The greatest single harm of Calvinist theology dominating the American Church of the 20th Century was the divorce of “good works” from “faith”, as though our good works were any less signs of God’s gracious Presence and gifting as “faith” itself.
This separation of “faith” from ”works,” being from doing is especially tragic in light of the greatest contribution Calvin gave the church—humility. Salvation, Calvin argued, begins and ends with God; because we are dependent upon the Trinity of God for all human goodness to thrive and for the awareness of our human capacity to do great harm, even in the name of good—cancel anyone? Apart from God’s gracious Presence given most fully in Christ even the capacity to love can turn into a living hell. Wesley, better than most appreciated this inter-dependent treasure in Calvin’s theology. It is the foundation upon which Wesley builds his greatest insight into experiential restoration of human capacity to love and be loved. He called it Prevenient Grace or the very Presence of God that enables a Muslim or Athiest or Christian to believe in and act on what is “best” and “highest,” sacrificial love. Both the idea of the good and our living into the good are saving, both dependent upon God’s good and kindly heart.
Even so, the tragedy in Calvin’s theology is that it, like much of Protestant and pre-reformed Catholic theology was focused singularly upon the legal problem of sin. The famed American early pastor Edwards framed it in his sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God!” In much of the Western and Protestant Christian tradition “salvation” was defined negatively—escaping God’s holy judgment and its eternal consequence, hell.
It’s as though chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis with its emphasis upon a pleasing and good creation made real by intimate communion with God was ripped out of The Book. Now, human experience begins with fallen creation, roses that sting and a human culture soon enveloped by violence, fear, sensuality divorced from the very covenantal relationship of union between a woman and a man and the Creator upon which human development rested.
I was born into a Wesleyan faith tradition whose center was a theology of reconciliation between God and humans and between one another—as humans. The revivalism of my 19th century forebears was led by women and men and was expressive of personal and social holiness; the abolition of slavery in the American experience was fulfilled within this renewal and carried in its wings the rights of women, concern for the poor, the temperance movement hoping to arrest alcoholism.
In the first Book of Spiritual formation of the Nazarenes the tithe was mentioned not as an obligation of obedience but as a part of the intentional envisioning for setting monies apart for the care of the poor and vulnerable. In other words, “faith leaning into justice was salvific, very much, God working out—in and through us—love, now awakened and flourishing in the larger human culture.
Early “holiness“ peoples from which my tribe came were not focused upon making everyone Nazarene but envisioned a future in which the larger and ancient Christian traditions would experience this same awakening to God’s restorative hope for all persons.
Now, in truth, that narrative—social and personal holiness was all too often a backstory pushed aside by the multiplying chorus of Pentecostals, Quietests (Friends, Quakers, Mennonites), fundamentalists, Shouters (Celebratory and demonstrative), faith healers and small town shop owners and tradesmen who were caught up in the revivalist fever sweeping the country. The altar experience and it’s grieving over sin takes precedence over the journey with God to the moment and more importantly beyond the moment as “works of love” deepen the Jesus life within the individual and her communion but also as a sacramental sign within the larger village or city.
As McLaren1 points out, it’s one thing for a shop owner—now a lay minister—to meaningfully engage a previously perceived low-life as an equal, fellow traveler, both in need of God’s renewing love and thus patiently nurture him to health, in forgiveness and the practices of restoration. It’s quite another if this new and vulnerable human takes a fancy to your daughter. Suddenly, the lay preacher begins to focus on the sin, the separation it causes and creates a jealous though subtle difference between me and thee—no longer a so-journer.
In the midst of two world wars and one Great Depression the transformational optimism that swept American holiness revivalism in the late 1800’s died; that is the hope of the twentieth century becoming the Christian Century where God’s Kingdom truly came to earth devolved into countless narratives of individuals wrestling with sin and the sin nature. The negative and necessary healing/cleansing of the increasingly abstract human soul became this author’s childhood pursuit, the ultimate objective, avoiding hell.
In such a devolved narrative i was taught that it was “my faith” that was eternal, my loving actions merely a testimony or expression of faith, incidental, apart from—transitory as I made my way to my real home, heaven. Again, apart!
You can imagine my joy as God continued to lift my heart and eyes over years to the earliest Christian messages of the early church where-in Jesus of Nazareth reconciled “all” humans, indeed “all“ principalities and powers above and below the earth. Paul, writing to the Ephesians says that God‘s “intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Ephesians 3:10-11 NIV).
Salvation is simply participating in this new reality and watching all around me come home to our intended Spirit informed humanity… home, to the Kingdom of God breaking in all around, taking up real space on Terra Forma, sometimes within and sometimes in spite of Jesus Church.. and home, finally as we in Christ’s second coming and the resurrection awaken into a renewed earth as ministers, serving the needs of broken human communities who foolishly attempted to discover themselves apart from God.
Does this larger “salvation of heaven and earth, of past, present and future, of every tribe snd ethnic community, of the historical sins and graces of empires“ exclude my own personal story, identity, inward thoughts, feelings, prejudice? No! Indeed it requires my full participation with The Spirit, body and soul, being and doing, inner world-view and actions as I seek to live into this Present and Coming Reign of Love!
In such a hopeful future I can only live inside the cruciform life of Jesus, trusting fully in him who is “before all things, and in“ whom “all things hold together. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross”
(Colossians 1:17, 19-20 NIV).
Blessings! Terry
1 For more on McClaren’s descriptive of Methodism’s drift from spiritual egalitarianism or equality (all of us in need of Christ’s ever deepening salvation) to a kind of “us and them”, saved and unsaved sense of separation read my book “7 Faces, chapter 4 “On Eagle’s Wings”
Purchase at: https://www.amazon.com/Faces-Jesus-American-Devotional-Holy-Love/dp/1520513453/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?
Additional Resources from Wesleyscholar.com
on: Wesley the Philosopher
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