John and Charles Wesley saw the eighteenth-century Wesleyan revival as a restoration of primitive Christianity, as well as ‘true Christianity’ throughout the ages. If Methodism is viewed within the context of such continuity, there is a sense in which the Wesleys are not the sole founders of Wesleyan Methodism. This session includes scholarly analyses of where "Methodism" can be perceived in the history of Christianity before the Wesleys. Where can we see "Methodism" in the global history of the church prior to the eighteenth century, even if no direct genealogical connection can be drawn? This question can be explored in particular movements or churches, the lives, ministries, and writings of Christians, and in devotional practices. The question can be framed as an exercise in ressourcement—a return to the varied sources of Methodism—with the goal of renewal of the tradition today.
This session is linked to our unit’s session on “The Reception History of the Wesleys,” which examines how their ministries and writings have been received in the Wesleyan/Methodist traditions and beyond.
This paper argues that Origen's Homily on Psalm 81, in which he issues a universal summons to the imitation of divine virtue through spiritual vigilance and the practice of justice, reveals a "Methodist Origen." Encountering Origen as a Methodist thinker not only broadens Wesleyan theology's awareness of its own resources in the Christian past, but also suggests a new approach to the study of Origen, one which centers not the controversial and speculative questions that have dominated European study of Origen since early modernity, but the exhortations to virtue and holiness that characterize his preaching.
Themes of John Wesley's Sanctification, Christian Perfection, and Glorification theology can be traced back to the fourth-century Cappadocian Fathers. Wesley wrote in his sermons that perfection, or being made perfect in love, is given by grace from God throughout sanctification. The Cappadocian Fathers argue that wholeness is reached through a life of community modeled by the economic Trinity, where people are transformed by meeting the image of God every day. Additionally, the Cappadocian Fathers' harmonious theology between God and creation after death, where a person is made whole, is also reflected in Wesley's theology of sanctification, leading to glorification when a person is completely perfected after meeting the face of God. Both theological communities saw discipleship as a journey of becoming more whole through the incarnation and imagined a moment of complete wholeness after death when they were united with God.
This paper explores the ways in which ancient Christian eunuchs were a precursor to eighteenth century Methodism. In bringing together the histories of Christian eunuchs and early Methodists, this paper seeks to highlight the sexuality that linked them. This "radical," "excessive" sexuality was readily glimpsed by the torrent of Anti-Methodists who called out such links. This paper thus argues not only for a deeper analysis of the figure of the eunuch from early Christianity to the Methodist revivals of the eighteenth century, but that Anti-Methodists are a prime and necessary source for exploring the ways in which eighteenth century Methodism was connected to the Methodisms of the past.
This paper will place Augustine in conversation with Wesley on the topic of original sin and human depravity, not through their treatises but through their sermons. The goal of the paper is not only to assess Wesley’s agreement or lack thereof with Augustine, but to examine how these two proponents of original sin presented the doctrine in pastoral contexts: What pastoral concerns motivated their commitment to preaching on original sin? What was their goal in such preaching, beyond the promotion of orthodox belief? And to what extent can Augustine’s vision of the Christian life as represented by his sermons on original sin be seen as consistent with a type of “Wesleyanism before Wesley”?