If you follow me on twitter you may recall a stream of quotes last night that came from John Wesley that had to do with God's concern more for our actions, tempers, and character than with our "ideas" or "concepts." Put simply, holy living is more important than orthodox opinions. I recall Brian MacLaren asserting in one of his trilogy installments of the A New Kind of Christian series that we followers of Christ should be more concerned with being good than being right. That is certainly a sentiment with which I resonate, but I also see how someone can easily run with this notion to such a degree that the gospel is reduced to a gentle suggestion to be nice to everyone...or put more aptly...to "therapeutic moralistic deism". By the way, I'm not suggesting that MacLaren's assertions are in line with that nor that Kenda Dean & others responding to "therapeutic moralistic deism" are rebutting anything by MacLaren.
(Sidebar: Kenda Dean's book on the subject, Almost Christian, is also the title of one of John Wesley's earliest sermons. Given that Dean is a Methodist pastor and that she quotes from Wesley's sermon by the title [and also one by George Whitefield], it is clear she is connecting the two. Not surprisingly, therefore, the contexts into which they were both speaking are remarkably similar.)
Though Wesley's sermon 'The Almost Christian' has a considerable amount of punches to throw in this avenue, I'm drawn more toward what was perhaps his last sermon 'On Living without God' (1790). What I find remarkable about Wesley is that he is a master of "not throwing out the baby with the bath water." If something, be it a doctrine, practice, or idea, was being abused, he always called to reject the abuse but to let the proper use of that thing remain. The same holds true to orthodox opinions and holy living.
One could point toward those quotes I streamed through twitter last night as saying that Wesley was really just concerned with being good and didn't really care about theology or orthodoxy. After all these statements are given in the closing of the sermon: "I believe the merciful God regards the lives and tempers of men more than their ideas. I believe he respects the goodness of the heart rather than the clearness of the head; and that if the heart of a man be filled (by the grace of God, and the power of his Spirit) with the humble, gentle, patient love of God and man, God will not cast him into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels because his ideas are not clear, or because his conceptions are confused. Without holiness, I own, no man shall see the Lord; but I dare not add, or clear ideas."
Let me tell you after I read that, I began to question the necessity of theological education and wondered if I have been heading down a futile path all this time. But then I was reminded that though Wesley considered holy living as more important than orthodox doctrinal adherence, it is clear that theology, for Wesley, is the servant of piety. Therefore, to be more holy and grow in grace, it's best to get acquainted with what this grace that God gives does for us and enables in us.
Furthermore, Wesley's description of one "living without God" is that such a person is a "practical" atheist...not that the person literally disbelieves in a god, but that one lives as though there isn't. He even distinguishes between "Christianity" and "morality" (not altogether different than the subject matter of Dean's book): "From hence we may clearly perceive the wide difference there is between Christianity and morality. Indeed nothing can be more sure than that true Christianity cannot exist without both the inward experience and outward practice of justice, mercy, and truth; and this alone is given in morality. But it is equally certain that all morality, all the justice, mercy, and truth which can possibly exist without Christianity, profiteth nothing at all, is of no value in the sight of God, to those that are under the Christian dispensation."
What matters, therefore, for those who hear of the good news of Christ, is not just being good and nice, but a 'new creation'...which is gained by being in union with Christ. That union, to me, is what brings these together.
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