denominations at the Evangelical Alliance meeting in 1966. I do want to be fair to Lloyd-Jones, and perhaps I should have said that it was widely perceived that he was calling upon evangelicals to leave mixed denominations such as the Church of England. Lloyd-Jones had made such remarks as these: “Are we content, as evangelicals, to go on being nothing but an evangelical wing of a church? … To remain in a church in which there are many who may hold views … which we deplore.” And again, “I know that there are men, ministers and clergy, in this congregation at the moment, who, if they did what I am exhorting them to do, would have a tremendous problem before them, even a financial, an economic and a family problem” (Knowing the Times, pp. 251, 256). Were evangelicals such as John Stott really wrong to see this as a call to withdraw from the Church of England?

The books I was reviewing for Books & Culture demonstrate how widely it was perceived to be so. Roger Steer claimed that Lloyd-Jones “called on Evangelicals to leave their denominations and form a national Evangelical church” (p. 224). Oliver Barclay noted that he used the phrase “come out” and spoke of the need for sacrifice if necessary (p. 83). And David Bebbington observed that this address in 1966 was taken as a sensational suggestion “that Christians should leave their existing denominations for the sake of gospel purity” (p. 370).

My counter-factual speculation about a wholesale evangelical secession from the Church of England, and my comparison to Machen and the Presbyterian secession—well, yes, this was meant to stretch the imagination in a “what if” sort of way. I agree that it would stretch the imagination a little too far to imagine Lloyd-Jones in a mitre.

Still, Professor Jones’s letter is interesting to me as a Canadian observer with no particular axe to grind against Lloyd-Jones. It suggests to me that there is still considerable tension in Britain about what constitutes “gospel purity” in a kingdom with a national church, and that the Stott-Lloyd-Jones standoff was a defining moment for many.

I should point out that even if Lloyd-Jones was “pro-unity and not separatist,” it would not be the first time that evangelicals ideals of unity have been divisive. From the earliest days of the Evangelical Revival in Britain, George Whitefield proclaimed the spiritual union of all who had experienced the New Birth and John Wesley upheld an ideal of catholicity. But ironically the movement was dogged by separatism from the beginning as Whitefield and Wesley divided over Calvinism, the Methodists and the Moravians over quietism, the Methodists and many Anglican evangelicals over church order, and so on. The call for unity (even Lloyd-Jones’s call for unity in 1966) invites the question, “Unity on what terms?”

Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture Magazine.Click here for reprint information on Books & Culture.

• INTELLECTUM VERO VALDE AMA •Greatly love the intellect

—Augustine

When a book elicits angry, uncomprehending, dismissive reviews from the self-appointed guardians of tolerance and enlightenment, pay attention. What you’re hearing may well be the pain and rage of a wounded behemoth. A case in point is the reception of Stephen Carter’s new book, God’s Name in Vain: The Rights and Wrongs of Religion in Politics (Basic). See, for example, Brent Staples’s review in the New York Times Book Review (Nov. 26, 2000). Staples writes editorials for the Times on politics and culture, so his review is doubly stamped with the imprimatur of the newspaper of record.

“Visit a church at random next Sunday,” Staples begins,

and you will probably encounter a few dozen people sprinkled thinly over a sanctuary that was built to accommodate hundreds or even thousands. The empty pews and white-haired congregants lend credence to those who argue that traditional religious worship is dying out.

Really? For the exceedingly credulous, maybe, or for those whose mind is already made up (after all, no one they know would be caught dead in a place of “traditional religious worship”). By the same logic, after my recent visits to churches such as Southeast Christian in Louisville, which has grown from a congregation of 125 in 1966 to more than 14,000 today, I could conclude that “traditional religious worship” is growing by leaps and bounds.

But neither impression would be worth much, based on such skimpy evidence. In fact, the consensus among the scholars who study church attendance is that it hasn’t changed significantly since the 1960s; down slightly, perhaps, but that is all.

Don’t bother Staples with facts, though; he’s in full swing, explaining that “the quest for spiritual fulfillment has moved away from church and into the secular world.” Shades of the sixties and The Secular City. Does Staples really think the future lies that way? But the next moment he has shifted gears to extol the “new ecumenicalism,” which accommodates “a broad range of religious inflections, including those that have migrated into this country from Asia, South America, and the Caribbean.”

You may be wondering what any of this has to do with Carter’s book. I wondered the same thing. First, Staples wants to lecture Carter about what “religion” really means in America today. (Carter is charged with having missed “the new ecumenicalism,” though in his book he acknowledges religious pluralism at many points.) Second, Carter says that in America today many religious believers rightly feel they are under assault. Staples is convinced that Carter is blind to the “ecclesiastical failures and self-inflicted wounds” of “the traditional church.” The logic, if there were any, would go something like this: If believers feel beleaguered, it’s their own fault! And what are those “ecclesiastical failures and self-inflicted wounds”? Well, “the traditional church … has failed to present religion in a style that the modern world could accept and understand—and has lost touch with the evangelistic impulse that built the great congregations in the first place.”

This is very confusing. Some parts of the church have indeed lost touch with the evangelistic impulse, but aren’t those the very parts that are most desperate to “present religion in a style that the modern world could accept and understand”? As to what that “style” might be:

The traditional church’s sufferings stem mainly from its failure to adapt quickly enough to new religious appetites and new social realities—most notably, divorce, unwed motherhood, birth control, open hom*osexuality, and the wish of women to serve as pastors.

Stranger and stranger. Isn’t it in the mainline—where many of those dying congregations Staples cited are to be found—that the effort to “adapt quickly” to these “new social realities” has been most pronounced? And what exactly does it mean, come to think of it, for “the modern world” to accept and understand something? Is the “modern world” more or less synonymous with the staff of the Times and the Harvard faculty, or does it also include those benighted souls—many of them immigrants, by the way; far more immigrants are Christian than Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu put together—who flock to the very sort of churches of which Staples clearly disapproves?

The incoherence of Staples’s treatment of “traditional religion” confirms the rightness of Carter’s intuitions, first expressed in his book The Culture of Disbelief and developed further in God’s Name in Vain. Even as Staples ridicules Carter’s portrait of “elite campuses” where “it is perfectly acceptable for professors to use their classrooms to attack religion, to mock it,” his own review is seething with condescension and contempt for traditional religious belief.

NOTE: For your convenience, the following products, which were mentioned above, are available for purchase:• God’s Name in Vain : The Wrongs and Rights of Religion in Politics, by Stephen L. Carter• The Culture of Disbelief : How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion, by Stephen L. Carter

Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture Magazine.Click here for reprint information on Books & Culture.

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Otto Selles is associate professor of French at Calvin College.

Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture Magazine.Click here for reprint information on Books & Culture.