John Wesley's Practices And Beliefs

I have always been interested in the life and times of John Wesley. How his personality and convictions affected the Methodist Church and the world of Christianity in general. I grew up in a Methodist church, but at no point was I ever interested in learning about the founding fathers of the Church. All this changed when I got to Tyndale and took History of Christianity. I found out that the man behind the Methodist was very interested in Christian leadership; this is a very huge passion of mine. Hence my study of the life of John Wesley in this paper and how he changed the face of Christianity in England and ultimately the world.

This paper is centered around Dr. Cobb’s essay, “Wesley the Process Theologian”, and matched with notes on John Wesley from Dr. Hughes lectures in Protestantism in the Modern World. Through the course of this paper, the concept of process theology will be discussed along with how John Wesley’s own thoughts and ideas compare to process theologies conceptions. Through comparing these two’s individual ideas, I will add my own insights and thoughts on the possibility of common ground between the two; from the view of an outsider whose own beliefs have been shaped considerably from my own experiences. Though I am in no way an authority on any of these subjects, I hope that my point of view will be enlightening. Along with this, I’ll strive to support many of my claims about God through scripture, for regardless of man’s interpretation of the bible, it’s one of Christianity’s main sources of authority.

Richard Allen founded the first African Methodist Episcopal Church, the AME Church, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1816. Richard Allen was born into slavery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1760. At the age of 17, he bought his freedom. Allen made significant contributions to both the religious culture and African American culture in Pennsylvania. Allen founded the AME church when African Americans were discriminated against in Methodist churches. Allen served as the first bishop. Today, the AME church has more than 2.5 million members.

The African Methodist Episcopal Church also known as the AME Church, represents a long history of people going from struggles to success, from embarrassment to pride, from slaves to free. It is my intention to prove that the name African Methodist Episcopal represents equality and freedom to worship God, no matter what color skin a person was blessed to be born with. The thesis is this: While both Whites and Africans believed in the worship of God, whites believed in the oppression of the Africans’ freedom to serve God in their own way, blacks defended their own right to worship by the development of their own church. According to Andrew White, a well- known author for the AME denomination, “The word African means that our church was

As John Wesley continued to struggle with is belief and what he thought to be the true theology he gained insight from a variety of people. It was on the ship to America that John first encounter the German Moravians. It was during this trip that John began to question his beliefs because he realized he was scared to meet his creator. Yet, he noticed during the times on the ship when people were afraid for their lives that the German Moravians seemed to be calm as they huddled together singing psalms.

“John Wesley remains one of the most influential individuals in the history and development of the Methodist Church because his leadership ultimately steered Methodist principles to exact a stronger focus upon personal holiness and church community”(GF289). His teachings stressed that sanctity is an impossible and vain pursuit without an initial, personal intervention from God in the person’s life. His spiritual intervention came on the heels of a failed mission trip to the new colonies of the United States. During a violent Atlantic storm on the return voyage, John came face to face with his fear of death. “He was deeply awed, however by a group of Moravian Brethren from Herrnhut” (Shelly, 331).

Take a moment to look into the sentence “the use of money” what does that truly mean to someone? Is it how we spend money? How we save money? How we help someone who needs money? What does it mean when asked what does the use of money mean? John Wesley mentions three Christian prudence on the use of money and defines exactly what it means by the use of money.

Calvinism is the theological system associated with the Reformer John Calvin that emphasizes the rule of God over all things as reflected in its understanding of Scripture, God, humanity, salvation, and the church. The concept of predestination is to explain the rise of capitalism as an economic system.” Calvinist had no idea of who was going to be able to go to heaven. They believe the harder they worked “God seemed to be providing them with opportunities and was working through them” (Johnstone 2007) in order to provide better opportunity in life. If one accumulates wealth and property in the process of careful management of earthly resources, one can live more hopefully—and thus more faithfully. This drives competitiveness among the Calvinist

The principle element of John Wesley’s theology is the supernatural working of God’s grace. As developed by Collins, for Wesley the Christian life was a journey made only possible by the working of God’s grace (Collins, 2007). Through the entire work of God and man, God’s nature of grace is evident. Wesley describes the movement of God’s grace in and through man in what he describes as the Via Salutis or the Way of Salvation. Furthermore, the Via Salutis address several facets of grace that Wesley identifies, including; prevenient grace, convincing grace, saving grace, assurance, sanctifying grace and glorifying grace (Collins, 2007).

He said to them, “Go ye therefore, and teach of all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19 – 20). He gave this plan almost two thousand years ago, and it is still his plan

A very well known verse is Matthew 28:19-20 but it tells us “Go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…” This verse doesn’t tell us to just sit and home and wait for people to come to us and then tell them the Gospel of Jesus. It says GO! If we go, then God will reveal our purpose and assignment once we are walking and following in alignment with Him. One of my favorite quotes from the whole book is, “If you are living a Godly life, He will give you the right desires. (Macarthur page

Baptism is another way that God brings the gospel to us so the Holy Spirit can work faith through it. Titus 3:5b tells us, “He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.” This washing of rebirth

Important to the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition is understanding Wesley didn't develop the doctrine of Holiness from a bias, rather the Holiness message was at the heart of the early Christian church (Leclerc, 2014). Though Wesley’s delineation of entire sanctification differs from many early writers, the idea of Christian perfection has remain alive since the days of the apostles (Bassett & Greathouse, 1985)

In Matthew 28:18-20 18 the bible gives us an understanding of what it means to be a follower of Christ and to lead and help others to follow in Jesus lifestyle, it’s not always going to be easy but an understanding of what it means for us to disciple, this is not easy either but as long we trust in God to help us we can get through this. Also how important it is to disciple through evangelism. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

In the doctrine of John Wesley, one discovers a new objective; distinctive from Wesley’s interpretation of human depravity based upon the Reformed perception of sin, and the requirement of divine grace for salvation. He distinguished himself from the activists and brought out the doctrine of prevenient grace into his construction of the doctrine of redemption. Wesley abandoned the theory of election, electing the concept of conditional election. Consequently, he fused the teaching of the total sinfulness of a person and the importance of grace with the emphasis on human liberation, giving birth to his doctrine of sanctification.