Greg Clapper
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Dr. Greg Clapper |
As if the Heart Mattered: A Wesleyan Spirituality Introduction Why Should Anyone Care About A "Wesleyan" Spirituality? This book is designed to give the reader a solid grounding in the spirituality, or "heart religion," of John Wesley. This will be a study that does not look at Wesley so much as it will look with him. This means that I will not be rehearsing Wesley's own spiritual development, but will instead share his vision of how the essential truths of Christianity are to be embodied in the lives of believers. In What Way is This a "Wesleyan" Spirituality? This is a "Wesleyan" spirituality for two reasons. The first reason this is a "Wesleyan" spirituality is because it is scripturally based. I will use the Bible as my main reference. This seems the most appropriate method for a study in the tradition of a man who thought of himself as homo unius libri - a man of one book (i.e., the Bible). Rather than making this a scholastic study in Wesley's Sermons, Notes on the New Testament, and other writings, I will focus on scriptural passages (including many that Wesley himself emphasized) to describe the basic building blocks of the Christian life. References to John Wesley's own works - and Charles Wesley's hymns - will be given for the interest of those who want to pursue certain issues in more depth, but scripture will be my touchstone. The second reason this is a "Wesleyan" spirituality is that I will be guided in my interpretation of scripture by the Wesleyan interpretive tradition. Two of the indisputable elements of this tradition are God's initiating grace and humanity's freedom to respond. These elements, however, will be shown in action rather than be the subject of a self-conscious elaboration. This means that this will not be a polemically Wesleyan book, eager to show how this tradition might differ from some others. This book will instead be a positive portrayal of this broad and strong branch of the Christian tradition. The most obvious way that I will employ this Wesleyan interpretive tradition is my use of an image that Wesley used to describe the essentials of both Christian doctrine and the Christian life. This is Wesley's idea that religion is like a house. The three main parts of Wesley's "house of religion" are repentance, faith and holiness. Each of these foundational themes will be the focus of one chapter, and unpacking the richness of this "house" image will be the heart of the book. Before we begin the work of exploring this image, allow me to make just a few brief remarks about this work being biblically based and about taking Wesley's theology as our guide to biblical interpretation. Why Should a Spirituality be Biblically Based? John Wesley thought that the Bible contained all the information that was necessary for a person to be rightly related to God. In writing a "spirituality" (or a guide to the Christian life) in the tradition of John Wesley, I consciously work in congruence with his commitment to the truths of the Scriptures. In this emphasis on the importance of scripture, of course, Wesley was hardly unique in the Christian tradition. In fact, this emphasis on scripture puts him in the center of the mainstream of orthodox understandings of Christianity. Other spiritual seekers, though, such as the "Deists" in Wesley's time - and many people in our own day - do not pay the Bible much heed in their spiritual quest. Let us, then, briefly explore this question of why we should take the time and effort to construct a biblically based spirituality. This I do especially for the purpose of inviting those unaccustomed to the Bible to give it a serious try. First of all, we need not try to preface the discussion of the Bible with intimidating theories about its "infallibility" or "inerrancy." Discussions around those words usually yield little light and much heat, and are usually incomprehensible for anyone outside of the Christian community (and for many inside!). I want to start with a humbler but, I think, very suggestive, approach. H.A. Nielsen in his helpful little book The Bible as if for The First Time [ref.] used a phrase that I think gets to the root of why people should take the Bible seriously in their spiritual quests. He said that there are "rumors of nourishment" that surround the Bible, and that these rumors should invite the hungry seeker to try it. For thousands of years, people have been spiritually nourished by the stories, character studies, words of wisdom, prophecies, songs, poems and moral teachings that the Christian community calls the Bible, and it is by prayerfully searching this diverse collection of literature that the Christian community finds the nature of God and the nature of humanity revealed. We need to act on nothing more fancy or involved than these "rumors of nourishment" to get us off on our journey of a biblically based spirituality. Those who already identify themselves as being in the Christian tradition may not need these teasing "rumors of nourishment" in order to explore the Bible, but sometimes these people also have ideas about the Bible that prevent them from getting the most out of the scriptures. I want to address a word of orientation to those people as well. Sometimes Christians are so immersed in studying the Bible, are so used to hearing its familiar cadences and phrases, that they lose sight of the real purpose of the book. With the various Bible studies, Sunday school classes and sermons that people are exposed to, it is possible to think that the main point of being a Christian is to know, perhaps even memorize, as much of the Bible as possible. This is a fundamental mistake. To understand more clearly the nature and purpose of the Bible, let us look at a key passage in the Bible itself and also at a helpful quote by one of Christianity's most influential theologians. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 reads as follows: All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. (NRSV) Here we clearly see that scripture is not seen as an end in itself, but is to be used for teaching, reproof, correction and training in "righteousness," in short, for the task of spiritual formation. We should study the Bible not just to pile up more and more quotations in our head, but we should become more biblically informed so that our whole lives will become congruent with the vision of God and humanity revealed in scripture. When our lives are so formed, we will be "equipped for every good work," ready to be the people that God calls us to be so that we can do the things that God calls us to do. St. Augustine (354-430) in his powerful little book On Christian Doctrine said that the purpose of the Bible was to develop the virtues of faith, hope and love. He even said that if the believer has an unshakable hold on faith hope and love, he or she no longer needs the Bible, except for the instruction of others [ref.]. While this might sound radical and scary to some, I think it underlines the fundamental point of the passage from 2 Timothy, which is that the Bible does not exist for its own sake, but exists for spiritual formation. That is the use to which I will put the Bible in this present book. But if the Bible is to be used to shape human lives, the question immediately arises: How do we arrange and digest this welter of material in the Bible in order to shape a human life? According to what plan is the material to be organized? Where do we find an interpretive foundation on which to build our lives? The most direct answer is "From the Bible itself," but we need the Holy Spirit to discern this pattern of life from amongst all of the stories, laws, prophecies, parables, letters and the like. Since the Holy Spirit did not come into the world for the first time in our generation, we can gain guidance in our quest for an orienting pattern by looking at the Christian tradition and discerning there how the Bible has been used in the past to form human lives. Anyone who has studied the Christian tradition, though, will know that it is like a broad and deep river with many branches and not a few stagnant pools. Why is one branch of the river to be preferred over another? This is the question to which I turn now. Wesley as a Spiritual Guide In our present age - when there are very good reasons for reaching out to believers of all denominations, to break down barriers between one Christian and another, when people are increasingly trying to find beliefs and missions in common - why should anyone care about looking into something that one particular thinker in the Christian tradition had to say? This might be especially true when the thinker is one who is famous for having started a movement that led to the development of new set of denominations, namely, those in the broad "Methodist" tradition! This might seem to some to be a parochial and provincial retreat to narrow denominational competition, to be circling the wagons against the "outsiders," but this is not what I have in mind. There are good reasons for Christians of all stripes to explore the vision of the Christian life that John Wesley offered. The first reason is that there is no access to the "general" Christian tradition except through one particular branch of the tradition. Trying to be a Christian without starting in some specific tradition is like saying you want to play baseball "in general" but do not want to join a team. It cannot be done! People who claim to be basing their lives only on the Bible with no "interference" from "human traditions" are themselves usually indebted to some preacher or Bible teacher for the views that they have, though they may not be consciously aware of it. We cannot escape living out of some tradition or another. The best we can do is be self-aware of the tradition out of which we are in fact living. With such self-awareness comes the capability to compare, choose and ask critical questions about our various traditions. I hope that this book can contribute to this process of awareness and dialogue. Now that we realize that we have to start somewhere in particular, let us answer the question: Why start with Wesley's theology? One answer to that question is provided when we understand who he was. John Wesley was a man who not only spent his whole life thinking about Christianity, but he was a man who spent his whole life trying to embody the truth of Christianity, and also one who gave himself to the Herculean task of trying to give institutional shape to this vision. A child of the parsonage, an Oxford professor, a missionary, a field preacher, a counselor and spiritual friend to hundreds - all of these experiences strengthened and focused his conception of what it means to be a Christian and fitted him to the task of spiritual mentor and guide. Another reason to look to Wesley for guidance is apparent when we consider what has come out of this tradition already. Given Christianity's two-thousand year history, any interpretive method that one could bring to the Bible has more than likely been tried before. It is also clear that some of them have been found to be more helpful than others. Wesley's view clearly is one of the tried and true approaches. Millions of people, as evidenced by the membership of those churches in the tradition of John Wesley, have found that Wesley's understanding of Christianity leads to a life-changing encounter with Jesus. The movement he started has borne rich fruit. The problem with those in the Methodist (or Methodist-related) traditions that descended from his reform movement is that many who are in name a part of the tradition are not aware of the richness that this tradition holds. Wesley's theology is often studied only scantly, and even when it is studied, it is often not consciously translated from the classroom or the pulpit into the lives of the individual congregants. In other words, though Wesley's theology has indirectly influenced millions, most do not know how and in what way this influence occurs. Studying Wesley's approach will allow many to name and claim the theological heritage that they have been unknowingly living. Another reason to take Wesley's vision of the Christian life as our interpretive framework is that his is a stance that is always humbly open to the correction of others. On this point, we need to remember that John Wesley held that "There is no such thing as a solitary Christian.[ref. Intro to hymns?]" We need each other to discern God's truth, and we cannot rely solely on introspective self-exploration that can easily turn narcissistic. Wesley's heart religion is, as we shall see, by its very nature, open to the correction of the scriptures, the Christian tradition, and the present Christian community. Wesley saw that to be committed to the truth as we know it while also being humbly open to the views of others is one of the ways that we are called to live out the biblical injunction to "Speak the truth in love." [ref. Eph. 4:15?]] As sinful and broken human beings, we most often would like to do either one or the other: either speak the truth or be loving, but in fact God, through scripture, calls us to do both. In loving others, we are humbly open to hear and consider what they say. At the same time, to maintain our own integrity, we must speak the truth as we perceive it, and not unthinkingly capitulate to whatever anyone else says. To take a "Wesleyan" approach to the spiritual life, then, is to commit oneself to the open and communal crucible of truth known as the body of Christ, where God's truth for us is discerned and our spiritual lives are formed. This means that diving into the broad stream of the Christian tradition in the "Wesleyan" branch necessarily opens us up to the other influences, currents and eddies of the Christian tradition. Taking Wesley's vision of the Christian life leaves us neither so closed off as to be "parochial" nor so "open-minded" as to be "empty minded." In the end, my interest - like Wesley's interest before me - is not to produce "Wesleyans" as much as it is to produce "Christians," and in that spirit I invite the reader to give Wesley's vision of Christianity an open-minded reading. To foster a truly Wesleyan understanding of the Christian life, at the end of each chapter I have included references to some of John Wesley's sermons and also a brief look at one of Charles Wesley's hymns that is pertinent to the topic covered in each chapter. I also have included several questions for either discussion (if the book is to be used in a group study) or simply for individual contemplation and reflection. These questions are designed to help the reader engage the issues of "heart religion" with the realities of one's own heart in order to embody this vision of God's wondrous grace that John Wesley has given us.
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