by Ken Sehested
Correction. In the original post of this commentary, I mistakenly attributed authorship
of "What a Friend We Have In Jesus." The correct author is Joseph M. Scriven.
That's a big goof on my part—but an instructive one, since the story behind
Scriven's writing is a dramatic and compelling narrative. I've posted
a summary at the bottom of this page.
The recent decision by the United Methodist Church policymakers to retain (and harden) its rejection of lgbtq pastors and matrimonial blessings is, for many inside and out of that confessional body, a bitter pill. The news prompted me to push everything aside and compose a pastoral note. (“A humble word of encouragement to my Wesleyan friends: On the United Methodist Church’s General Conference decision to ostracize queerfolk")
It also made me switch gears entirely for this issue of “Signs of the Times” [1 March 2019 #188], to provide some background on John Wesley’s influence in directly molding one significant stream in the Christian tradition and influencing many others.
Some 12 million people are affiliated with the United Methodist Church (UMC), the largest single body in the global Methodist community of 80 million. About two-thirds of the UMC’s members are in the US, with others from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe.
It would be hard to overstate the Wesleyan impact in shaping Protestant practice, piety, and polity, which included the impulse behind the “Great Awakening” movements of the 18th and 19th centuries in Britain and the US. Particularly so when you bring into the picture Charles Wesley, John’s brother. Charles’ hymns are omnipresent; and some would say had a greater influence in actually articulating this pietist-revivalist theological vision. A religious community’s songs are remembered and hummed in kitchens and fields and shops far more often than sermon notes or books passages.
That's the reason this issue’s music suggestions are variations (in a wide variety of musical genres) of my favorite Charles Wesley hymn, “What a Friend We Have In Jesus.”
The trouble with Charles’ hymn texts, though, is the trouble with Protestant theology in general. They almost exclusively speak of personal faith, with virtually no reference to what John Wesley described as “social holiness,” for which he used the word sanctification. References to Heaven’s claim on Earth’s domain are missing. At best, evangelical heirs of Wesley’s emphasis on “warmed-heart” conversion attempt a separate-but-equal understanding of the relations of spiritual formation and prophetic action. (In mainline Protestantism, social vision warrants a larger billing but is largely severed from spiritual formation and theological insight, excepting appeals to generic “golden rule” references.)
Faith in the manner of Jesus, I would argue, is always personal but never merely private. The missing chapter in this transition from John Wesley’s vision—in the multitude of Wesleyan and “Holiness” and, to a lesser degree, Pentecostal movements—is the account that many of these stipulated a specific commitment to pacifism on theological grounds. Wesley, and many who arose in his wake, were adamant abolitionists when it came to slavery. And many of the earliest women ministers and preachers emerged in Holiness and Pentecostal environs.
I am a partly penitent, partly affirmative offspring of the pietist-revivalist tradition (which is profoundly different from fundamentalism—but that’s another essay.) I firmly believe that persevering labor on behalf of the Beloved Community must be organically connected to the ongoing work of personal, deepened spirituality. Let me mention two short anecdotes.
First, read the story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “kitchen table conversion,” first accounted in his book Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story and summarized by Lewis V. Baldwin in a CNN interview, “Martin Luther King, Jr.'s prayer life revealed.”
Second, remembered the oft-quoted aphorism of A.J. Muste, among the conspicuous leaders of 20th century faith-based nonviolent movements for justice, peace and human rights. Once a reporter asked Muste, “Do you really think you are going to change the policies of this country by standing out here alone at night in front of the White House with a candle?” To which Muste replied, “Oh, I don’t do this to change the country. I do this so the country won’t change me.”
This ancient insight—that the heart, too, must be regenerated; that the mind, as well, must be decolonized—is what invigorated and sparked the fiery vision that lit John Wesley’s lamp.
There are many rivulets, streams, creeks, and rivers that flow into this body of wisdom. We urgently need immersion into that heritance.
# # #
Particularly so when you bring into the picture Charles Wesley, John’s brother. Charles’ hymns are omnipresent; and some would say had a greater influence in actually articulating this pietist-revivalist theological vision.
6. Wesley counseled people to “eat a little less than you desire.”
Tabernacle, Emmanuel Association, Free Methodist Church, and the Salvation Army.” —David Swartz, “
• “Transgender troops make historic first testimony on military ban before House committee.” —
¶ Additional Wesley quotes
ies about the piano and how the piano is played. At the end of several months of study and discussion they are very well informed about every aspect of the piano and piano playing. When they sit down at a keyboard they know where all the notes are, but they have no idea how to make music with the instrument they have devoted so much time and energy studying.” —Steven Manskar, “
¶ Altar call. “Jesus cleanses our hearts, but the world still dictates our bodies.” —Eric Paul, “
• “
derby, the whole world shaking and rattling and crashing one into the other in a seemingly insatiable quest for supremacy, seized (and self-hallowed) by strength of hand or guile of spirit or deceit of agency.
Not Halloween candy and masquerades, not Thanksgiving turkey and pumpkin pie; not Christmas gifts and visits from Santa; not even Valentine’s Day romance, or President’s Day sales, or chocolate bunnies on Easter, complete with all that good organ music and the onset of spring.
Chisholm—also the first black person and the first woman to run for the Democratic presidential nomination—outside Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, officials recently announced.” —
bright hope it represents, needs to be told over and again in the midst of our work.
personal freedom, self-interest, self-expression, the idea that life is an individual journey toward personal fulfillment. You do you. But Weavers share an ethos that puts relationship over self. We are born into relationships, and the measure of our life is in the quality of our relationships. We precedes me.” —“
Forum
for the land of Freedom."
both Matthew’s version of that text and Luke’s. But in both cases it’s slated for the seventh Sunday after Epiphany, one of the Ordinary cycle’s odd benchwarming weeks—used only when the liturgical calendar’s stars align. Week seven didn’t make it into the Year A or C calendar between 2001 and 2011. “A ten-year absence of Jesus’ command to love our enemies occurred,” says Lemonholm, “during the first ten years of the war on terror.” —Steve Thorngate, “
need be. But the nature of that challenge, its form and shape
arrested. He tended her for her blindness, but when he was arrested she still had not regained her sight. Before his execution, Valentine asked the jailer for some parchment and ink. He wrote the girl a note and signed it ‘From your Valentine.’ When she opened the note, a yellow crocus flower fell out of the parchment and it was the first thing she had ever seen. She had received her sight.” —continue reading more of the historical background to Valentine’s Day, “
¶ Hymn of praise. “
have made the same commitment. 
that you know / Get used to righteousness when it makes you feel whole / Gonna be a transformation, baby, down in your soul.” —Van Morrison, “
at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. —, Sun Sentinel 
volunteers, part of the No More Deaths ministry of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson, could be sentenced to up to six months in prison and fined up to $500.” —
Bukowski (Thanks Amy.)
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