Holifield’s Methodist Perfectionism paints a picture
of American Methodism as being theologically light movement. A movement concerned
with reaching lay people rather than producing theological treatises, and in
fact Holifield depicts how Methodism only formed its theological stance in
opposition to Calvinist & Universalist thought.
Now I know Christianity had a close relation
to all things educational, and these institutions are birthed from that
relationship. But this transformation still makes me wonder how Methodism went
from a theologically light denomination towards producing theologians, and
founding schools, and being tied to institutions such as Duke, Emory,
Vanderbilt, Yale, and Boston University? Is the Methodist approach towards
slavery the answer for this? If we see anti-slavery theologians as trying to
prove the Bible doesn’t mean what it says, is this the foundation for our
theological-educational-criticism shift?
Holifield speaks towards the Methodist
emphasis on depravity, and I don’t know about you, but depravity &
prevenient grace seem pretty theological to me. So if we are understanding
American Methodists as being theological lacking, but still see the
conversations built around theological language; does this speak more towards
the theological literacy of the period or our theological illiteracy?
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