John Wesley's Contributions to the Poor (original) (raw)

Revisiting Wesley's Ethics and His Ministry to the Poor: Social, Economical, and Medical Solutions

From the outset of the Evangelical Revival it was more than apparent that John Wesley “saw himself as having a particular mission to the poor people.” Wesley dedicated almost seventy years towards helping the poor. His ethics sought to impact and transform the underprivileged and deprived parts of society, and thus, “one would be hard put to find many examples of people who gave away more of their adult resources of time and money than Wesley did.” While his ethics cover a broad array of themes—including his views on slavery, war, education and community—it can be argued that Wesley’s ministry to the poor received a significant amount of attention. Although the poor faced numerous disadvantages during the eighteenth-century, there remained three prevalent disadvantages that Wesley specifically addressed. This article will suggest that these three were social, economical, and medical. With the social part, it will be important to explore contextual issues and Wesley’s own personal imitation of the poor. With economical, Wesley’s financial ethics will be examined, as well as how he attempted to assist the poor financially through various means. Finally, with health, the problem of disease within this era will be looked at too, as well as how Wesley’s Primitive Physic and his overall holistic soteriology attempted to restore health to the poor. Consequently, the following article will argue that John Wesley’s ethics helped to improve the lives of the poor on a substantial level. According to Richard Heitzenrater, the question of ‘who were the poor in eighteenth-century England?’ has been a question which Wesleyan scholarship has failed to answer, or alternatively, “avoided asking.” Poverty within an eighteenth-century context, therefore, needs to be addressed if Wesley’s ethics are to be understood. After all, “the concept of poverty and the nature of the problem in eighteenth-century England – is largely unknown to most Methodists today.”

The Financing of John Wesley's Methodism c.1740-1800

2017

Whatever they say, how someone spends their money reveals what their real priorities are, and this is as true for organisations as it is for individuals. This study of the financing of Wesley's Methodism reveals a constant tension between Wesley's ideal of relying solely on the provision of Providence and the reality of sustaining a burgeoning organisation on which many had become dependent for their sustenance. In this monograph version of his 2015 Oxford Brookes University PhD thesis, Clive Murray Norris uncovers trends from a thorough analysis of financial records. Chapter 1 summarises how Wesley supported itinerant preachers during the 1740s, the formative years of the Methodist movement. Norris characterises Methodism's financial system as 'haphazard' (p.34). Chapter 2 describes the emergence of a more sophisticated system, which paralleled the growth in the number of itinerant preachers from approximately 100 in 1760 to over 400 by 1800 (p.36). Inherent in any movement that succeeds over time is the need for pensions as early workers age and retire. Chapter 3 focuses on the establishment of a 'Preachers' Fund' and the subsequent difficulty of sustaining it. Chapters 4 and 5 examine the financing used for simple Methodist preaching houses and chapels, with consideration of the challenge presented by mortgage debt and the upkeep of buildings and land donated by wealthy benefactors. Chapter 6 includes valuable information on what Norris calls the 'regular cycle of society, circuit, district, and Conference meetings' (p.127) and the income and expenditures related to each. Chapters 7 and 8 focus on the Wesleyan Methodist Book Room, the publishing concern that for years remained a key source of income. The final two chapters comprise an examination of the educational, welfare and mission initiatives of the societies, followed by a summary of the book's findings. One theme that emerges in The Financing of John Wesley's Methodism is the growing tension between Wesley and others charged with the management of Methodist entities, especially as the century wore on and the movement became more institutionalised. An example is the stewardship of profits generated from the operation of the Book Room. Norris notes that Wesley considered the profits as 'his to spend' (p.183), and records substantiate Wesley's standard practice of siphoning off large sums of money. To his credit, Norris makes it clear that this practice was not for Wesley's personal enrichment. Rather, it was to meet the operational demands of sustaining the preachers and their activities. Nevertheless, John Atlay, one of the book stewards, was at times exasperated by the lack of money for printing or paper owing to Wesley's frequent withdrawals (p.184). Wesley appears to have come perilously close to killing the proverbial goose that laid the golden egg. A second area Norris examines is the question of the Preachers' Fund. Although known for his compassion for the poor, Wesley's attitude towards the pension scheme for retired preachers and their families was 'always ambivalent' (p.53), his wish being that his preachers should rely directly on God and consequentlyaccording to John Pawsonnever have much in hand (p.54). The rising acrimony over the fund's perceived mismanagement resulted in 1798several years after Wesley's deathin a split in the ranks, with Adam Clarke and Henry Moore creating an alternative ' Annuitant Society' which elicited the immediate enrolment of seventy-three preachers (p.63). Norris's detailed analysis of the accounting involved helps explain why even the most spiritual of men may divide over questions of money. Besides the Book Room and the pension scheme, a third interesting aspect of early Methodism addressed by Norris is involvement in missionary endeavours. Efforts in the North American colonies towards the end of Wesley's life are well known. Norris digs deeper, shining a light on the financial aspect of failed ventures in the 1790s among the Fula of West Africa and the British West Indies (p.212-13). The donations for missions in far-flung locations are eloquent testimony

John Wesley on the State of the Nation and its People

In this chapter I will consider John Wesley’s response to the adverse conditions experienced by the poor, arising from the economic conditions of the country, in his Word to a Smuggler (1767), Thoughts on the Present Scarcity of Provisions (1773) and Serious Address to the People of England (1778). These tracts demonstrate Wesley’s concern for the well-being of the British population as a matter that called for government intervention and policy-making, designed to contribute to greater human flourishing.

John Wesley: A Biographical Essay

All across Europe, the " great crisis " 1 was still the transforming engine room of the eighteenth-century; decrees were imposed and wars were waged to define lineages of sovereign continuity for both Protestant (England) and Catholic (Austria). The diminishment of British monarchical powers began a transition (via the Hanoverian Succession) to the contemporary structure of cabinet government, steered by a prime minister, which warranted the people's

Wesley and Methodist Studies, volumes 1 to 15/2

Wesley and Methodist Studies

Wesley and Methodist Studies (WMS) publishes peer-reviewed essays that examine the life and work of John and Charles Wesley, their contemporaries (proponents or opponents) in the eighteenth-century Evangelical Revival, their historical and theological antecedents, their successors in the Wesleyan tradition, and studies of the Wesleyan and Evangelical traditions today. Its primary historical scope is the eighteenth century to the present; however, WMS will publish essays that explore the historical and theological antecedents of the Wesleys (including work on Samuel and Susanna Wesley), Methodism, and the Evangelical Revival. WMS has a dual and broad focus on both history and theology. Its aim is to present significant scholarly contributions that shed light on historical and theological understandings of Methodism broadly conceived. Essays within the thematic scope of WMS from the disciplinary perspectives of literature, philosophy, education and cognate disciplines are welcome. WMS is a collaborative project of the Manchester Wesley Research Centre and The Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History, Oxford Brookes University and is published biannually by Penn State University Press.