Saturday, 17 March 2012
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Wesley on “Being a Christian First”
By Nic Don at TheopoliticalJohn Wesley was the founder of the Methodist church. He never meant to found a separate movement, and until his dying day he insured that Methodism remained only a movement within the Anglican church. Nevertheless, the movement continued to move and developed its own organization and ordination.
Timothy Tennant is the President of Asbury Theological Seminary. In a recent blog post he reflected on how John Wesley models how Christians of all stripes must learn to reflect on the whole Christian tradition, and not focus myopically on their little branch. He said,
John Wesley models for us the power of learning from other Christian movements. He was a great student of the Reformation. He was a student of Puritanism. He was a student of pietism. He was a student of Eastern Orthodoxy. He was a student of the Patristics. Over the course of his writings he criticizes all of these movements, times and writers. But the “people called Methodist” also learned to glean the best from all these movements. The Methodist emphasis on experience (fourth plank of the quadrilateral) is clearly drawn from the German pietists. The Methodist emphasis on prevenient grace is drawn from the early Greek fathers of the church. Wesley’s emphasis on salvation by faith alone resonates fully with the Reformation, even while Wesley embraced so much of the “catholic” tradition. What a great model for us today. We are Christians first before we are Methodists or Baptists or Pentecostals. We must be good students of the whole movement, always learning, always listening and always reflecting.
Sounds just right to me.
What do you think? What have you learned from other traditions, and where have you allowed other traditions to influence or challenge your thinking? If you cannot think of an example, is that the result of a conscious decision, or might it reflect an isolated perspective?
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Comments (4)
I was thinking of Wesley Snipes, lol.
@fromprivatetopublic@xanga - That will be my next post.
The goodness in people is truly amazing not matter their creed. I have examined Protestant churches and returned to Catholicism.
The reason is the reasoning behind the faith and doctrine, true. But most importantly it's the liturgy, the way worship centers around the Eucharist, not some blow hard preacher and his merry band of musicians, or what kind of great social life happens to be served up.I learned a great deal about what it means to be Christian from my grandfather. He's the pastor of his local Church of Christ, where they strive to live in fashion that is as reflective as possible of the virtues of the early Christian church. His constant desire to help others and the humility with which he goes about it in small ways and large on a daily basis are something I try to emulate.
I also learned a great deal from my pastor at the Assembly of God congregation when I was a kid. His home was always open to any member of his congregation, and he was so willing to sacrifice for others and encourage them in their journey to fully living Christian values.
In later years, I've learned a great deal about what it means to be Christian from my Catholic stepfather, especially the tender way he has cared for his parents as they aged and died, and the way he sets aside time amidst his working retirement to work for charitable causes in his local area.
From an intellectual standpoint, I learned my empiricism and pragmatism from having scientists as parents. I learned the value of ascetic practice from Buddhism, the value of cultural continuity from Orthodox churches, the value of suffering from Judaism, the value of wisdom from Taoism, the value of rationality from atheists, and the value of rich liturgy from Catholic churches.
Many of those things can be gained from other places (i.e. Buddhism is not the only religion with an ascetic tradition and atheists are not the only ones with a tradition of rationality), but I'm explaining where I happened to learn them.