John Wesley

1. 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 by the Act of Uniformity in 1662. 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 in 1724 he received a scholarship. Being driven on by his father, he starts to "pursuit religious discipline"(ODNB, "John Wesley").

2. The Development of Methodism

Soon he got into conversies with the Calvinists. To his mind the Calvinistic system "exalts the transcedence 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"(source). 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 made extinct by 1740. Thus, an association of four gentlemen, Mr John Wesley, who worked at Lincoln College, Mr Charles Wesley, studying at the Christ Church, Mr Morgan, Commoner of the Christ Church and Mr Kirkham, coming from Merten 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. After all, the club was 'baptized' the 'Methodist'. (Brown-Lawson, p. 13) Through the activities in the club, Wesley got cocerned with the "inward [...] outward necessity and the possibility of 'Christian Perfection'". (ODNF, "John Wesley")

After his return to England in 1739, he eventually integrated Methodism into England. In 1741 he 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 is has become the largest Protestant denomination. (Rack, p. 550)

3. 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").

4. Derivations

Concerning Methodism, there were different opinions on this matter. 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 Calvanistic, and the Arminian one (Brown-Lawson, p. 136). Wesley supported the 'English Arminianism'. Calvinists held the opinion that they were all taught by their own opinions and thought of themselves, and they trace all honour back to God. Arminians, like Wesley supported, aimed at awakening and improving their facilities to fill 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 tend 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 insufficiently trust God. 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, Armenians did not deny God's power to foresee what mankind would and would not do (Brown-Lawson, p. 160).

5. 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. X. "John Wesley", Christian Classics: Ethereal Library, ed. Calvin College. http://www.ccel.org/w/wesley/.

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