Church Matters: Retrieving the Great Tradition

Ses s i on 3: Modern i t y , Pos t -Modern i t y , and the Chur ch Today 63

been seen as his conversion (though he had already been a committed believer for sometime). The new element was the assurance of salvation , with his younger brother Charles (1707-88) undergoing a similar experience as John three days earlier, and George Whitefield the same some several years before. Developed a call to return to the Gospels (called “Methodists”) began in 1739 to preach in the open air, market places, wherever they could gather folk. (It is said that Wesley traveled 5,000 miles each year on horseback in preaching–“God’s horseman,” “I look upon all the world as my parish.”) Faced opposition from clergy, and all members of society, nevertheless many responded; Britain experienced Evangelical Revival. Wesleys gathered converts into societies which existed in conjunction with local parish churches. Hostility led them to form the Methodist Church, even though the Anglican Church was also deeply affected by them. Revival was brought throughout churches which had been in decline: Presbyterians, Congrega tionalists, Baptists. It has been said that without the Wesleyan revival Britain would have probably sunk into civil disorder and revolution, their impact on trade unions and the poor was so great. Charles Wesley, who was arguably alongside Isaac Watts to be called the greatest English hymnwriter ever, capsulized much Wesleyan theology and vision in his hymns.

3. Spiritualism

a. Jacob Boehme (d. 1624) possession of the Holy Spirit is sufficient apart from Scripture

b. George Fox: pursuing the experience of the divine through inner mystical confirmation over against the controlling authority of the church