wfn.org | At the roots of Methodism: Separate events give glimpses into

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Wesley

June 4, 1998     Contact: Thomas S. McAnally*(615)742-5470*Nashville,
Tenn.    {340}

NOTE:  This is a regular feature on Methodist history by John Singleton
prepared especially for distribution by United Methodist News Service. A
feature photograph and a head-and-shoulders photo of Singleton are
available.

 
By John Singleton*

Once, when John Wesley visited Birmingham, England, he and his followers
were hounded by a violent mob. Nothing unusual in that, of course -- no
doubt the founder of Methodism dealt with the situation in the same calm
manner he is said to have diffused many such incidents. However, I was
reminded of that particular visit when I recently took part in a huge,
but entirely peaceful, demonstration in Birmingham.

When the heads of state of the world's most powerful nations gathered in
Britain's "second city" for their annual G8 summit, more than 60,000
people linked hands and surrounded the convention center where the
meeting was being held.

We wanted the eight world leaders, including President Bill Clinton and
Prime Minister Tony Blair, to hear our pleas on debt. In particular, we
wanted them to do something that they have in their power to do: cancel
the unpayable debts of some of the poorest countries in the world by the
year 2000 and give millions of people a new start.

We think they heard us, but as I linked hands with thousands of
Christians in this extraordinary human chain, I thought of how Wesley
might approve our action. You see, we were calling for the breaking of
the chains of debt -- or the abolition of the "new slavery," as it is
being called. And Wesley was very much against slavery.

As early as 1774, he had written a strong attack on it. And one of his
very last actions before his death in 1791 was to write a letter of
support to a young member of parliament, William Wilberforce, who had
recently embarked on a long campaign to abolish the slave trade.

"Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out
by the opposition of men and devils," Wesley wrote. "But if God be for
you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God?
O be not weary of well doing! Go on, in the name of God and in the power
of his might, till even American slavery -- the vilest that ever saw the
sun -- shall vanish away before it ..."

More than 200 years have passed, and the people called Methodists are
among those still demanding the liberation of millions held in "slavery"
by the chains of debt in Africa, Asia and Latin America. 

A week after the Birmingham demonstration, I joined another crowd, this
time of several hundred, to mark the 260th anniversary of John Wesley's
conversion experience. We prayed; we listened to the word; and we sang
the hymns of Charles Wesley (who had a similar experience only a few
days earlier than his brother). We gathered as near as you can get to
the site of the house in Aldersgate Street, London, where the conversion
experience happened.

At 8:45 p.m., the tolling of a bell at the Anglican church of St.
Botolph-without-Aldgate (which has a late 18th-century Wesley window and
a plaque commemorating his conversion) reminded us of the crucial
extract from Wesley's journal, reproduced on the nearby Wesley Flame
memorial:

"In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate
Street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the
Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change
which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart
strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for
salvation: And an assurance was given to me, that he had taken away my
sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death ..."

In the space of a week I had been part of two very different crowds
assembled for very different reasons ... and yet inextricably linked
through the roots of Methodism.

				# # #

*Singleton is news editor of the weekly Methodist Recorder newspaper in
London, England. He can be contacted at:
editorial@methodistrecorder.co.uk

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