Let’s try being Methodists again

When John Wesley looked back at his journey to true Christian faith, he could spot some stages that he passed through.

There was the period in his young life where he indulged in rather than fought against his sins. I suspect even in this stage Wesley appeared more serious-minded and sober than most young people who are in rebellion against their upbringing, but Wesley certainly was consistent in saying he had his season in which he “willingly served sin.”

That era ended when he was a student at Oxford and came across writings and teachers convincing him that the only way to peace and happiness in this life is holiness and total commitment to God. This began a long period in his life where he battled mightily against sin but could not overcome it. He described this period of his life in his journals, sermons, and other writings. Here is an example:

“In this vile, abject state of bondage to sin, I was indeed fighting continually, but not conquering. Before I had willingly served sin; now I was unwillingly; but still I served it. I fell, and rose, and fell again. Sometimes I was overcome, and in heaviness. Sometimes I overcame and was in joy. … During this whole struggle between nature and grace, which had now continued above 10 years, I had many remarkable returns to prayer; especially when I was in trouble: I had many sensible comforts; which are indeed no other than short anticipations of the life of faith. But I was still ‘under the law,’ not ‘under grace:’ (The state most who are called Christians are content to live and die in:) For I was only striving with, not freed from sin. Neither had I the witness of the Spirit with my spirit, and indeed could not; for I ‘sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law.'”

Wesley observed that most Christians were content to live and die in this state — where they struggle against sin but cannot be freed from sin. I think that is no less true today. I think we also have a lot of Christians — and a vastly larger number of non-Christians — who do not struggle against sin at all. They struggle in many ways, but they do not see sin as the source of their problems. Both inside the church and certainly outside, there is a large throng who finds the very idea of being “under the law” repulsive.

But ignoring that group for now, numerous as they are, we often seem like a church that has settled into embracing what Wesley had before Aldersgate. We even lift that up as the very essence of Methodism.

I cannot even guess how many times I have heard Methodist leaders lift up a kind of works righteousness that would have pleased young Wesley. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard someone remind me that Methodists have three simple rules: Do no harm, do good, and stay in love with God.

The people who offer those to us as a guide to the Christian life are very sincere, but it is a tragically misguided thing to offer us. It is offering a vision of Wesleyanism as if Aldersgate never happened.

Yes, John Wesley included a version of those “three simple rules” in his general rules for the united societies, but those were not the point of Methodism, they were the barest test of whether someone should be a part of the movement at all. They were like the sign at the amusement park that says, “You must be this tall to ride.”

As Wesley wrote over and over and over again, doing no harm, doing good, and being a good church person did not make you a Christian. The only thing that made you a Christian was a full reliance and trust on the blood of Christ as your salvation, your hope, and your righteousness.

In place of this faith, too often, we in the church today offer people more stuff to do, more causes to support, and more opinions to parrot. We create a vision of Christianity that finds salvation in being a “community” or doing good works. I’ve heard so many people speak about the purpose of the church exclusively in terms of the good works we do that I wonder if we’ve ever read anything Wesley wrote. The vision of Christianity that we offer the world is a program for building up our own righteousness, and we can often sound pretty self-righteous when we sell it.

Young John Wesley would have been on board with that vision, at least to a point. Unlike us, Wesley was obsessed with overcoming sin and heart-broken that he could not. He was desperate to be freed from the grip of sin in his life. You can spend years in a Methodist church today and never get any idea that the biggest problem in the world is that we are held captive by sin. I know this is true because I spent many years in a Methodist church and never heard about that, and I listen to a lot of Methodist sermons and read a lot of what we say about the problems of the world.

I believe God raised up a people called Methodist by first saving a John and Charles Wesley from both their sin and their misunderstanding of the very purpose of Christianity. Hymns like “O For A Thousand Tongues to Sing” (read the longer version on page 58 of the hymnal) and “And Can It Be” encapsulate the joy of this double salvation. Over the centuries since Aldersgate, we have lost sight of that. In the 20th century, the Methodist church gave up on the things that made us Methodist and sank into the mélange of mainline Protestant churches that had cultural influence and practiced the forms of religion with none of the power of it. As cultural Christianity has withered and died in America over the last 3-4 generations, the Methodist church has collapsed with it.

We need a new Aldersgate. We need first to want it. We need to ask the Holy Spirit to give it to us. Wesley spent 10 years struggling and failing. Perhaps it will take us even longer, but if God is not through with the United Methodist Church, we need to remember why he raised up a people called Methodist in the first place.