A Christian Country?

In John Wesley's fourth sermon, "Scriptural Christianity," he claims he is writing with a "plain, practical application."  Perhaps Wesley and I have different understandings of the connotation of the word "plain," but I would not generally call this sermon plain.  This sermon is a dense series of Scripture references and rhetorical questions asked to the reader/listener that not only challenge the individual, but but even the country.  Wesley asks the question, "Which is the country, the inhabitants whereof are all thus filled with the Holy Ghost?"  This is certainly an interesting question in understanding Wesley's own context, however it's also something we should ask today.  Some have called the United States a "Christian Country," but are we?  Are all of us really filled with the holy Spirit? We could even take this question down to the local church level.  I wonder what the true answer would be.

The Methodist "Society"

The Methodists as Wesley describe them were an intense bunch. I can't help but look around at our modern United Methodist Church and be disappointed in it when looking at this society. Each member spoke to Wesley at least once every three months, weekly meetings for the bands, hierarchy that demands more attention, separate sections for the children, and the list goes on. The leadership asks that they keep tabs on the bands, any differences, have societal trials, and coordinate with other leaders. Reading this text reminds me more of Calvinist Geneva rather than the UMC I grew up with, though part of me wishes that there was more of this in the modern Church.

There is a lot of structure here, which does make me question the parallel nature of this society. I know inevitably the society became a church proper, but this structure has much overlap with existing church hierarchy. It seems difficult to construe that this is in fact a society and not a new church, with the roles of deacons, lay leadership, ministers, preachers, children's schooling, all of which would be functions carried out by the Church of England. So why go through all this trouble to set this up if this is only meant to be a parallel institution?

Bonus Historical Context for Scriptural Christianity

Note:  when possible, I read JW's sermons out of an edited anthology that also provides context around the sermons.  Part of my response includes portions of that commentary.  The source is: Albert C. Outler, John Wesley’s Sermons: An Anthology (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991).  Page references are provided. 

_____________________________________

Albert Outler and Richard Heitzenrater point out in the introductory note of this sermon in John Wesley’s Sermons: An Anthology, that this sermon was preached while Wesley was teaching at Oxford in 1744 (97).  While Wesley never intended to publish this sermon, he notes in his own introduction to the sermon that it is only because the response to his words was so untoward he felt it necessary to provide the full context such that people could discern for themselves what was true (97). 

I raise this note because I think the context of this sermon matters greatly in the hearing of it.  He is in an academic setting at a time when the community was apparently celebrating the exile of nonconformists and Methodist revivals were increasing in popularity.  It’s an incredibly bold move to preach this at the time, but I’m wondering what Wesley’s end game actually was.  Outler identifies Wesley’s reaction as that of a clean conscience; that Wesley believed he said what was necessary in the moment and if the academic community rebuked him, so be it (97).  But speaking this truth in this manner doesn’t seem to jive with Wesley’s overarching claim that he isn’t trying to start a new church, he’s trying to improve what existed at the time.  It strikes me as incredibly incendiary given the context, which is why his motives interest me.  

I also find it interesting that Wesley, in his description of scriptural Christianity specifically references the fruits of the spirit and essentially said there isn’t scriptural Christianity at work if the Oxford community doesn’t exhibit the fruits of the spirit. Originally, the tone seemed so combative in the fourth section that it was counteracting the characteristics about which he was preaching, but in a second read, I think it was a solid rhetorical move to say these are the things we’re called according to scripture to be; let me show you how to do that.  Again, I’m not clear on what his end game is, but I do find the context around this sermon to be somewhat helpful in understanding parts of why Wesley approached this in the way he did.  

Scriptural Christianity: Lacking Pastoral Awareness

I dove into John Wesley’s Scriptural Christianity. This sermon is clearly calling out a community for not living up to the standards of Scriptural Christianity and/or early Church. He cites countless scriptures describing the standard of the early Church. Then he imagines and dreams of what the Church should be. Followed by quickly pointing out how far they are falling from those standards and dreams. I think it is a great sermon. I think it is a great reminder to the community of faith or where they come from, question where they currently are, and think about where they are going.

However, I question the setting and audience behind John Wesley’s Scriptural Christianity. Is this a sermon you can hand out in a pamphlet or preach to different crowds as you travel preaching revivals? While I think it is a needed sermon for communities, I think it is a sermon which needs to come from a pastor who is relation with his/her community. A certain level of congregational relationship is needed to preach this message constructively. How do you call out people in public settings, and you don’t even know their names? It may be great homiletics, it may be great theology, but is it good pastoral care/leadership? How did a message like this succeed, and become constructive rather than un-relationally- destructive 

The World Is Always Ending

Wesley's sermon on "Scriptural Christianity" feels like a lot of things other people have said before and since--the original Church was good and true and had things figured out until Blame Outside Force Here disturbed their community, the current world is coming to an end and prophecies will soon be fulfilled, believers are pale imitations now of what they are meant to be.  This sermon has been preached in every generation sermons have been preached, and not just in Christianity.

Given this reality of rehashing concepts, how are we to understand and appreciate the impact of Wesley's particular critiques?   The English audience that heard this sermon was only a few years removed from "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," had just seen Robert Walpole step down from being prime minister after 20 years, was newly introduced to Handel's Messiah, and presumably had seen the Great Comet of 1744--in other words, the English audience was living in a world that was changing and moving and being, as it had before and has since.  When Wesley tells them, "suppose now the fullness of time to be come, and the prophecies to be accomplished," to what end is he calling them?  When he accuses people of being "a generation of triflers," how is that viewpoint seen in his slow shaping of the methodical church?  And how do we as modern readers understand such themes as we study the ways in which the early Church was not perfect, the world trundles on, and people have always been rather awful at faithfulness?  Why, in short, does a sermon like this still matter, it having been done so many times before?

Whitefield's Hierarchy

Whitefield's words bely a stark sense of doom along with a redemptive quality, a duality that reinforces his idea of hierarchy among his followers. It strikes me as odd that he so delineates the difference between the Elect and the damned. His antagonistic stance against his opposition and hypocrites indicates that there is certainly one way to go about finding redemption. (This too is underscored by his dislike for "false preachers".) This redemption, too, shows a contrast between the saved and the damned with his description of the physical redemption of the body along with the soul; it seems to be the tangible nugget with which to catch the audience's ear and anchor the sermon into reality. I felt reading these that there was something particularly sinister about his preaching to masses and to the general people but still focusing on the idea of an Elect and dividing the devout from the false. I'm interested in further understanding the difference between his ideas of hierarchy (considering he uses a ladder formation as his guide) against Wesley's lack of hierarchy. It already suggests a different understanding of sanctification in that Wesley considered it a constant action and work of the soul rather than something that produces justification, as Whitefield. His rhetoric creates a sense of an imminent coming, which is not a sense I necessarily received from Wesley's sermons, and I think I would like to further compare the underlying tensions between the two preachers' words.

Contents of George Whitefield's sermons: What about laypeople of the Bible and the church?

It is a widely known fact that most of audience of Whitefield's sermons were the laity or even laypeople who do not know about the Bible and the church at all: mine workers, laborers, the poor, and so forth. Since these people were not able to reach out to the church, Whitefield tried to preach for them in the open air. However, terms and the logic Whitefield employed in his sermons seem to be a bit difficult for those people. Not only that, these do not seem to be sympathetic, as well, for laypeople.  For instance, Whitefield said that "if you do not believe this (religion to be an inward thing), though you have got your Bibles in your hand, you hate the Lord Jesus Christ in your heart; for religion is everywhere represented in Scripture as the work of God in the heart" and " Christ's whole personal righteousness is made over to, and accounted theirs. They (we) are enabled to lay hold on Christ by faith, and God the Father blots out their (our) transgressions, as with a thick cloud...they (we) are made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus."

Some parts of the sermons were not even easy for me to grasp. Therefore, I was wondering whether audiences fully understood his sermons or not, and did contents of his sermons indeed change people? not his physical or external abilities: speech, deliverance or power of persuasion?