John Wesley's Political Writings: A Global History Approach (original) (raw)
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Liberty and Loyalty: John Wesley's Political World
This paper was presented at the Manchester Wesley Research Centre session on ‘New Research on John Wesley and Methodism in the 18th and 19th Century,’ at the Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, Denver, 19 November 2018. It is a broad overview of themes in a monograph I have recently completed with the provisional title of Liberty and Loyalty: John Wesley’s Political World presently under peer review. It draws on material in the introductory and concluding sections of the book in order to highlight a number of findings in the work and therefore does not deal closely with the close examination of texts as the larger work does and has a minimum of footnotes. It argues that liberty and loyalty are the twin themes that help crystalize John Wesley’s political outlook. Liberty was a divinely given capacity to which every person had as much right as breathing. While the origin of political power lay with God, human governments had the responsibility to provide both civil and religious liberty. The surest guarantee of such liberty was through the ‘ancient constitution’ given its purest embodiment in the constitutional arrangements of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. A devout Protestant king would rule over a grateful people, while being held accountable to God and to the Parliament for his actions as a check on tyranny. This was a form of social contract and loyalty to that contract would check seditious and rebellious grabs for power. Sentiments expressed by republican voices in America masked more sinister ambitions – an overthrow of the ancient constitution of Britain to be replaced by a democracy of ‘the people.’ In the end, however, the hand of an all-wise Providence guided historical forces and the best response to political fluctuations was a personal one – to make God one’s friend through repentance and faith. John Wesley was not a politician or an economist or a military strategist. He was a priest and an evangelist, so that his political world ultimately existed as a subset of a world bounded by the cosmic drama of salvation.
‘Global history’ focuses on the cultural and social features of international relations. Themes covered by global history in its attempt to connect the ‘local’ with the ‘global’ have included race relations, colonisation, economic forces, migration, and human rights. Religion is an area of study that lends itself well to a global history approach because religious movements always depend upon transnational networks of piety for their spread and consolidation. W.R. Ward claimed that ‘the first great Protestant awakenings arose from an interweaving of pietism, revivalism, and politics.’ John Wesley’s political writings reflect on the impact of Britain’s global conflicts and provide insights into the political responses of the broader religious world of the eighteenth century. The notion of ‘liberty’ was a significant theme in the mentalities that dominated the Atlantic world of the long eighteenth century (1688-1815) and this paper will investigate the two overarching themes of ‘liberty’ and ‘loyalty’ that dominate Wesley’s political thought in order to provide insights into the political responses of the broader religious world of that period.
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
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's 'Calm Address' with Reference to the Classical Theism in Wesley's Political Tracts
Opposition to the idea of armed rebellion against the British crown saw John Wesley issue in 1775 a ‘Calm Address’ (calmly borrowed from Samuel Johnson) that rebuked the rebels for their disloyalty. The Address went through up to nine editions and 100,000 copies were circulated within a year. The Parliament ensured that a copy was delivered to every church door in the land. This paper will examine the origins and causes of Wesley’s opposition to the American Revolution, the effect of his opinions on the Methodist itinerants in America, and the response from both loyalists and republicans to his defence of the rights of the crown to tax its subjects. It will make reference to the classical theism contained in Wesley’s political tracts
John Wesley as a theologian: an introduction
2015
The twentieth century saw a revival of interest in John Wesley as a theologian, but whereas the standard treatments of his theology have arranged his thought in the customary shape of Systematic Theologies, this article takes the shape of Wesley’s theology from the way he arranged and prioritized his doctrines pastorally in his Standard Sermons. This demonstrates that he began with the evangelical doctrine of the Reformation on Justification and the Atonement (focusing on Christ), understood regeneration and assurance in relation to the Holy Spirit, and saw the sovereign grace of God the Father as extending to ‘all his works’. The underlying structure is Trinitarian. His much misunderstood doctrine of ‘perfection’ was inherited from the Fathers and was his most creative contribution to Evangelical theology, but needs further development and clarification. 254 • EQ Thomas A. Noble sectarianism. It needs to be developed in a fully Trinitarian way so that the living experience of ‘real...
This essay revisits John Wesley's A Calm Address to Our American Colonies in an attempt to contribute to the renewed interest in the global and transatlantic dimensions of the American Revolution, particularly its religious aspects. Mapping Methodist responses to the Revolution on both sides of the Atlantic may provide a helpful microcosm of responses in the broader religious world. It cautions against seeing Wesley's political views as extreme Toryism and draws on recent scholarship to demonstrate that Wesley supported a constitutional monarchy since its finely tuned balance of power between king, parliament and people needed only to be preserved in order for genuine liberty to prevail. The myth that Methodists destroyed copies of the Calm Address when they reached America in order to avoid being seen as Loyalists is disproved. Methodist responses to the Revolution were varied, ranging from strong opposition to active support, but Wesley's political views were not unusual in the hotly contested world of eighteenth-century rhetoric on liberty even if Methodists would distance themselves from them in the more politically reformist atmosphere of the nineteenth century.
What John Wesley Might Say to Uniting Church Ordinands
It’s always a difficult thing to summon the dead out of their graves and ask for their opinion on present circumstances. Voltaire once said that, ‘History is just a pack of tricks we play on the dead.’ It’s all too easy to distort the ideas of the departed, who are not in a position to defend themselves, in order to serve some agenda of our own. But this is the topic that has been suggested to me and I’m going to take it on and see where it leads us. Keep in mind that all of this is my idea of what John Wesley might say to UCA ordinands. It is meant only to be suggestive not definitive. What he might say about the Uniting Church is a topic perhaps for another time. I am going to suggest here four words of advice from the founder of Methodism: 1. Plunder the Egyptians 2. Offer Christ 3. Have an Optimism of Grace 4. In Mission, Love the Church