Hurrying: Hurrying is a really fast walking in space from one place to another. To hurry “to the future” translates this movement from space into the time of history. In time, to “hurry” means the crossing of the limits of reality in the field of possible futures. In crossing these boundaries we take the anticipated future that we hope for.

With each action of the righteous we are preparing the “new earth”, on we will “live” on justice, on the Way. Let us create something right , for those who suffer violence *, then the future of God shines in their world. If we set ourselves for the “widows and orphans,” a bit of life comes into our world. The earth groans under the unjust violence, with which we exploit their resources and strengths.

We “hurry” towards the future of the Lord, when we anticipate that justice, a new and permanent earth should arise on the day of the Lord. Things are not to be taken as they are, but to see them as they may be in that future, and to realize this potentiality now. calls the future to become just. The rudiments of an ethic of hope are therefore perspectives, ways to anticipate and to fulfill, what will be tomorrow. Waiting and hurrying to the future of the Lord, that is today: Resistance and Anticipation.

Moltmann, Ethik der Hoffnung, my attempted translation

All “Theologies of Hope” from Comenius to Blumhardt have praised these two attitudes to life in the hope of the Future of God: Christoph Blumhardt called it “Waiting and Hurrying”. It is 2 Peter 3:12 that calls Christians “to wait and to rush towards the future of the Lord”. With this is meant the new earth, “dwelling on Justice.”

Waiting and hurrying sounds like a contradiction. We wait, then what we are waiting for that is not yet here; we hurry then the expected is already is in sight. These are the two extremes, between which play out the requirements for the future. As border markers they must not themselves be contradictory. We translate “waiting and rushing” into our language and our experience.

Waiting: This does not mean a passive awaiting, but means an active expecting. Concerning this difference, there is a striking passage by the Prophet Isaiah: In exile, far from home, the prisoners came to the prophet and ask, “Watchman, how long yet the night?” And he answers, “The morning comes, but it is still night. If you want to ask, come back another time” (Isaiah 21:11-12). The Apostle Paul assimilates [takes] this picture of the night and announces the dawning day of God in light of the resurrection of Christ: “The night is far gone, the day is near at hand” (Rom 13:12).

Thus, the expectation comes from the waiting and from the dreams of the night come the awakening in the dawn of the new day. From the darkness of God comes the sunrise of God. What Paul ethically and hopefully calls the “armor of light”, so the awakening of hope takes the future promise of justice into one’s own life. The coming of God unfolds transformative power in the present. In eager expectation we will expect the future of God and this future becomes mighty in our present.

The ability to wait calls us to not adapt to the conditions of this world of injustice and violence. The one who expects the justice of God does not recognize the so-called normative power of facts because he knows that a better world is possible and changes of the present are necessary. The ability to wait means, to resist the threats and temptations of the present, not to be forced to leave or to adapt.

The ability to wait means, not giving up, not for the might of the powers of this world and not to capitulate to one’s own powerlessness, but to live with head held high. The “straight path”, which Kant recommended, is worthy of all honor. This is the heroic stance of the unbending backs of the free. The “raised head” is but an effect of the approaching redemption (Lk. 21:28).

The ability to wait is loyalty in faith. Hope gives not only the wings to faith, as they say, but also brings it steadfastness and perseverance to the end. This is the famous perseverantia santorum of Calvin and of the persecuted Huguenots.

“Lord, our God, there are other powers than you ruling over us as well, but we think only of you and your name”, said the captive people of God in the Babylonian captivity (Isaiah 26:13). This word was vital for the resistance of the Confessing Church of Nazi-Germany after 1933. The Huguenot Christian Marie Durand was held captive for 36 years in the Tour de la Constance in Aigues-Mortes and scratched her famous “resistez” on the gate, rather than renounce her faith and gain freedom again.

From Moltmann’s newest book, Ethik der Hoffnung. My attempt at translation.

Tomorrow I’ll post his thoughts on “hurrying”.

This reality involves the spiritual context of a particular congregation, and it is precisely what John wrote about in the beginning of Revelation.

In his book Seven Deadly Spirits, Scott Daniels writes, “that real change takes place in the church not simply by altering the visible structures of the institution, such as changing pastoral staff, instituting new programs, or modifying the style of worship, but by altering the spirit or core essence of the entity as a whole… I am convinced that the genius of the letters in Revelation is John’s underlying recognition that complete change cannot occur without naming, describing, and calling to account the collective spirit of the church.”

In other words, so much of church growth or renewal has been about addressing the symptoms or changing the decorations. This is the old analogy of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, all while completely ignoring the fact there’s an iceberg and a major gash in the hull that is causing the ship to sink. Daniels moves us deeper past the usual church growth topics, which so often want to jump into the newest model or develop the flashiest program, rather than really assessing the specific contexts of a congregation or neighborhood.

Daniels is not here emphasizing spirits as in some kind of evil, outside malevolent force. Rather, he is emphasizing that a spirit of a church is a collective spirit that reflects the people — present and past — who have influenced that setting. This spirit “that emerges from a congregation is formed by a unique combination of human action, institutional history, and cultural influence. The corporate spirit that emerges in every church captures the hopes, fears, and horizons of imagination for a congregation.” This emphasis on a collective human spirit does not discount broader spiritual realities, but it does put the emphasis precisely where it needs to be, where the Bible itself points us. In our choices and temptations and overall approaches to life we can reflect the Spirit of God, or we can choose to participate in another expression of spirit, one that reflects chaos and corruption. Every church, it seems, like every person has a different kind of temptation or tendency, but these differences can be loosely gathered together in common themes.

Daniels uses the letters to the churches that we find in Revelation as a model of understanding the various kinds of temptations and spirits that can take hold of church, and in doing this he gives us insights and direction on how to best understand the specific issues and then how we can move to best respond in a way that recreates a church spirit.

Here is his outline:
* Ephesus: The Spirit of Boundary Keeping
* Smyrna: The Spirit of Consumerism
* Pergamum: The Spirit of Accommodation
* Thyatira: The Spirit of Privatized Faith
* Sardis: The Spirit of Apathetic Faith
* Philadelphia: The Spirit of Fear
* Laodicea: The Spirit of Self-Sufficiency

Understanding how these various spirits affect and undermine particular communities is essential to really respond to broken or confusing contexts. But more than learning about these spirits, Daniels writes, “the redeeming of the deadly spirit of a church can only fully be achieved as we also learn how to embody the Scriptures in community.” And it is this fuller picture, not only of diagnosis but also of hope and promise that really fills out this excellent, readable, and enlightening text.

It should also be noted that Daniels is not a removed spectator, writing only in terms of theory. His own experiences as a pastor have shown him the highs and lows of these spirit realities. And his recent experience in helping turn a large church away from a season of brokenness and difficulty to a renewing place of health and light suggests that what he is writing about is something he has put into practice, and continues to apply to specific contexts.

Seven Deadly Spirits is the sort of book that may not have the widest audience, but it is, I think, very widely needed. I would go as far to say as this is a book that should be required reading by every new pastor or seminary student, as it orients both their expectations and their own tendencies to let go these undermining spirits and re-embrace the holistic Spirit of life. But more than these pastoral leaders, I think anyone involved in a church would greatly benefit by reading through this text, as it helps to really understand why we often experience, or contribute to, negative realities within a church setting. By naming the spirits for what they are, both leaders and those in the congregations, can begin to respond and overcome these tendencies, with the help of the Spirit who calls us, and empowers us, to live out in full the life that Christ has given to us. The Lord “stands at the door and knocks, inviting us to be open to his renewed life with us.”

This is an interesting post because Scott Daniels is not one of those who announces the death of the emerging church as a capstone to a longtime wish for the death of the emerging church. Arguing the emerging church is dead has become the latest tactic in continued attempts to dismiss the movement as a whole. There’s a strategic value in announcing the death of a perceived enemy. If it’s dead, after all, it doesn’t exist anymore and so anyone trying to continue to make arguments for it can be brushed aside as arguing for an already dead movement.

Though not an emerging church guy himself, Scott Daniels has sought to understand it, sees the value in much of the priorities, and even put his reputation on the line in defending it in his conservative Nazarene denomination. I think the five-part series of posts he wrote last year on the emerging church movement are among the better descriptions I’ve read.

I should probably also add that Amy and I have been attending PazNaz since July of ’09. Those who have followed this blog for a while probably realize how much this says about my respect for Scott Daniels. His thoughts on the emerging church were one among many aspects that helped me resonate with his teaching in a way I didn’t really think possible anymore. (As a sidenote, his sermon series are well worth listening to if you get a chance–his last one on Colossians and his present one on Abraham are, in my opinion, brilliant in an all too rare approachable way).

It should be added that his death announcement of the movement is entirely not triumphalist or condemning. Some of the key points he mentions are more indictments against much of contemporary Evangelicalism than they are parting shots at the submerging emergents.

He notes he is not the first to declare the death of the emerging church. There has been, it seems, about a year long conversation on just this topic, with arguments flying back and forth. If the emerging church were really ‘dead’, of course, there would be no one to argue otherwise, so just the fact there is still passion on the topic probably is enough of a response to the dire declaration.

After some pushback in the comments, Daniels added another very helpful post. He writes, “So a major part of what I think is essentially dead (or dying) in the EC conversation is the expectation that in 50 years what we now think of as the institutional church will be replaced by “emerging” communities of faith.”

This provoked in me some related musings.

One is that I think the death of emerging as a church growth, “the great new thing” is likely not only true, but also is a very good thing. For those of us who felt resonance with the emerging movement in the earliest stages, the flood of interest in the movement by those who either did not really understand what it was about or, on the other side, sought to co-opt the “new thing” with their own particular priorities, was continually troublesome.

Indeed, I would say that it got to the point that some of the most public voices stamped with the emerging label were not really all that emerging. There was a decided mixing of new voices, new theologies, new awareness that got lumped together within a common trend. Which is why I always, and still, consider the Gibbs and Bolger book on emerging churches to be a standard reference. The key distinction for me is between people who were emerging by instinct or emerging by intent.

Gibbs and Bolger, being an early survey, got in tune with people who were pursuing an emerging direction in church without being certain of where the next steps were going to go. They were in moments of discovery and exploration, rather than top-down imposition. This was not a clear or pristine reality, to be sure. The temptation was always there to fall back upon imposition rather than being free with instinct. And, to be sure, even very early on there were leaders of communities who got onto the emerging bandwagon without really having what I call emerging instincts. And their communities suffered because of it.

Within this latter reality is where a lot of my critiques of emerging/missional churches come from. But that’s a whole different topic.

Always there have been men and women who were “emerging” not because they wanted to be part of the next big thing, but because they really were being driven by an irresistible force to explore new, or renewed, ecclesial realities. That was always the case, even when “Emerging!” was the toast of the town.

It was said among those who knew the heart of the movement that the “real” emerging people never went to conferences, didn’t get caught up as devotees to the guru of the week, and did not really get any kind of publicity at all. If “conference” Emerging! was the only emerging church that people saw, it is likely they never really ever saw what was truly emerging in the church.

Some of the key, truly emerging leaders did write books, so some of them got exposure, but for the most part what was publicly emerging was never really emerging. It was repackaged ministry strategies from the other church-growth, new-method, gotta-catch-’em-all mentality that derives more from mid-20th century priorities than postmodern sensibilities.

And if that is dead, then it’s probably because it never really was all that alive to begin with. It was a ecclesial animatronics, not a living body.

But just as Gibbs and Bolger tapped into some curious movements going on throughout the world 5+ years ago, so too are there still such communities. I’d even go as far to say that any church planting that happens in our culture will almost certainly have much more of an emerging feel to it than a traditional, institutional feel. So, while established churches are not going to be demolished and resurrected as coffee houses with vodka-and-oreo communion, small tables, and progressive theologies–there’s still a significant amount of emerging church ecclesiology that, I think, is extremely influential and important.

I’m not going to delve into my evidence for such a continued movement. Rather, I’m going to finish this out by saying why church leaders and theologians need to continue to deal with the presence of the emerging church movement (however it may be named).

My key argument for this is the fact that the era of institutional domination is over. This is not to proclaim the end of the institutional church, but rather to suggest that there is an increasing number of non-aligned followers of Christ. In past eras–as recently as my parents generation–to reject the church went hand in hand with rejecting Jesus. Frustrations with the church propelled men and women to look for answers in alternative religions. Now, however, people are increasingly aware that the faults of a particular congregation do not reflect the inadequacy of Christ.

But where are such people to go? The failures of the church model of our era leave a massive amount of people in a vague stage of spiritual discontent and destitution. In experiencing massive frustration or abuse in the context of a particular church, they do not see the pursuit of Christ as being possible in such an institutional setting. This reality either leads to spiritual depression and nominality, or it leads to a more active embrace of alternative expressions of Christian community that more fully reflect the call of Christ in a particular person’s life.

For me, the term “emerging church” is still useful, and the reality is not dead, because if there are non-aligned, non-propertied, non-institutional christian communities then it is helpful to use a term to describe their reality. “Emerging church” fits as well as anything else, because even in its profound inadequacy it at least has the benefit of a season of exposure and thus is a starting place for continued conversation. Maybe another word might be less baggage laden, but it’s tiresome to keep throwing out new words in church conversations.

Saying there will continue to be people who find discontentment in particular church models is not to say that Church as a whole is terrible and that spiritual maturity is impossible in an institutional setting. There are, in fact, some very excellent institutional church communities that spark amazing devotion to Christ, and these can be found in just about any Christian tradition. So, I’m not generalizing discontent. But, I am arguing against a stance that says “because I have found a good experience in church, everyone must have the same experiences as me.”

This is, by the way, a very interesting distinction between me and Amy. Amy has had very fruitful and very empowering experiences in her church experiences. She has had amazing mentors who were real pastors to her. I have not really had that. I have had seasons of it, but these were rare, and mixed in with what are quite depowering experiences. There are amazing possibilities in churches to spark new life, but there is also a great tendency to undermine and discourage. Realizing different people have different experiences is essential. The church is always a particular reality, and anytime we try to generalize it we run into trouble.

So those who have experienced significant frustration, or worse, in their particular contexts are and will continue to look for alternative expressions of Christian community. Emerging churches offer a holistic expression of this in a way that, I think, is not only an alternative but also may be more Biblically valid. But that too is a whole other conversation.

It is important to continue to realize the life of the emerging church because if we declare the death and move on, we are abandoning the men and women who participate in these communities, or need to participate in such communities, to the outskirts of the camp. We are declaring them non-people in the body of Christ, and as such we are abandoning them to the whims and winds and wolves which circle the people of God, looking to pick off the weakened and weary.

Instead of this, my interest continues to be in the emerging church conversation because I think that as a budding theologian I not only have the opportunity but also the obligation to help these alternative expressions of church as I can. As a theologian, my role is not in inventing a new model of church nor is it to give some kind of stamp of validity on any given community. Rather, I see my role as being a watcher, listening and reflecting on what I see and what I hear, putting this into the context of church history and theology. In doing this I can help deepen, steer, and effectively critique how such communities are proposing we pursue Christ in our era.

If we declare them dead, we abandon them to the trends and tendencies which really can lead to death. We abandon them to so much of what previous generations assumed, that the institutional church is identical with the person of Christ, and that to find despair in the former means the latter has no reality.

Rather than declaring them dead, however, we can weep over that which death has touched, while still full of hope that what is emerging may yet still come forth, in a form that no longer stinketh, but full of life as a testimony to the wide work of Christ and Spirit in this world.

I have that hope. Indeed, I think that the Spirit’s work in this world is going to continue to surprise us, and continue to enliven us as we explore new forms of community and Christian devotion in this era.

It is a dance, after all.

More because this really is something I think about a lot and something I think that may be a defining topic in contemporary Christianity. I’ve not yet read any other contributions and so I’m coming into this with only my own musings.

I don’t have a polished essay nor a even a settled understanding. I’m not ready to throw oils or watercolors onto the canvas. I’m not ready to prepare the plaster for some grand theological or ecclesial fresco that others can gaze upon.

I’m still at the point of sketching. I’m exploring shapes and boundaries and colors and themes. And that’s what this post is going to be. Sketches of my thoughts on the theme of Big Tent Christianity.

What is a big tent Christianity?

My basic understanding is that a “big tent Christianity” gives space for wide theological borders, an inclusive ecclesiology that not only allows for disagreements, but expects and values the expanded perspective that disagreements can bring. Not that disagreements are at the center of this tent. Rather, a big tent Christianity to be really Christian has to have Christ at the center, and with this being the center our focus becomes less on our distinctions and disagreements and more on our hope we share in Christ.

I support this reality not because it is necessarily the case that I think everyone is equally close to the fullness of Christ in their thought or their life, nor because I think that anything goes in the church, or theology.

Even a big tent has boundaries, or it’s not a tent at all.

But, a big tent has space in it for all kinds of people, with all kinds of priorities, from all kinds of places.

My place in the tent.

I come at this from the perspective of a theology PhD student, with a strong passion for contributing to a more interactive relationship between the church and the academy. I think theology matters, and I think experience matters, and I think a deep spirituality matters, and I think history matters. So, I have lots of opinions on lots of topics, and no doubt I think there are a lot of people in the church and in theology who are wrong on lots of issues.

Indeed, I realize that the concept of a big tent Christianity is one that seems to be especially represented by those who would call themselves “progressive” theologians. For those not in the know, this might be considered somewhat similar to the old term “liberal”, though there are distinctions in our contemporary age that make the old “liberal” and “conservative” labels no longer helpful and certainly no longer interesting.

I am not a progressive, either in politics or in theology. At least not how that word is commonly used. I come from a family of Fundamentalists and Evangelicals, and in many ways I continue to embrace the core values of these traditions. I graduated from Wheaton College, and I am pretty sure I could easily, and with integrity, still sign their statement of faith. My quibbles with such ideas like inerrancy vs. infallibility have very little to do with how much I value the authority of the Bible, and are more to do with how I see the doctrine of inerrancy almost always abused to imply that particular Biblical/Theological opinions are themselves inerrant. A particular leader or thinker is seen as the infallible, inerrant interpreter. And this occurs as much in conservative Protestant churches as it does, more officially, in the Catholic church.

My understanding of the doctrine of the church is probably the most progressive aspect of my theology, but it comes out of my very serious commitment to Scripture rather than any spirit of this age. So, even in the ways I am radical, I am radical for very conservative reasons. I’ve said to people in the past that I’m more Fundamentalist than most Fundamentalists, because I am willing to go the direction I see Scripture and the Spirit lead, not simply the direction my traditions or pastors or theologians have insisted on.

Far too much of the church and theology over the last centuries have been reactions against “salvation by works”. But, instead of embracing a holistic gospel, there has been instead a radical turn towards an intellectualized faith.

Far too much of the church has set aside “salvation by works” only to replace it with a “salvation by words.” Whether this is the over-emphasis on a weekly sermon or an exclusive dependence on having the exact approved answers to a slew of increasingly detailed questions, the conservative side of the church has set aside so much of Scriptural insistence on living right, on serving, on holiness in practice, on community. Instead, it has based judgments on salvation on holding to the right opinions on doctrines which Scripture itself either is not clear on, or does not even seem to care about.

But, at the same time, frustration against the conservative church have continued to push men and women towards reactionary stances on questions of theology or ethics. Yet, we are told in Scripture that what we do with our bodies matters. We are told that the actual working of God in this world, in history, is a reality upon which our faith depends. I cannot dismiss key aspects of core teachings simply because it makes me uncomfortable or challenges how I wish the world could be or how I wish God would deal with people.

My conservative stances on a whole lot of theological and political issues put me at odds with a lot of people who are pushing for a big tent Christianity and at odds with a lot of people who are very much against a big tent Christianity.

That’s my location in this overall conversation.

Here’s why I am still a strong believer in a big tent Christianity.

First of all, because as a Christian I am a witness to the Good News of Christ. I am not a bouncer or a gatekeeper. I am a witness to the story that God tells me.

This may not be the exact same story God tells other people.

We see this in Scripture itself. We have the one story of Christ, but we have four Gospels, each of which has unique aspects, priorities, and details. I don’t think the Gospels were ever intended as writings which match our contemporary academic biographies, so I’m not entirely concerned if there are apparent contradictions or disagreements. They are, at their core, telling the story of God’s work, and doing so through four different lenses. We have the story of Christ documented in four forms.

In the Gospels we see that Jesus chose twelve disciples, and of these we can see there were likely conservatives and liberals, as expressed in the politics of the time. We can also see that Jesus knew there was at least one who would actively betray him, and many others who would stumble at the time of great persecution.

He kept them as his disciples, knowing they were coming from different directions, with different pasts and different futures. Each had a different contribution and seemingly a different story to tell. Each also had different ways in which they would fail the Christ they served. They were still his disciples.

And so, I can expect that the story of Christ is still being told in many forms, with different details and priorities and contexts.

This idea of contexts is another reason I value the idea of a big tent Christianity. Even if I attend the same church as another person, we might be coming from different contexts.

We all have gifts, given by the Spirit, and it is the diversity of gifts that allows us to celebrate together as the body. More than rhetorical suggestion that each person has a different way of contributing to a pre-established church service, this is a really radical suggestion that when we participate in the Spirit we do so with very different roles, ideas, suggestions, priorities and opinions.

One of the key issues that I saw when I was last working in a church was how easy, and common, it is for church leaders to generalize their own passions and callings. Everyone is an evangelist or a teacher or… whatever. Everyone is called to door to door ministry or academic study or going to volunteer at a food pantry or… whatever. Whole churches, whole denominations, become formed not by celebration of the wide diversity of the body as a whole, but as conglomerations of many versions of the same kind of part.

And so I am a firm believer in a big tent Christianity because it is only by embracing those who are different in all kinds of different ways that I really even begin seeing the broad work of the Spirit in the church and in this world.

This is the story of Cornelius in the book of Acts. No one thought a Gentile could be part of the church, as a Gentile. He had to become Jewish first, it was assumed, with all the package of beliefs and practices this implied. Only the Spirit disagreed, and Peter’s vision confirmed. Cornelius was part of the church. Peter was not called to make a judgment but to offer an embrace. Even Peter, this first pope, had no authority to say where the Spirit could or could not work. If Peter refused to accept Cornelius, it would have been Peter who was judged–and in that judgment maybe even himself removed from the church.

It is the Spirit who gathers the church, and it is the Spirit who gives gifts for the church. Christ is the head and the Spirit is the breath of the body of Christ. And so in light of this I not only value, but must embrace, the idea of a big tent Christianity that goes well beyond what I think the church should emphasize and includes a fair number of people who I do not particularly agree with and oftentimes may not even like.

Finally–in this sketch at least–I am a believer in a big tent Christianity because I believe the Bible is serious when it talks about unity.

The church has, historically, become so concerned with some forms of heresy that it loses sight of what I think are quite Scriptural priorities. We emphasize theological doctrines on imprecise issues and often times anathematize those who disagree.

Again, a “salvation by words” replaces a salvation by faith alone.

The biggest example of this, for me, has to do with the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. We are called to share this meal as part of our worship of Christ. But the church has used this event to shatter itself and attack others. Paul brings up the topic in 1 Corinthians to clarify what is being celebrated, not in order to emphasize specific interpretations of what happens when the bread and wine are served, but to emphasize that all who are gathered must see each other as equals, called by Christ, to celebrate Christ, and to celebrate Christ as a gathered, meal-sharing community. If we do not discern the body correctly we are liable to judgment.

That’s why I am a firm believer in a big tent Christianity. Because Paul wasn’t really talking about the piece of bread that represents the body of Christ. He was talking about the body of Christ of the church, that is itself represented in the bread and in the wine.

Who am I to reject or dismiss someone who Christ has called and the Spirit cherishes, simply because I give different answers to what exactly happened when Christ died on the cross or because I think there are different kinds of songs we can sing on a particular day of the week?

So, I echo something that Moltmann has said in various places on a different topic.

I’m not really a believer in big tent Christianity.

But I think God is.

I’m much safer sticking to what God is doing. Certainly much safer than depending that a salvation by words is really what Christ was about in his death and resurrection, or what the Spirit finds important in this era, or in any era.

That’s not to say words aren’t interesting or important. They are. Very much so.

Actions are also important. We are not saved by our words or our works, but our words and our works are part of our testimony, part of our witness of the work of God in and for this world.

We speak and we act because Christ came with proclamation and with power. We have been given the Spirit who gives us words and empowers our actions, so as to be faithful servants to God, in his mission in this world.

I think God calls us to be true disciples, learning about him, discovering his work in this world, participating with the Spirit in many ways as we discover more and more who God is and what God is doing. As we discover these realities we will come to many opinions and in our various contexts we’ll have many different priorities about how to apply these opinions. But, at the same time, I know that God is God and God has his own opinions and priorities about what really matters.

He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

Sun Aug 1 1742: Almost an innumerable company of people being gathered together, about five in the afternoon I committed to the earth the body of my mother, to sleep with her fathers. The portion of Scripture from which I afterwards spoke was, ‘I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it; from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened. . . . And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.’ It was one of the most solemn assemblies I ever saw, or expect to see on this side eternity.

We set up a plain stone at the head of her grave, inscribed with the following words:
Here lies the body of Mrs. Susannah Wesley, the youngest and last surviving daughter of Dr. Samuel Annesley.
In sure and steadfast hope to rise
And claim her mansion in the skies,
A Christian here her flesh laid down,
The cross exchanging for a crown.
True daughter of affliction she,
Inured to pain and misery,
Mourned a long night of griefs and fears,
A legal night of seventy years.

The Father then revealed his Son,
Him in the broken bread made known.
She knew and felt her sins forgiven,
And found the earnest of her heaven.
Meet for the fellowship above,
She heard the call, ‘Arise, my love.’
I come, her dying looks replied,
And lamb-like, as her Lord, she died.
I cannot but farther observe that even she (as well as her father and grandfather, her husband, and her three sons) had been, in her measure and degree, a preacher of righteousness.

From John Wesley’s Journal, but more directly I noticed this on John Wesley’s blog (which posts journal entries each day). I quibble with John’s “legal night of seventy years” comment. More than quibble, really, entirely disagree, but that’s a discussion for another time. For now, I want to honor Susanna Wesley once more.

Last Spring, I read her collected writings and was continually impressed by her depth of thought and indeed inspired by her depth of informed faith. She’s a woman people need to get to know more. She had a spiritual maturity and seeming balance that it took John a long time to gain.

Her collected writings are disgustingly expensive (if a book over $50 does not have amazing pictures, or well over 1000 pages it is obscene price gouging), but worth reading in some way or another, maybe through the library.

Maybe a little more approachable is an excerpt from my paper last quarter which focused on John Wesley’s context. Posting it here is my little way of honoring this woman who really should be known as a profoundly spiritual woman in her own right, not merely as the mother of the Wesley boys. Here’s the excerpt on Susanna Wesley:

Susanna Wesley

“There’s nothing plainer than that a free-thinker as a free-thinker, an atheist as an atheist, is worse in that respect than a believer as a believer. But if that believer’s practice does not correspond with his faith… he is worse than an infidel.”^[1]

In late Spring of 1725, Susanna Wesley wrote a letter to her second oldest son, whom she called Jacky.  After noting some particular frustrations experienced by his brother Charles on a recent journey, frustrations that involved his sister Hester, Susanna turns to more theological musings.  John, it seems, included some quotes from Thomas à Kempis in a previous letter, and Susanna shared her opinion that à Kempis was “extremely wrong” to suggest that God “by an irreversible decree hath determined any man to be miserable in this world.”^[2] She goes on to write, “Our blessed Lord, who came from heaven to save us from our sins… did not intend by commanding us to ‘take up the cross’ that we should bid adieu to all joy and satisfaction [indefinitely], but he opens and extends our views beyond time to eternity.

He directs us to place our joy that it may be durable as our being; not in gratifying but in retrenching our sensual appetites; not in obeying but correcting our irregular passions, bringing every appetite of the body and power of the soul under subjection to his laws, [if we would follow him to heaven].”^[3] We are to take up our cross, she writes to John, as a contrast to “our corrupt animality” in order to fight under “his banner against the flesh.”

This fight is not an empty one, because “when by the divine grace we are so far conquerors as that we never willingly offend, but still press after greater degrees of Christian perfection… we shall then experience the truth of Solomon’s assertion, ‘The ways of virtue are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.’”^[4]

After her brief theological insights, Susanna returns to the topic of  à Kempis noting that she takes “Kempis to have been an honest, weak man, that had more zeal than knowledge, by his condemning all mirth or pleasure as sinful.”  Misery is seen as misery to Susanna, who acknowledges how it can be used by God, but is not itself the place God leads us.  “We may and ought to rejoice that God has assured us he will never leave or forsake us; but if we continue faithful to him, he will take care to conduct us safely through all the changes and chances of this mortal life to those blessed regions of joy and immortality where sorrow and sin can never enter!”  John received this letter when he was nearing his twenty-first birthday, a student at Oxford, and not too long before he was ordained as a deacon in the Church of England.

Although it cannot be said that Susanna Wesley has been forgotten to history—either in its popular or its more formal forms—there is a curious emphasis which seems to dominate any mentions of John Wesley’s mother.  This emphasis, no doubt, in large part derives less from an interest in Susanna for her own self as it does for a way to better understand the social, spiritual, and psychological quandary which John Wesley has caused for those attempting to understand his motives and issues. This is especially the case if one dismisses outright the religious truth of John Wesley’s claims, leaving him to be a shell to be filled up with all manner of psychoanalytical theories.  Indeed, for this purpose, Susanna Wesley appears to offer a very fruitful source—both in how Wesley related to himself and how he related to other women.

Many biographers have seen Susanna’s form of child raising as being the shaping force in John’s psychological development.   Especially in considering Wesley’s later development and his own religious philosophy, it can be said that he was consumed with doubt and feelings of inadequacies.  In his study of Wesley, Robert Moore writes that his “personal style as a ‘Methodist’, compulsive, over-organized, perfectionistic in his attempts to obey authorities which he believed to be legitimate, just, and consistent was determined at this early age.” ^[5] If we understand shame as being a “vague, diffuse sense of falling short of some ideal, then “our ‘fault’ (in biblical terms) is a sin of omission; we have left undone that which we ought to have done.”^[6] From the time of his earliest youth, Wesley sought internal spiritual order through increasing patterns of discipline and “methods” which would help him towards the perfection that he thought was the goal of the true Christian life.

At the root of this interpretation is the statement of Susanna about her method of raising children and her “bylaws” which formed the foundation of her approach with each of her children.  “Whatever pains it cost, conquer their stubbornness,” she writes, “break the will if you would not damn the child.”^[7] It is understood that the shame induced by Susanna’s breaking of the will results in John’s later feeling that “he had fallen short of the mark, that he had not reached his spiritual ideal.”^[8]

Thus, in this perspective, it was an underlying sense of doubt and shame which led to his later strivings for full acceptance both before his parents and before his god.  Yet, this interpretation runs into numerous difficulties when pressed by more than a desire to explain away John Wesley’s apparent neuroses.^[9] Indeed, while a discussion of Susanna’s approach to child raising could itself take up a large amount of space, it would be more efficient in this present effort to instead try to understand Susanna not from her approaches to her children, but rather to see her as an educated, thoughtful, highly spiritual, strong-willed woman in her own right.^[10]

In approaching Susanna from this direction we find that John Wesley was not a stereotypical conglomeration of the more obvious Freudian psychoses, but rather the son of a very strong Christian woman who was taught from his earliest age the reality of an active relationship with God, and the priority of pursuing this relationship in the midst of a complicated world.

Susanna exhibited early the independence of thought and action which characterized her throughout her life.  Despite the not only dedicated but also sacrificial commitment to the Dissenting tradition shown by her father, Susanna, at the age of thirteen, made the decision to step away from her family’s identification and return, on her own, to communion with the Church of England.  The specific reasons for this precocious step are not precisely known, yet another sad result of the Epworth fire in 1709.

Susanna wrote to her son Samuel in 1709 and told him that she had written a substantial explanation of her reasoning for her return to the Church of England but this, along with so many of her own and her father’s writings, were burned up in the fire.^[11] She did not, it seems, pen another version of this testimony, so we are left to surmise some reasons for her change.

Many researchers make note of the highly influential apologetic preaching of such Anglicans as John Tillotson, Thomas Tenison and William Beveridge, who were calling Dissenters back into the national church.^[12] An interesting comment was also made by Susanna’s husband, Samuel Wesley, who likewise left his family’s Dissenting roots for a return to the Church of England, though later in life than did Susanna.  He was educated in a Dissenting academy but it was here that a nascent distaste for Dissent seemed to take shape.  He noted that he was turned off by the “crude political and religious extremism” of some of his fellow students.^[13] Whatever the particular reason that Susanna left the family religious tradition, it does not seem that she in any way forsook her father or his spiritual wisdom.  Indeed, she was, it seems, quite close to him throughout his life. This no doubt led to her continuing to read deeply of spiritual writings.

This reading and the spiritual emphasis that permeates her collected writings places the more well-known statements on education within a broader context—a context which shows Susanna to be, above all, interested in serving God in her life, a life in which she was given significant responsibility for raising a brood of likewise very intelligent children.^[14] We find in her letters, in her journals, and in her other writings that she was a serious, highly intellectual woman with strong, developed opinions which found a curious, profound role in an age in which women were not given anything near equal voice with men.^[15]

She had, as Charles Wallace puts it, “a deeply formed sense of self; a Puritan self-understanding that ultimately values the individual and empowers her when in conflict with ‘the world,’ however that might be construed.” ^[16] Her occasional conflicts with the ‘world’ were not, however, public battles in which she sought to recreate society.  Rather, she was her own self within the confines of her context, a conventional woman of the early eighteenth century, yet within these conventions, she revealed a great sense of independence of thought and very well-formed theological insights. “That sense of self allows her not only to love and support her family but also to advise, teach, argue with, and sometimes stubbornly resist even her husband, brother, and sons.”^[17] Given the strong identity of each of her sons, it is not surprising that different aspects of her personality are revealed in her various interactions with them.

Letters

Susanna’s relationship with her husband, Samuel, is well-known.  In a famous passage she wrote to John about his thoughts on considering ordination she notes, “I was much pleased with it and liked the proposal well, but ‘tis an unhappiness almost peculiar to our family that your father and I seldom think alike.”^[18] She continues, “Mr. Wesley differs from me, would engage you, I believe in critical learning.” She then adds, “I earnestly pray to God to aver that great evil from you of engaging in trifling studies to the neglect of such as are absolutely necessary.”^[19] What is absolutely necessary is not to listen to his father, but for young John to pursue that which leads to the fullest relationship with God.  John did, of course, pursue ordination and upon doing so finally did have the support of his father, who apparently had changed his mind about career choices.

Yet, in their disagreements about all manner of issues, Susanna remained loyal to Samuel in public and in private.   This is most evident in a letter she wrote to her brother, Samuel Annesley, Jr., who had been successful in business in India, and who had some unfortunate financial dealings with Samuel Wesley. She admits her husband is not a wise man of business, ample evidence was easily convincing, but she adds:

“And did I not know that almighty Wisdom hath views and ends in fixing the bounds of our habitation which are out of our ken, I should think it a thousand pities that a man of his brightness and rare endowments of learning and useful knowledge in relation to the church of God should be confined to an obscure corner of the Country, where his talents are buried and he is determined to a way of life for which he is not so well qualified as I could wish.”

She will admit to his lack of business acumen—which caused the family suffering—but continues to admire and respect his learning and spirituality, which is for her a more important reality. No doubt this was a factor in their early relationship.  After her return to the Church of England, she notes that she was for a time tempted to the position of the Socinians, but a wise man helped her better understand and appreciate the orthodox teaching on the Trinity.^[20] Susanna, with her defined priorities, ended up marrying this man.  It seems having a spiritual insight and wisdom was something Susanna respected in her father, in her husband, and in her sons and her daughters.^[21]

We see in her letters to each of her sons a slightly different expression of Susanna.  Indeed, the very distinctions in her response and in the personalities of her children—all who continued strong in the faith—argue as much as anything against her as a psycho-social oppressor. 

In her letters to her eldest son Samuel, we find a spiritual and emotional counselor sharing insights to her eldest son, apparently in response to questions he had sent.^[22] Her comments during his school days in the early years of the eighteenth century are not merely emotional encouragement meant to bolster his attitude during his education, and go well beyond reminders for him to attend church and his studies.

In a letter written in March 1704, Susanna reveals an intellectual and insightful theology, and hopes to remind her eldest of his spiritual responsibilities by means of what is in effect a short philosophical treatise on the nature of religion. “We may,” she writes as she gets into the heart of the letter, “distinguish the propositions of natural religion into theoretical and practical. I’ve already said enough of the first. I proceed to the second and shall divide the propositions of a practical natural religion into two  parts: first the internal, second the external worship of God.”^[23]

At the end of the long letter she notes that going well beyond her own counsel, that young “Sammy” should seek God continually in his own devotions. “That you may more perfectly know and obey the law of God, be sure you constantly pray for the assistance of the Holy Spirit.”  She continues, “Observe that assistance implies a joint concurrence of the person assisted; nor can you possibly be assisted if you do nothing. Therefore, use your utmost care and diligence to do your duty and rely upon the veracity of God, who will not fail to perform what he has promised.”^[24] In later letters, she specifies more what this diligence involves including watching how much he drinks and taking note of his specific temptations.

A summary of her approach might be found in a letter she wrote to Samuel in August of 1704:

“The mind of a Christian should always be composed, temperate, free from all extremes of mirth or sadness, and always disposed to hear the still small voice of God’s Holy Spirit, which will direct him what and how to act in all the occurrences of life, if in all his ways he acknowledge him and depend on his assistance.  I cannot now stay to speak of your particular duties. I hope I shall in a short time send you what I designed.”^[25]

These early letters to Samuel are important not simply as insights into Susanna’s relationship with her eldest son, but also as an indication of her theological and intellectual life in John Wesley’s earliest years, showing the atmosphere in which he was raised was filled with very engaged theological thought.  To be sure, the letters sent to a young man in school were not the complete picture of the relationship Susanna had with her eldest son.  Indeed, after his untimely death in 1739, Susanna wrote Charles with her expressions of grief. “Your brother was exceedingly dear to me in his life, and perhaps I’ve erred in loving him too well.  I once thought it impossible for me to bear his loss, but none knows what they can bear till they are tried.”^[26]

She then adds an honest expression of her spiritual need in her grief.  “As your good old grandfather often used to say, ‘That’s an affliction, that God makes an affliction.’ For surely the manifestation of his presence and favour is more than an adequate support under any suffering whatever. But if he withhold his consolations and hide his face from us the least suffering is intolerable.”  After her husband’s death, she had lived with her eldest son and was dependent on him for her own needs. 

But she writes she had not even thought about this, as she had indeed felt God’s provision, felt called to “a firmer dependence” on him.  “That, though my son was good, he was not my God—and that now our heavenly father seemed to have taken my cause more immediately into his own hand; and therefore even against hope, I believed in hope that I should never suffer more.”^[27]

In her letters to her youngest son, Charles, we find Susanna showing the same interest in spiritual guidance, acting as a sought-after spiritual counselor, giving practical and theological advice.  Yet, there are other aspects shown as well, especially later on in her life when Charles has gained a fair amount of his own spiritual confidence. After the Wesley brothers had their enlightening experiences of renewed faith, it seems Charles was eager to share the fruits of their discovery with his mother, and may have been a bit zealous in his own attempts to convince her that his own faith was lacking prior to his new experience, and apparently implying her understanding was deficient as well.

After quoting a long passage from the French-born Anglican priest, Pierre du Moulin, she writes, “I think you are fallen into an odd way of thinking.  You say that till within a few months you had no spiritual life nor any justifying faith. Now this is as if a man should affirm he was not alive in his infancy, because, when an infant he did not know he was alive. A strange way of arguing, this!”^[28]

At the top of the letter which he also had copied over, is a note in Charles Wesley’s hand: “My mother (not clear) of faith Dec. 6, 1738.”^[29]

Despite this sharp disagreement, with both holding their ground, the letters as a whole reflect a continued interest in worthwhile conversation. In 1735, she writes, “…that as pleases God, but if while I have life and any remains of health, it may be useful or pleasing to you, that we hold a correspondence together by letters, I shall gladly do it.  But then, dear Charles, let us not spend our time in trifling, in talking of impertinent matters that will turn to no account.” Indeed, while her letters do contain the occasional tidbit of personal information—especially as it seems Charles was in closer contact with several of the Wesley daughters, there was a frank spiritual conversation that Susanna continued to pursue.

In one of her last letters, when she was seventy-two, she finishes her brief comments to Charles by expressing her confidence in God’s work in John’s life and also in his, saying “my fears are at an end” for she sees her life’s work taking not only shape but also exhibiting great fruit. She sought to teach both her sons the ways of God, and they were incomparably active in teaching this to others.

She finishes with an exhortation to continue in service to God. “Proclaim his universal love and free grace to all men. And that ye may go on in [the power of the Lord and in] the strength of his might and be preserved from yielding place to those bold blasphemers so much as for an hour is the hearty prayer of your loving mother.  I send thee my love and blessing.”^[30]

It is not surprising that her letters to John are the most numerous of all that have been preserved. Throughout these letters she shows the same quality of affection and deep interaction that she reveals in her letters to Charles and Samuel.  Indeed, as in the example with which we opened this study, Susanna was willing to engage in theological musings with her son, interacting with him about readings in spirituality and theology. It seems John was curious about his mother’s opinion on topics, knowing that she was well-read.^[31] Throughout the letters to John, there does seem to also reflect a lot of mutual respect.

In March of 1734, she responds to a letter of his, in which she addresses a particularly troublesome interaction John experienced, and then replies to his apparent questions about his own devotions. She writes, “You want no direction from me how to employ your time. I thank God for his inspiring you with a resolution of being faithful in improving that important talent committed to your trust.”^[32] She admits her own haphazard devotions, adding that because of her circumstances, likely related to her health, “I can’t observe order, or think consistently, as formerly. When I have lucid interval I aim at improving it, but alas, it is but aiming.”^[33]

However, she always does seem to have an opinion or a suggestion, adding that while she sees nothing of his use of time “but what I approve, unless it be that you do not assign enough of  it to meditation, which is (I conceive) incomparably the best means to spiritualize our affections, confirm our judgments, and add strength to our pious resolutions of any exercise whatsoever.”^[34] She then proceeds on a passionate meditation on God. “And what is so proper for this end as deep and serious consideration of that pure, unaccountable love which is demonstrated to us in our redemption by God Incarnate! Verily, the simplicity of divine love is wonderful! It transcends all thought, it passeth our sublimest apprehensions! Perfect love indeed!”^[35]

She continues on, “And yet this great, incomprehensible, ineffable all-glorious God deigns to regard us! Declares he loves us!”  She presses on with her passionate reminder, proceeding back to her counsel, reminding John of how God reaches out to his people. “How oft doth he call upon us to return and live!  By his ministers, his providence, by the still, small voice of his Holy Spirit!  By conscience, his viceregent within us and by his merciful corrections and the innumerable blessings we daily enjoy!” She notes we cannot truly contemplate God as he is in himself, but she gives hope.  “But when we consider him under the character of a Savior we revive, and the greatness of that majesty which before astonished, and confounded our weak faculties now enhances the value of his condescension towards us and melts our tempers into tenderness and love.”

Susanna realizes that she is running out of paper, so tries to conclude, steering the note back to his state of life, and adding encouragements.  “Therefore you must not judge of your interior state by your not feeling great fervours of spirit and extraordinary agitations, as plentiful weeping, etc. but rather by the firm adherence of your will to God.”^[36] She then adds, “follow Mr. Baxter’s advice, and you will be easy.”^[37]

Given the course of these middle years of the 1730s, it seems John was not quick to take Baxter’s or Susanna’s advice, and he was not easy.  He did, however, eventually come to realize for himself the truth of Susanna’s words.  “I felt my heart strangely warmed,” he writes in his journal on May 14, 1738. “I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation: And an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”^[38]

Susanna ended her note, written four years prior to John’s Aldersgate experience, with these words:  “Dear Jacky, God Almighty bless thee!”

It seems God answered Susanna’s prayers.

[2]Charles Wallace, Jr., ed. Susanna Wesley: The Complete Writings (New York: Oxford University Press,1997), 107.

[3] Wallace, Susanna Wesley, 108.

[4] Wallace, Susanna Wesley, 108.

[5] Robert L. Moore, “Justification Without Joy: Psychohistorical Reflections on John Wesley’s Childhood and Conversion,” History of Childhood Quarterly: the Journal of Psychohistory 2(1), 1974: 36.

[6] Moore, 36.

[7] Wallace, Susanna Wesley, 370.

[8] Moore, 36. Cf. James Fowler, “John Wesley’s Development in Faith” in The Future of the Methodist Theological Traditions, M. Douglas Meeks, ed. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1985) and Claire E. Wolfteich, “A Difficult Love : Mother as Spiritual Guide in the Writing of Susanna Wesley,” Methodist History 38, no. 1 (1999), 58ff. James Fowler, 183 in fact attributes Wesley’s later identity crisis as being the result of powerfully repressed infantile anger, and a personality which was organized out of his superego.

[9] For another interesting perspective on John Wesley’s family life, including both his childhood and his own relationships and marriage, see Anthony J. Headley, Family Crucible: The Influence of Family Dynamics in the Life and Ministry of John Wesley (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010). Headley seeks to assess Wesley’s relational dynamics through the lenses of Murray Bowen’s Extended Family Systems Theory and Alfred Adler’s concept of family constellation. Although not a trained historian, Headley offers a worthwhile exploration of Wesley’s intimate interactions.  However, while he does interact with primary sources throughout, he did not utilize Susanna Wesley’s collected works, relying instead on only about six letters written by her, and similar number written by other members of the family.  This quite narrow perspective unfortunately sharply limits Headley’s overall analysis.

[10] For more thorough studies on Susanna’s method of child-raising and education see Martha F. Bowden, “Susanna Wesley’s Educational Method,” Journal of the Canadian Church Historical Society 44, no. 1 (2002);David Butler, “”Look for the Mother to Find the Son” : The Influence of Susanna Wesley on Her Son John,” Epworth Review 25, no. 4 (1998): 90-100;  Frank Baker, “Susanna Wesley : Puritan, Parent, Pastor, Protagonist, Pattern,” in Women in New Worlds (Nashville, Tenn: Abingdon, 1982): 112-131. Henry D. Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast: John Wesley and the Rise of Methodism, 3rd ed. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002), 54ff.; Wallace, Susanna Wesley, 367ff.; Kenneth J. Collins, A Real Christian: The Life of John Wesley (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999), 11ff. ; John A. Newton, Susanna Wesley and the Puritan Tradition in Methodism , 106ff.

[11] Wallace, Susanna Wesley, 71.

[12] Newton, Susanna Wesley, 59ff.

[13] Newton, Susanna Wesley, 65ff.

[14] In 1731, she wrote to John: “No one can, without renouncing the world in the most literal sense, observe my method, and there’s few (if any) that would entirely devote above twenty years of the prime of life in hope to save the souls of their children (which they think may be saved without so much ado); for that was my principal intention, however unskillfully or unsuccessfully managed.” Wallace, Susanna Wesley, 150.

[15] See Charles Wallace, Jr., “Susanna Wesley’s Spirituality: The Freedom of a Christian Woman,” Methodist History 22, no. 3 (1984): 158-173.

[16] Wallace, Susanna Wesley, 33.

[17] Wallace, Susanna Wesley, 33.

[18] Wallace, Susanna Wesley, 106.

[19] Wallace, Susanna Wesley, 107.

[20] Newton, Susanna Wesley, 66.

[21] Though we have significant more evidence of her interaction with her sons, and they each seem to have found more opportunity than any of the Wesley daughters. Unfortunately, society at that time did not give ample space for educated women to find their own place in this world, and the Wesley daughters, for the most part, were victims of this reality. See esp. Rack, 51ff. and also Samuel J. Rogal, “The Epworth Women : Susanna Wesley and Her Daughters,” Wesleyan Theological Journal 18, no. 2 (1983): 80-89.

[22] See Wallace, Susanna Wesley, 41-75. Wallace, Susanna Wesley, 41 writes, “That the letters survived at all is a tribute to the young man’s heedful discipline. They are preserved not in original form but in response to his mothers’ request as part of a letter book, into which he laboriously copied them nearly word for word.”

[23] Wallace, Susanna Wesley, 42.

[24] Wallace, Susanna Wesley, 48.

[25] Wallace, Susanna Wesley, 50.

[26] Wallace, Susanna Wesley, 179.

[27] Wallace, Susanna Wesley, 180.  Indeed, her lifelong poverty and experiences with the death of almost half of her children, as well as frequent ill health suggest a near continual experience of suffering which underlies all her spiritual writings.

[28] Wallace, Susanna Wesley, 176. She goes on to write, “Do you not consider that there’s some analogy in spiritual to natural life? A man must first be born and then pass through the several stages of infancy, childhood, and youth, before he attain to maturity. So Christians are first born of water and the spirit and then go through many degrees of grace, be first infants, or babes in Christ, as St. Paul calls them, before they become strong Christians. For spiritual strength is the work of time, as well as of God’s Holy Spirit. All then that I can gather from your letter is that till a little while ago you were not so well satisfied of your being a Christian as you are now. I heartily rejoice that you have now attained to a strong and lively hope in God’s mercy through Chris. Not that I can think you were totally without saving faith before, but then ‘tis one thing to have faith and another thing to be sensible we have it. Faith is the fruit of the Spirit and is the gift of God, but to feel or be inwardly sensible that we have true faith requires a further operation of God’s Holy Spirit. You say you have peace but not joy in believing. Blessed be God for peace. May his peace rest within you. Joy will follow, perhaps not very close, but it will follow faith and love. God’s promises are sealed but not dated. Therefore patiently attend his pleasure. He will give you joy in believing. Amen” Her understanding of a further and continual work of the Holy Spirit in the life a maturing Christian is something that John Wesley, and later John Fletcher, continue to consider and hone, as this further work is increasingly not seen in sudden stages, but in gradual transformation.

[29] It has been suggested that as John was reflective of his mother’s personality, Charles was much more like his father in thought, temperament, and interests.  Samuel liked to think of himself as a poet—even as he seems to have gained more approval as a theologian—while Charles, of course, is best known now for his hymnody. See Rack, 51.  It does seem, however, the questioning of salvation was not entirely solved, as a letter dated October  2, 1740 contains this response from Susanna: “I thank you for your kind letter. I call it so because I verily believe it was dictated by a sincere desire of my spiritual and eternal good. There is too much truth in many of your accusations; nor do I intend to say one word in my own defence, but rather choose to refer all things to him that knoweth all things.” It seems that Charles had once again accused his mother of not quite having a firm salvation.  Yet, Susanna adds, “Alas, it is far worse than you apprehend it to be!  I am not one of those who have never been enlightened or made partaker of the heavenly gift  or of the Holy Ghost, but have many years since been fully awakened, and am deeply sensible of sin, both original and actual.” She is not discouraged either by her own awareness or Charles’ accusations: “…for all my transgressions are the sins of a finite person, but the merits of our Lord’s sufferings and righteousness are infinite.”  She follows with an interesting passage suggesting Charles was worried about his own salvation—again.  “I cannot conceive why you affirm yourself to be not Christian; which is, in effect, to tell Christ to his face that you have mothering to thank him for, since you re not the better for anything he hath yet done or suffered for you. O, what great dishonour, what wondrous ingratitude, is this to the ever-blessed Jesus! I think myself far from being so good a Christian as you are, or as I ought to be; but God forbid that I should renounce the little Christianity that I have: nay, rather let me grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.” Susanna was, it seems, a spiritual and theological foil for her sons—providing counsel in either caring or combative fashion, as they needed.

[30] Wallace, Susanna Wesley, 190.

[31] While her letters indicate some of her reading, it is in her journals that we learn much more about the extent and depth which she read. She reads both intellectually and devotionally, assessing what she reads with a critical eye.  Among her dialogue partners in her journals are Aristotle, Plato, Beveridge, along with many other writers from throughout history.  and of course Scripture. She especially seemed to value the works of Richard Lucas, George Herbert, John Locke, Pascal, and Richard Baxter, with each of these providing, it seems, profound influence in her expressions, her spirituality and in her overall philosophy of life. See Charles Wallace, Jr., “”Some Stated Employment of Your Mind” : Reading, Writing, and Religion in the Life of Susanna Wesley,” Church History 58, no. 3 (1989):  354-366. See also Wallace, Susanna Wesley, ch. 5.  Given Susanna’s own strong interest in these writings, an interesting further study comparing John Wesley and these various writers would be quite helpful.  This has been done  in more thorough studies with John Locke and Richard Baxter. For Locke see esp. Richard E. Brantley, Locke, Wesley, and the Method of English Romanticism (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1984) and Frederick Dreyer, “Faith and Experience in the Thought of John Wesley,” American Historical Review 88, no. 1 (1983): 12-30.  For Richard Baxter see Robert C. Monk, John Wesley: His Puritan Heritage, 2nd ed. (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1999).  Also interesting for future efforts would be a study of Wesley in light of An Enquiry after Happiness by Richard Lucas, especially the third part which concerns religious perfection.  See Richard Lucas, An Enquiry after Happiness, 3 vols., vol. 3 (London: W. Innys and R. Manby, 1735; reprint, Nabu Press).

[32] Wallace, Susanna Wesley, 165.

[33] Wallace, Susanna Wesley, 165.

[34] Wallace, Susanna Wesley, 165.

[35] Wallace, Susanna Wesley, 166.

[36] Wallace, Susanna Wesley, 166.

[37] She here refers to Richard Baxter, a Puritan preacher from the 17^th century and one of both Susanna’s and John’s favorite guides.  Here is the quote:  “Put your souls, with all their sins and dangers, and all their interests, into the hand of Jesus Christ your Saviour; and trust them wholly with him by a resolved faith. It is he that hath purchased them, and therefore loveth them. It is he that is the owner of them by right of redemption. And it is now become his own interest, even for the success and honour of his redemption, to save them.” Charles Wallace, 170n42, notes that he cannot “find the exact passage amid Baxter’s voluminous works.”

[38] Jackson, Works, 1:103.

Every person is not just what he actual is, but is also the actor playing himself. We can be more than we see, but we can also seem to be more than we are. Then we present ourselves as we should like to be but aren’t, or put on an act in order to appear differently from the way other people think of us, and adopt a poker face.

And if we ourselves don’t know who we really are, and have either lost our real selves, or have never found them, then we seem to ourselves like actors in a play which we don’t know, and in a role which we first have to invent.” To say that ‘all the world’s a stage’ sounds convincing but the image is untenable, for if there is no other reality, a theater is no longer a theater. But where, then, is this other reality to be found, the reality which puts an end to the play?

Is there a completely different reality in the face of which we lay aside our masks because we have been seen through, and so try to know ourselves as we are known? Or do we in principle remain so hidden to ourselves that we never arrive at an endpoint when we can put aside our masks, not even when we die, because we ourselves can never get through to the foundation?

Some thoughts from Jürgen Moltmann. Which resonate for me for a lot of reasons, one of which was seeing Inception this past Saturday. Another is because I’m reading through, for the ??th time, Eiji Yoshikawa’s Musashi, which probably ranks as my favorite book.

What is real? What does it mean to live in true reality rather than in a dream, or playing a role, or existing anonymously in this world–putting on the mask of everyone else who is playing a part, trying to be real? What is it to be a true person in this world? It is not a life of selfish absorption, making the world bend and bow, asserting self upon others. This leads only to emptiness. For we are left, then, only with the emaciated self we are in the moment, not really aware of the world, or the reality as it truly is.

Moltmann continues:

Egomaniacs move everywhere only in the hall of mirrors where their images of themselves are reflected. They talk only about themselves, they only quote themselves, in other people they seek only the endorsement of their own picture of themselves. Today we call that cultivating one’s image. It makes people unapproachable, and bores everyone else because they feel ignored. To exist only ‘fact to fact’ in these reflections of one’s own self means deadly self-isolation.

Then he gets to the good bit:

But lovers and friends know each other ‘face to face’. They look one another in the eye. Trustfully, they expose themselves in their weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and find mutual protection in each other. Each gives the other the human space for living which they need to develop themselves.

In this way they do not just live side by side and together, but in each other too, and in mutual affection and reciprocal respect they keep their future open for themselves. Love does not invent an image of the other person and does not tie the other down to the preconceived judgments which always go together with the pictures we make of someone else.

When lovers see each other ‘face to face’ they need no pictures; pictures would be detrimental. For pictures are representations of people who are absent. If they are present, we don’t put up pictures of them. In mutual recognition we accompany the transformations of the other in the ongoing process of a shared life.

Not just true for lovers. This is, I think, the essence of what the church was supposed to be about — “the broad space in which there is no cramping”. Where we can be among others who are. Free to find our true self in the power of the Spirit who brings not only life but also uniqueness to every one who has breath. In unity we find a true diversity.

But this is indeed true for lovers as well. We lose this — the freedom, the expectation, the hope, the honest-self — we lose the bond and real freedom of growing into becoming our true self. We put on the mask. Lose our self. Become anonymous among others who are anonymous. We lose the Way.

But there is always hope. Hope to live and continue to live, hope to turn back and find new life, hope to be free to be who we truly are.

Sometimes, however, we might need a kick. Sometimes, though, we’re asked to take the step on our own — off the boat, away from home, or however it might look to let go our selfish demands of living the ‘dream’ life, where all is seemingly possible but is, ultimately, a trap keeping us from the truly real.

For the last couple of weeks I’ve tried studying in another space in the afternoons. Too much time in the apartment and all its distractions meant I was not getting as much done as I should have.

There are two languages this summer for me to, if not master, at least study enough to be able to translate a few pages of text in a couple of hours. I finally found my rhythm for study. German in the morning, Latin in the afternoons. So far it seems to be working.

I’m sitting here because after trying the library I realized while it was certainly cool enough and had places to sit, there was not really quiet. Libraries are busy sorts of places. People quite close by moving, shuffling papers, sometimes talking. There’s a lot of human presence in a library, and I’ve long realized I’m quite sensitive to all of that.

On the various personality tests over the years I consistent rank as an extreme introvert. Meaning I score as high, or as low, as possible in the indications that for my inner batteries to recharge I need to be away from people.

I know this is a major factor in my personal spirituality as well. Which is probably why churches never particularly feel like spiritual experiences for me. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not thinking some kind of isolated religiosity is the way for me. There’s just no getting around the intense sociality that is the call for the people of God. We are, after all, a gathered people.

But, sociality rarely means reinvigorating spirituality for me. To find that, to find restored creativity, I have to get away from people’s noises and movements, far away. I’ve learned that when I do that my creative self starts to awaken again. I begin to write. I start to plan. My mind wanders the fields of creative theology, making connections, focusing.

Words start to pour out again.

Which probably explains why I so rarely write here anymore. I live in a city now, in an apartment complex that while filled with particularly good and interesting and God loving folk, is still a place filled with people. In such a city as this even the wild spaces tend to have a fair amount of human presence. There is no “away”.

I struggle to write. When there are demands or deadlines, that pushes me out of my malaise, but very rarely do I find that space to write or think or wander afield in unraveling, unknotting thoughts. My prayer life, devotional life, creative life takes a deep stumble. This isn’t an excuse. I still try. It’s a reality. When I find an empty, quiet space where my introversion can be freed, I just become more whole again.

But that’s not the place I am in. I’m not living in a forest or on a deserted shore or in the midst of a vast stretch of uninhabited oasis.

I am here. In the city. So the quest is not to wait for when I feel most alive or to put off for when I feel the situation is more suitable or when circumstances finally free me to do what I want to do.

The call is for me to be spiritual in this place, to embrace this place as the place where God has me in this season. Whatever my lack, whatever my frustrations, whatever my irritations or understood needs — this is where I am at. I prayed. God put me here.

I need to find God’s wholeness in a setting where I feel so little of my own wholeness. I need to let the Spirit’s creativity fill my heart especially when I feel so little of my own creativity discovering even a little bit of spark.

I need to learn how to live — truly, wholly, fully — in this present. Being where I am rather than where I would wish to be.

Because God is here. Even if I’d rather he be somewhere else and have me with him there. He is here. And I need to be wholly here, with him, and discover this spirituality of this place.

Even if I don’t want to. That’s what I need to continue to learn how to do.

Of course, I’ll probably always, at least occasionally, need a cool empty classroom, a deserted bit of forest, or a kayak in the middle of a broad lake to help me more fully retune and remember such a calling. Even Jesus had his getaways, after all.

How long , O LORD? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long?

How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

Consider and answer me, O LORD my God!

Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death, and my enemy will say, “I have prevailed”; my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.

But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me.

Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.

And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

For we know the one who said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.”

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

But recall those earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to abuse and persecution, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion for those who were in prison, and you cheerfully accepted the plundering of your possessions, knowing that you yourselves possessed something better and more lasting.

Do not, therefore, abandon that confidence of yours; it brings a great reward.

For you need endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

For yet “”in a very little while, the one who is coming will come and will not delay; but my righteous one will live by faith. My soul takes no pleasure in anyone who shrinks back.”

But we are not among those who shrink back and so are lost, but among those who have faith and so are saved.