John Wesley

Family Background

John Wesley was born in 1703 in Epworth, Scotland, and died in 1791. His family had a big influence on his later achievement in religion. His father, Samuel Wesley, was an Anglican rector of Epworth, Lincolnshire, and his mother, Susanna Annesley Wesley, was the daughter of a minister with a dissenting opinion about the church.(Calvin College, "John Wesley") His forefathers had been loyal Puritans and faced much hostility. His paternal great-grandfather and grandfather had been banished from their land in 1662 by the Act of Uniformity. His maternal great-grandfather was the Puritan leader of London.(Brown-Lawson, p. 135)

Following his family background, John Wesley was a preacher, theologist and he later became the founder of the Methodist Church in England (Calvin College, "John Wesley").

Before founding the Methodist Church, he attended Christ Church, Oxford, in 1720, and he received a scholarship in 1724. Being driven on by his father, he starts the "pursuit of religious discipline"(ODNB, "John Wesley").

The Development of Methodism

Soon he got into controversies with the Calvinists. To his mind the Calvinistic system of predestination "exalts the transendence of God [...], and reduces finite will to an illusion, making men even in his acceptance of Divine Grace, the passive creature instead of the consenting child of God"(Brown-Lawson, p. 6). Consequently, God's love and compassion are insufficient(Brown-Lawson, p. 6).

There were a lot of religious societies in England, which, however, were dissolved and dissolved by the 1740. Thus, an association of four gentlemen, Mr John Wesley, who worked at Lincoln College, Mr Charles Wesley, studying at Christ Church, Mr Morgan, Commoner of the Christ Church and Mr Kirkham, from Merton College, founded the 'Holy Club' in 1729 to study the Greek testament(Brown-Lawson, p.12). Attending these religious meetings, John Wesley sought salvation of his and the companions' own souls. He had group prayers and a weekly Holy Communion. Besides these activities, they visited sick people and prisoners as well. Through the activities in the club, Wesley got concerned with the "inward [...] outward necessity and the possibility of 'Christian Perfection'"(ODNF, "John Wesley"). After all, the club was 'baptized' the Methodist (Brown-Lawson, p. 13).

After his return to England in 1739, Wesley eventually integrated Methodism into the Church of England. He had been with the Moravians in Germany from June till August in 1738. They convinced him that the doctrine of the Church of England, becoming the basis of Methodism, was true. (Brown-Lawson, p. 146) In 1741 Wesley noticed a “breach that had occurred between Wesley and himself over the doctrines of Calvinism” (Brown-Lawson, p. 89).

His achievement can be found in the Methodist Churches worldwide. Especially in the USA it has become the largest Protestant denomination (Rack, p. 550).

Missionary Work

In 1735 Wesley had the opportunity to do missionary work in Georgia, USA, which he did until 1738. He did his service to the "Native Americans for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts"(ODNF, "John Wesley").

Derivations

Concerning Methodism, there were different opinions on it. John Wesley and George Whitefield supported two different notions of Methodism. As a result of these two different ideas, there emerged the Arminian branch by Wesley and the Calvinistic branch by Whitefield. (Brown-Lawson, p. 135, p. 177) There was hostility between the Puritan theology, which was Calvinistic, and the Arminian one (Brown-Lawson, p. 136). Wesley supported 'English Arminianism'. Calvinists held the opinion that they were all taught by their own opinions, and they traced all honour back to God. Arminians like Wesley aimed at awakening and improving their facilities with the purpose of filling their minds with good notions. Raising these good notions in themselves is achieved by a frequent reflection and a permanent attention to their own actions. Arminians highly tended to blame themselves for their sins. (Brown-Lawson, p. 159) Thus, Calvinists tended to "a false security and 'sloth'" (Brown-Lawson, p. 159) while Arminians tended to be too self-centred and to trust God insufficiently. Arminians zealed for liberty and Calvinists had their difficulty in it because they were not able to "reconcile it with the Sovereignty of God and the freedom of His grace" (Brown-Lawson, p. 159). Still, Arminians did not deny God's power to foresee what mankind would and would not do (Brown-Lawson, p. 160).

Bibliography

Brown-Lawson, Albert, 1994. John Wesley and The Anglican Evangelicals of the Eighteenth Century. Edinburgh, Cambridge, Durham: The Pentland Press.

Calvin College Computer Science. John Wesley, Christian Classics: Ethereal Library, ed. Calvin College. Burton: Christian Classics Ethereal Library. http://www.ccel.org/w/wesley/.

Oxford Dictionary of National Bibliography. "John Wesley". Oxford: Oxford University Press 2004-09. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/29069.

Rack, Henry D., 1992. Reasonable Enthusiast: John Wesley and the Rise of Methodism. 2nd ed. London: Epworth Press.