John Wesley may be my spiritual emancipator

Ok, it’s time to tackle some issues that have some meat. In the half-dozen or so previous blog posts, I’ve just been practicing on training wheels for the real stuff. So far, most everything has been rambling fluff – and that’s fine. But the real reason I’m blogging is, yes, to have fun, but also to chew on issues of life and living that have a degree of meaning and purpose.

As my sons are well aware (who both have been of immense help in the late years of my journey – one’s a senior pastor with an MDiv in theology and the other is an assistant university professor with a PhD in theology), my struggle for spiritual authenticity has taken several turns. Raised in a fundamentalist Christian environment in the midwest, I necessarily have come away with a lot of restrictive (and probably unnecessary) baggage. My sons have (correctly) implied that due a lot to this baggage, my Christian formation has developed somewhat askew. This is a knotty problem for one who is supposed to be a “mature” person.

I’ve always maintained that all of life (daily grind, the past, the future, the universe, God & science, for starters) needed to come to some sensible co-existence – at least in my thinking. I now realize that the complexities and intricacies of an infinite God cannot begin to be fathomed by us finites. Of course we have some clues. Even evidences. But can it (or should it even?) come together just so I or any human can feel “comfortable” in our belief system?

From this restraining fundamentalist youth (we knew explicitly what NOT to do, but we had little clue as to how we WERE to act as a Christian) I continued to struggle inwardly with what I was being taught (it didn’t make good sense to me even then). During and after college I “evolved” to become a practicing Baptist. A few things improved, but the total focus was still in “getting people saved”, nothing of which is wrong with that in and of itself. However, little was in place to teach us HOW to live fully and fulfillingly as a follower of Christ - to say nothing of our inability to receive authentic theological teaching.

I wallowed in this quagmire for close to 30 years, experimenting with the tenets of various “spiritual gurus” and theories of faith. I even became a Presbyterian, thinking that to be an improvement of sorts. But the dilemma continued, and the quagmire almost swallowed me. I now wonder how my growing sons found any meaningful faith at all in the midst of all this. But the grace of God is truly boundless.

For my 60th birthday, my son Doug (the prof) gave me a book called Rethinking Wesley’s Theology by Randy Maddox, then a Wesleyan Theology professor at Seattle Pacific University – in Seattle, Washington, of course. Maddox combined over a dozen essays about the life and theology of John Wesley, all written by scholars who had extensively studied his works. Inside the cover my son scribed, “To Dad – Happy Birthday and Best Wishes on your theological journeys. Love Doug.” This book was the springboard to my finally experiencing freedom and fullness in my faith journey.

For me, the book was an introduction to John Wesley, not a rethinking. Of all the reformers, Wesley, to me, got it most right. He carried forth just enough of the “traditions” of faith (he came out of the Anglican Church of England) and founded a wonderful “synthesis of faith” (my words) in the sprouting Methodist conference. I had been struggling mightily with Calvin’s concepts of “election” and “predestination” though taught them all my life from fundamentalism through the Baptists and of course later on as a Presbyterian. Wesley, on the other hand, was Arminian in his posture which allows for true “free choice” with regard to accepting or rejecting any or all of God’s revelation and, consequently, in my view, maintains the integrity of God's salvific provision.

I could go on and on. Wesley’s sermons and writings have truly brought back an exuberance and strong desire for me to experience Christian living in a fresh new way. One of the factors in Wesley’s theology is his passion that we as Christians must put shoe leather on our faith by living responsibly in all areas of our life – and at the same time literally share our abundant (western world) means with those who have so much less. I have an immense amount to learn in this arena, but at least now I’ve opened the door to explore it. John Wesley just may be my spiritual emancipator.

By the way, Rethinking Wesley’s Theology by Randy Maddox is available on Amazon.com . And if you'd like to check out another Blog which is full of exciting things on the Christian life, check out my son Gregg's blog: http://greggsgambles.blogspot.com/