No one comes to the Father but by me

Craig Adams is back blogging and writes an excellent post on a Methodist view of atonement.

no one can come to God the Father except through the grace & mediation of Christ! And, of course, this is true. There is only one source of light and grace for all people. From Jesus these words can be taken to mean: "there is no access to God except through my mediation." Modern evangelicals commonly take it to mean: "there is no access to God except through consciousness of Christ." From this misconception, the question arises: well, what about all the people who lived before Christ, what about the who were killed in OT times, what about those who have never heard of Christ, etc.

The older Methodist writers did not get into this tangle. They believed that God's grace was for all and that Christ was the one and only source of salvation and life for all. The more we know of Christ the better off we are.

Methodists and Conversion

We've been having a fascinating conversation over on: What is a Methodist Evangelical?. Please feel free to continue there if you have any further thoughts!
I wanted to pick up on Peter Kirk's comment on 'conversionism'. Peter wrote:

To me, the central issue which distinguishes evangelicals from other Christians, at least in the Church of England, is conversionism, the belief that what the mass of people need is not moral exhortation or participation in worship but to be born again. How far are Methodist evangelicals, and Methodists as a whole, in agreement with this?

Perhaps those who have been Methodists longer than I have been can answer that question for 'Methodism in general'. I think it's right to say that 'conversion' is central to Methodist thinking: 'All need to be saved,' according to the 'Four Alls'.

I'd like to do some personal thinking around the idea that 'people do not need moral exhortation or participation in worship, but to be born again.'

My own sense is that we need all of these things and that conversion alone is not sufficient. I think I'd also add that we need prayer as well; this might come under the cover of worship, but I want to make clear that public worship on a Sunday probably isn't 'enough', at least not if we are ever going to need to call on our faith in times of crisis.

First of all, on 'conversion'. I think that we all need to be 'converted' because we all need to repent. As most Christians know, 'repent' means to turn around. We all have a tendency to want to go our own way apart from God, be it actively sinning or simply just ignoring God, so we all need to 'turn around'. But this 'turning around' isn't just a one-time thing.

If 'conversionism' is a one-time big event, then I don't think it's sufficient. Necessary, but not sufficient. I worry if people think that all they have to be able to do is to name the time and the date of their conversion and then, as far as God is concerned, they are set up for heaven. I also would not want to exclude people who have managed to turn around, repent and convert without ever being able to name the time and the date. I do think that this can happen for people who have been brought up in a Christian family or another Christian environment.

I believe - and I think that this is very Methodist - that 'conversion' is an on-going thing. As someone said to me recently, it's not that we have been saved, it is that we are being saved. This 'on-going salvation' is, I think, another way of expressing the Methodist idea of Christian Perfection or Holiness. Once having 'given one's life to Christ', we are still in need of on-going growth, discipleship and perfection.

I think that the Christian community is extremely important in our on-going discipleship and I think that worship and prayer are important in this continued growth. I'd argue that this is also 'Methodist' - at least, it's Wesleyan. Wesley exhorted his followers to receive communion as often as possible and also recommended 'constant communion'. Certainly, the early classes and bands were nothing if they were not opportunities for moral exhortation and prayer.

That brings me to 'prayer' and I can't really point to anything particularly Methodist as I talk about prayer, although Methodists certainly have nothing against praying! I believe, mainly from personal experience, that putting effort into practicing a prayer life is vitally important. A retired Methodist minister remarked recently that, in his experience, the attitude of many elderly people toward God depended on whether or not they had a prayer life. I'm not talking about 'faith' as 'doctrines' but 'faith' as in whether or not people feel that they can turn to God in times of crisis. This rings true to me and would probably be another long post. Suffice it to say that I think that there is value in 'practicing' prayer even if we can't feel God at all or don't feel like praying.

To sum up, I personally believe that conversion is necessary but not sufficient. For me, to neglect or de-emphasise worship and growth in holiness is to be constantly 'drinking milk' rather than 'eating meat'.

What is a Methodist Evangelical?

I've just come back from attending a conference on Methodist Identities at Cambridge.

One of the presentations I found very interesting was given by the Revd Dr Andrew Atherstone, a research fellow at the conservative evangelical Anglican think-tank Latimer Trust. His paper was on the objections of both Methodist and Anglican Evangelicals to Anglican-Methodist union in the 1960s.

As a non-cradle Methodist, one of the most interesting revelations to me from this presentation was the fact that Methodist Evangelicalism and Anglican Evangelicalism were not historically the same thing.

For various reasons, I think that I have always tended to view Evangelicalism in the 'Anglican manner'. With apologies to Atherstone, I was not able to copy down the characteristics of Anglican Evangelicalism that he rattled off rapidly by heart, but in my own definition of 'Evangelical' in the 'Anglican manner', I've seen belief in penal substitutionary atonement and belief in the bible as God's infallible revelation to humankind as being two big hallmarks of evangelicalism.

My reluctance to see the bible as infallible revelation and to affirm penal substitutionary atonement as the central and most important doctrine of atonement have made me want to demur in calling myself an 'Evangelical'.

I now come to find out that, historically, this has not been the definition of 'Evangelical' within British Methodism, although a number of the participants expressed the opinion that the Anglican definition may be currently gaining a foothold in Methodism. Atherstone reckoned that the British Methodist Church during the late 19th and early 20th centuries was decidedly theologically liberal and that Methodist Evangelicals were simply Methodists who were commited to evangelism.

I asked Atherstone after the session whether this wasn't simply the old battle between Arminianism and Calvinism. Wouldn't a conservative Calvinist view Arminianism as theologically 'liberal' by definition? Atherstone agreed with me on this point: that Arminianism is 'liberal' by evangelical Calvinist standards.

I found this interesting because I think it explains some of my confusion when Methodist friends who appear to me to be decidedly theologically moderate insist that they are 'Evangelical'. I do fear, however, that the Anglican form of Evangelicalism is creeping into Methodism. That, of course, is my own bias.

Link: Holistic Holiness

There is a really excellent post on the subject of Holistic Holiness by the President of Methodist Conference, Martyn Atkins over at the The President and Vice President of the Methodist Conference blog.

I like this post because I'm interested in how, as Methodists, we can be more conscious of our 'Methodist distinctives' whilst at the same time working ecumenically. (I think a heart for ecumenism is a modern Methodist distinctive, anyway.) As Martyn says, the idea that personal piety and good works must go hand and hand is absolutely core to Methodism.

I am also glad to see Martyn and Ruby using this form of communication.

The Religious Right

Caveat: This is meant to be an expression of personal opinion. I hope I reason fairly well. I do not, however, make any representation that my opinion has any sort of 'academic' or 'objective' basis. It is merely opinion from observation.

What is the 'Religious Right' and does it have anything to do with being a 'born again' Christian? Indeed does the American 'Religious Right' have anything to do with British Christianity? I think not for a number of reasons.

First of all, I don't think that the 'theology wars' as they are raging in US and UK Christianity are perfectly contiguous. There does seem to be one central issue (homosexuality), and there are intersections between the two battles but I don't think that there is perfect symmetry. That is, I don't think that 'conservatives' or 'liberals' on both sides of the Pond are necessarily battling for all the same things. Show me a conservative Christian in the UK, for example, who is in favour of the death-penalty. There might be an individual or two out there (there always is) but this is hardly a loud voice in conservative British Christianity.

But what is the 'Religious Right'? Let me quote one blogger who identifies as 'Religious Right' rather than quoting the myrid pejorative definitions of 'Religious Right' in cyberspace. This particular blogger thinks that the 'Religious Right' hold as core to their belief system that human beings have a God-given right to life, liberty and private property.

My whole objection to this approach is that it's not even Christian, let alone 'born-again Christian'.

First of all 'rights language' is hugely problematic in the context of orthodox Christianity. I believe (and someone more informed than I can correct me if I'm wrong) that rights language is based in Enlightenment humanism and not Christianity. It might be a reasonable secular translation of the Christian concept of prevenient grace; a secular humanist can hardly quote Psalm 139 or say that God loves everyone equally. But 'I have rights' is an ontological concept - about my very being - that belies what the bible tells us about our original sinful nature. In Christian terms, none of us has rights, but God does offer his love, forgiveness and salvation (grace) to everyone.

The other issue that have a huge problem with as a Christian is the idea that every human being has a right to individual property and individual wealth. This philosophy is the antithesis of the great commandment to love God and love one's neighbour and to be our neighbour's keeper. The love of individual property and the belief in an individual's 'right' (sic) to amass as much wealth as he or she likes is at the heart of the idolatry of American culture.

Note that I'm not talking about 'what economic system works best in a secular context'; that may very well be the political right to individual ownership. But I hope that this is the kind of pragmatism that I believe will be eliminated in The Kingdom when we are all able to follow God's commandments in perfect obedience.[1] My objection is that, in my experience, 'the right to invididual ownership' is truly viewed as a core spiritual value by both the Religious Right and much of American culture. I think it's genuine idolatry.

You'll hardly be surprised that I agree that 'The Religious Right is neither'. As someone who considers myself 'born again' and as someone who believes that the concepts of 'New Birth' and 'The New Creation' are absolutely central to Methodist spirituality and tradtion, I honestly believe that 'The Religious Right' is sub-Christian. Dare I invoke the famous statement: 'There I stand. I can do no other.'

[1] For the avoidance of doubt, I do not believe in 'works-based salvation'. I believe that The New Creation is eschatological and founded on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The Kingdom is 'not yet' but it is also 'here and now'. The 'Religious Right' also disagrees with the 'the here and now' bit.