The form and not the power of religion
In 1786, near the end of his life, John Wesley wrote a retrospective essay on the Methodist movement he founded. In it, he admitted his fear that Methodists would “…only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power.”1
Many have interpreted this to mean a loss of “evangelical fervor,” that is a failure to “win souls” or “convert new people” to Christiniaty. I’ve read a fair amount of Wesley’s work and I can’t help but wonder if he was speaking of something much more pressing than escape from present problems, something much more important than the possibility of an orgy of eternal bliss.
In chapter called “Good News to the Poor,” in Theology and Evangelism in the Wesleyan Heritage, Ted Jennings suggests the same.
When do we have the form without the power of religion?
When we develop church growth strategies that target the middle class instead of the poor and marginalized, then we have the form without the power.
When we spend more of our resources on constructing and maintaining Church buildings and property than we do on feeding the hungry, then we have the form without the power.
When we spend more on pastor’s salaries, benefits, and pensions, than we do on clothing the naked and sheltering the homeless, then we have the form without the power.
When we turn stewardship into financial campaigns for the Church, rather than sacrifice for the poor, then we have the form but not the power.
When we blame poverty on the sloth of the poor rather than the avarice of the prosperous and the indifference of the comfortable, then we have the form but not the power.
When we furnish our sanctuaries and social halls in such a way as to make the prosperous comfortable rather than make the indigent welcome, then we have the form but not the power.
When we dedicate Methodist institutions like universities and hospitals and retirement homes to the needs of the affluent rather than the needs of the impoverished, then we have the form but not the power.
When we preach a grace which saves us without changing us, then we have the form but not the power.
Above all whenever and however we make of Methodism a preferential option for the middle class, we have the form but not the power of religion.
As the financial institutions in which have, until now, placed all our trust and hope are crumbling around us and as we see the effects of unrestrained consumer-capitalism unfold before our very eyes, I find these words to be especially poignant. And convicting.
- http://deeplycommitted.wordpress.com/2007/06/26/john-wesleys-thoughts-upon-methodism/ [↩]
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