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CURRENT THEOLOGICAL TRENDS IN UNITED METHODISM:
A CRITICAL EVANGELICAL ASSESSMENT

United Methodism at the turn of the century is a cacophony of voices, agendas, and interests groups, all claiming some noble cause of “justice,” “equality,” or the surest way to utopia. Such a period reminds one of the progressive movement during the nineteenth century when Emerson once remarked “that everyone had a plan for utopia tucked in the pocket of his (or her) waistcoat.” In the welter of such competing claims, invigorated by lofty appeals to moral authority, it is often difficult to sort out which ones will actually endure over time and which will only constitute the latest theological fad. Therefore, to bring a sense of clarity out of this theological (and sociological) noise, I will focus on two of the leading approaches that offer their own visions for the way ahead. Given the space limitations of this essay, the examination of these approaches will obviously not be exhaustive but informative; not definitive but heuristic; the means by which one may reflect on the life and thought of contemporary Methodism.

The Liberal/Radical Approach
The liberal/radical reading of Wesley and the broader Methodist theological tradition is well attuned to current American cultural trends and it often champions the cause of justice in rhetoric indistinguishable from that of the political left. T.W. Jennings Jr., who is typical of this approach, has tried to give new life to Marxist thought—which has been successfully impugned by twentieth-century realities—by using it in a normative fashion in terms of Methodist discussions of justice in general and of the poor in particular. To illustrate, Jennings makes the claim that “Marx chose a different path to reach a goal something like that envisioned by Wesley” (Good News to the Poor [Abingdon, 1990] 188). But this claim is simply preposterous in light of Wesley’s clearly stated intent, the goal at which he unswervingly aimed, to “spread scriptural holiness across the land,” a holiness of which Marx knew almost nothing.

For his part, T.H. Runyon is so oriented to the material, maintenance, needs of the poor as well as to the political issues of the day that he actually advises the readers of his work, The New Creation: John Wesley’s Theology Today (Abingdon, 1998), to skip the chapters pertaining to grace, faith, and holiness and to begin with ch. 6: “Wesley for Today.” Such counsel, whether Runyon recognizes it or not, is actually emblematic of the liberal/radical approach to Wesley studies—namely, one must begin not with the eighteenth century (nor with soteriological concerns), but with the contemporary setting, with all its concerns and agendas, and then proceed to interpret Wesley. What emerges from such labor is usually a very “constructed” theology that often bears little relation to the historic Wesley. Such scholarship may be called “constructive theology,” but it is hardly historical theology though Wesley’s name is often tacked on to give added weight to what are, in reality, contemporary judgments.

Moreover, with its partisan reading of both Methodism and broader American culture, the liberal/radical approach has either virtually ignored the contributions of evangelicals to church and society or else it has held evangelicals up to scorn. Jennings, for instance, has claimed the “prophetic” ability even to discern the very motives of Methodist evangelicals who have heretofore claimed that Aldersgate constitutes nothing less than John Wesley’s conversion. Jennings writes: “What this means is that the conversionist myth of Aldersgate is a lie. It is unsupported by Wesley’s own writings and depends upon a systematic distortion of these texts. To celebrate Aldersgate as ... the conversion of Wesley is to perpetrate an historical fraud. ... But [Wesley] was not taken in by [this] phony evangelicalism that for all its talk of Christ, faith, and being born again, had no relation to that biblical faith that works by love to produce the holiness without which none shall see God” (“John Wesley against Aldersgate,” Quarterly Review 8 [3, 1988] 20, 22). Obviously, something has gone very wrong here. Jennings, apparently unable or at least unwilling to argue in a deliberate and rational manner, has ultimately resorted to hyperbole and name-calling to carry the day. In short, his “theological” argument has collapsed under the strain of his anti-evangelical polemics. And this, of course, hardly constitutes careful, well-reasoned, scholarship.

In a similar vein, although it contributes absolutely nothing to the larger argument of his book, Runyon caricatures and then castigates both evangelicals and pietists. For example, on the topic of evangelicalism he sets up a “straw man” which he quickly—and not surprisingly—knocks down: “Note that Wesley’s view is here in conflict with doctrines being advertised by some today as ‘evangelical.’ According to their view, God is interested in saving only individuals, plucking them out of an evil world, so that when the proper number of individuals has been rescued God will destroy the world” (166). And in terms of pietism, Runyon, once again, puts forth a stereotype: “One of the persistent tendencies emerging from pietism and its understanding of Christianity has been individualism. The essential core of Christian faith is reduced to what takes place within the individual and his or her personally experienced awareness of God” (102). In each instance, Runyon has mistaken his own claim for an actual argument. His comments on pietism, however, are particularly troubling as well as historically inaccurate. In reality, the continental pietists such as Spener, Franke, Tersteegen, and others emphasized the communal life of the church and the importance of groups in terms of their basic model of ecclesiolae in ecclesia. Indeed, the pietist cell groups (evidences of social religion) were very similar to Wesley’s class meetings. But all of this historical material has been repudiated in the heat of the polemics of The New Creation.

The Gradualist Approach
Building in some sense on the earlier emphases of A. Outler, R.L. Maddox put forth a view of Wesley’s theology in his book Responsible Grace: John Wesley’s Practical Theology (Abingdon, 1994) that highlights the gradual, processive, aspects of redemption (the means of grace and Christian nurture), but which, by and large, neglects the instantaneous aspects (the power, the cruciality, of instantiated saving graces—especially those of the new birth and conversion). This currently popular reading of the theology of Wesley, which has been termed “gradualism,” is best summarized in a number of theses:
(1) Stresses incremental growth and development
(2) Soteriological changes are ones that are largely different in degree (an increment) though not really different in kind
(3) Emphasizes Christian nurture in a way similar to Horace Bushnell
(4) Deprecates the instantaneous motif in Wesley and in the works of others
(5) Attributes an “intellectualist psychology” (which maintains that an autonomous reason orders the passions) to any view other than Wesley’s that emphasizes the instantaneous in its soteriology
(6) Justification and regeneration are redefined and incrementalized in a way that departs from their usage in Wesley’s Notes Upon the New Testament and in his Sermons on Several Occasions
(7) The decisiveness, the cruciality, of justification, the new birth, and entire sanctification are all, therefore, muted (and Aldersgate is deprecated)
(8) Maintains that the “faith of a servant” is justifying faith in each and every instance (despite significant evidence to the contrary) with the result that the qualitative difference of being a child of God is obscured, even diminished
(9) With a gradualist reading of Wesley’s soteriology, the crucial difference between prevenient grace and initially sanctifying grace (regenerating grace) is virtually repudiated
(10) Essentially rejects the distinction made by Wesley throughout his career between nominal and real Christianity
(11) Blurs the distinction between Christian and non-Christian in its gradualist reading of the outworking of prevenient and justifying grace in a diversity of cultures
(12) Identifies entire sanctification with mature adult states in an undue stress on process
(13) Emphasizes a “Catholic” reading of Wesley without taking significant account of the “Protestant” Wesley as well
(14) Views grace preeminently in a synergistic context as divine initiative and human response rather than seeing this important synergism caught up in a larger conjunction where the sheer gratuity of grace as well as divine sovereignty are factored in

Though a distinction can be made between the gradualist approach to the Christian doctrine of salvation, championed in Maddox’s interpretation of Wesley, and the liberal/radical approach noted earlier, the proponents of each view recognized each other as kindred spirits and indeed joined forces in the attempt to debunk Wesley’s Aldersgate experience as an evangelical conversion. Earlier Maddox had produced his Aldersgate Reconsidered (Abingdon, 1990) an edited work which contained contributions from D.L. Watson, J.M. Schmidt and R. Bondi—all who criticized, in one form or another, the conversionist view. For his part, Maddox maintained, in an almost triumphalistic fashion, that the conversionist reading of Aldersgate had been displaced due to, among other things, the professionalization of the field of Wesley studies! Not only was this last claim a bold attempt to resolve this controversial issue not on theological grounds, but on sociological ones (by marginalizing evangelical voices), but it also failed to take note of considerable evidence in Wesley’s own writings which flatly contradicts the recent attempts at debunking.

My own work The Scripture Way of Salvation: The Heart of John Wesley’s Theology (Abingdon, 1997) and A Real Christian: The Life of John Wesley (Abingdon, 1999), has marshaled considerable evidence that not only challenges Maddox’s gradualistic reading of Wesley, but also impugns the two central assumptions integral to the “reconsidered” view of Aldersgate—namely, that “the faith of a servant” is justifying faith in each and every instance (which supposedly means that Wesley was justified and born of God, and hence “converted,” prior to Aldersgate), and secondly that Wesley broadened his conception of salvation in a very inclusive way (whether one has “the faith or a servant” or “the faith of a child” makes little difference), and he, therefore, dropped the motif of real Christianity, the distinction between a real and a nominal Christian, in the 1740s. However, as a result of my own contributions to the field, both of these claims have now been shown to be false and so even Maddox is apparently beginning to change his view (cf. Maddox, “Prelude to a Dialogue,” Wesleyan Theological Journal 35 [2000] 88). To be sure, the scholarship on Aldersgate is by no means “settled” as the earlier triumphalism had suggested. On the contrary, it is now in disarray.

Interestingly enough, so much of Maddox’s gradualistic interpretive revolution is based on the supposed dependence of Wesley on Eastern Orthodoxy for his more important soteriological cues. However, when the hard, historical evidence is examined, such “dependence” is dubious at best in light of the following considerations:
(1) A distinction must be made between the eastern fathers and the Eastern Orthodox Tradition. Wesley utilized the former as a resource, but not the latter.
(2) Whenever Wesley listed the early church fathers (Greek and Latin) he did not single out the eastern fathers for any special attention.
(3) There is a relative paucity of references to the eastern fathers in a very large Wesleyan corpus.
(4) When Wesley considered the Eastern (Greek) Orthodox tradition as a discreet tradition, his observations were most often negative (“The gross, barbarous ignorance, the deep, stupid superstition, the blind and bitter zeal, and the endless thirst after vain jangling and strife of words, which have reigned for many ages in the Greek Church, and well-nigh banished true religion from among them…” [Works, Jackson edition, 9:217]).
(5) There is considerable doubt among scholars that Wesley was reading the actual Ephraem Syrus while he was in Georgia.
(6) If Wesley were focusing on Eastern Orthodoxy as a discrete tradition, then why is there virtually no evidence of the work of Gregory of Nyssa (one of its more cherished theologians) in the Methodist leader’s writings?
(7) Wesley’s principal reference to the homilies of Pseudo Macarius in his own work was not on the much-discussed contemporary topic of theosis but on that of sin.
(8) Wesley greatly edited what Pseudo Macarian homilies he published, and he painstakingly removed each reference to the ascetic life, and when Wesley encountered the term theosis, he simply removed it and substituted his more easily understood (and Western) term sanctification.
(9) There is not a shred of evidence that Wesley was in serious theological dialog with eighteenth-century Eastern Orthodox theologians, a dialog that would have surely taken place if Wesley had been intent on appropriating the insights of this particular tradition.
(10) Wesley learned what is the essence of holiness, the goal of religion, from two Anglicans and a Roman Catholic—that is, from Jeremy Taylor, William Law, and Thomas à Kempis.

Beyond this considerable evidence, if one were to ask Eastern Orthodox priests even today whether or not they are “saved,” they will most likely reply, “No, we are not saved, but we are being saved.” Again, ask the same priests if they have the assurance that they are children of God, and they will once again reply, “the doctrine of assurance is not really a part of our theological heritage.” And yet this is supposedly the tradition that “greatly” influenced Wesley’s soteriology? I think not. Indeed, if this connection collapses, then the major ingredient that has been used to substantiate a gradualistic reading of Wesley’s soteriology will collapse as well, and with it much of the basis for critiquing evangelical views of redemption.

In the days ahead look for the liberal/radical approach to continue to emphasize the material, mundane needs of the poor while neglecting, for the most part, their spiritual needs. Such needs will, oddly enough, be labeled “a pious indulgence,” “a needless extravagance,” and evidence of an “uncaring individualism.” Put another way, champions of this approach will underscore the “form” of religion, but without its “power.” Observe also that the coalition of liberal/radicals and gradualists will continue to criticize many evangelical theological concerns—especially the cruciality of the new birth, deliverance from the guilt and power of sin, and even the necessity of conversion itself. However, also take note of ongoing articulate evangelical initiatives—what some in the UMC are now beginning to recognize as nothing less than the rise of “critical evangelical scholarship.”

By Kenneth J. Collins, elder in the UMC and Professor of Historical Theology and Wesley Studies, Asbury Theological Seminary.