JW: Not a Fan of Colonial Independence...

As we read John Wesley’s address to “our” American colonies I was struck by how little it sounded like good ole’ John Wesley. JW always writes in a very organized manner with a clear thesis, and supports his argument by alluding to countless scriptures One could expect the use of Romans 13.1 but it is never used. However Wesley wades into this political divorce without scriptural evidence. We are taught to see Wesley as interacting with the social issues of the day through his pragmatic theology, but here we see a biased Wesley not being informed by much else other than his English biased.

But in seeing a Wesley who didn’t support the idea of the colonies becoming independent, we can also understand a Wesley who never wanted his “Methodists” to become a separate independent Church either. We can probably also see why Wesley’s missions is Georgia never worked if he entered the colonies with this elitist mindset, and I would be interested to hear George Whitefield’s opinion on the American colonies to see is his colonial-view was why he succeeded stateside more than JW.