Why I Am A Methodist
Okay, I'm not in the strictest sense a Methodist. But this is a chapter from McLaren's "A Generous Orthodoxy" that defines the book and what it means to be generous in our orthodoxy.McLaren begins the chapter by telling the story of how Methodism got its start. This is a refresher for many people, but there are a lot of us who don't know who John and Charles Wesley were and what they did. We don't know that this particular "ism" got its start among the down-and-out who didn't know how else to ease their pain but with alcohol and violence. I knew nothing of the groups the Wesleys formed to help each other and be helped in turn. In Methodism, as in most other denominations, the beginnings were steeped in a group of people who were finding their way to Jesus the best, perhaps the only, way they knew how.
In Methodism, the theologian gave way to the lay preacher. The idea grew and took root because "regular people" were allowed--encouraged--to interpret the scripture and relay it in their own way. William Barclay says that John Wesley insisted that his helpers and preachers should read constantly. "Steadily spend all morning in this employ," he wrote, "or at least five hours in the twenty-four."
That sounds, by the way, very much like how I plan on spending my retirement.
Wesley said, "Reading Christians will be knowing Christians." McLaren's identification with Methodism comes partly from this but even more from what he sees as a current search for a new approach to personal transformation that may end up looking very Wesleyan.
"Like Wesleyan Methodism, it will emphasize the importance of small groups, spiritual friends who meet for mutual encouragement and support. Like Wesleyan Methodism, it will focus not on fill-in-the-blank answers, but on queries--questions that make one reflect, think, take stock, and pay attention to what's going on in one's own soul. Like Wesleyan Methodism, it will empower 'lay' people, realizing that baptism itself is a kind of ordination to ministry and that the purpose of discipleship is to train and deploy everyday apostles. And like the earliest Methodists, it will see discipleship as the process of reaching ahead with one hand to find the hand of a mentor a few steps up the hill, while reaching back with the other to help the next brother or sister in line who is also on the upward path of discipleship."
Kind of makes you want to be a Methodist, doesn't it? At least I hope it makes you want to read the rest of the book. With an orthodoxy as generous as McLaren suggests, it becomes possible to see the good in all the followers of Jesus. We don't have to agree on everything. But we must stop making our disagreements more important than Who we have in common.
posted by Thurman8er @ 2:17 PM
4 Comments:
Side note, we talk openly and honestly about these Methodist founders -- I wish we were that honest about the men behind our movemement. This insistence that we came straight from Jesus so bothers me.
I like the tone of the book and the summations thus far of your dialogue.
Steve-
I had the same experience when I read Generous Orthodoxy last Summer. His description of Methodism/Weslyanism really resonated with me.
I guess I'm sort-of a closet methodist, too. It is somehow "high church" and "low church" at the same time, with an emphasis (when at its best) on community and discipleship.
'Course, it doesn't hurt that my wife was raised Methodist - in retrospect, I think that she came into contact with a spirituality that was deeper than mine during her youth.
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Randy, Randy, Randy, and Greg, Greg, Greg - That would be Acts 2:38. And you guys call yourselves "professionals."
Randy does bring up a great point. As a frustrated historian trapped in a good-looking (no snickering please) math teacher’s body, I’ve never bought into what Shelly and Harris termed, “The Great Pit” version of church history in their book, "The Second Incarnation."
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