Wesleyan and Anabaptist perfectionisms are the emerging dominant forms of Christian social witness in America, according to this fascinating piece in First Things by Dale Coulter of Regent University. He’s certainly right about their pervasive influence but unduly optimistic about their plausibility and sustainability, much less desirability.
As a Methodist, I hope thoughtful Calvinists will provide a corrective dose of realism and sturdy doctrine to the social culdesacs and Utopianism towards which both perfectionist traditions seem to spiral when untethered from church teaching about the limits of fallen humanity. It’s not fair to fault Methodism exclusively for the excesses of the Social Gospel, whose key early proponent, Walter Rauschenbusch, was a liberal northern Baptist. It was fueled by German romanticism and New England, post-Congregationalist Unitarian transcendentalism. But Wesleyanism, once liberalized and unhinged from supernatural teachings about Christian cosmology, generously watered the roots of the Social Gospel movement and ultimately fully embraced it.
Methodism as a mass movement provided much of the activist machinery for Social Gospel energy if not much of the intellectual formation. This storyline is often repeated. Wesleyans are more comfortably doers than deep thinkers, Much of official Methodism, as it transitioned through its Prohibition crusade, easily abandoned traditional Methodism’s affirmation of human nature’s total depravity and complete need for transformation through the new birth. The new imperative, displacing evangelism and holiness, became earnest intent and constant activity for societal improvement. No human condition was beyond the reach of social and political reform.
Meanwhile, traditional Anabaptists may have sought perfection in their own separatist communities but never imagined it for other communities, much less society as a whole. The new Yoder-Hauerwas generated mythology, facilitated by coating Karl Barth with a Mennonite veneer, has created at least two somber and sober generations of Christian activism who imagine they can impose the Peaceable Kingdom upon the world, however coercively. No amount of failure, or contradiction by traditional Christian doctrine, can dissuade their zeal. They exclaim without any consciousness of irony, “Abjure all violence, or else!”
The political activism of these neo-Anabaptists and the neo-Wesleyan perfectionists almost perfectly if often incoherently align with each other and with a wider secular liberal narrative. They all have the same despised adversaries: theologically traditional Christians who insist the world is not perfectible this side of the Eschaton.
Unfortunately, traditional Anabaptists, being separatists, won’t correct their errant progeny. And traditional Wesleyans, although instinctively recognizing the problems, don’t have the historical intellectual resources to challenge their utopian heirs.
So both perfectionist schools of thought are prevailing throughout Evangelicalism, which being a modern movement and not a deep tradition, is susceptible to American fads, especially an ambitious, soaring perfectionism that offers a seductive alternative to the much harder path of Christian orthodoxy, with its focus on sin and redemption.
So absent mass conversion by Protestants and Evangelicals to Catholicism, traditional Calvinists, with their own venerable traditions of social engagement in the sin-soaked kingdom of man, will have to point the way forward. Troublingly, many Calvinists are instead succumbing to their own funk, partly based on their own unconscious perfectionism, disowning social engagement, especially statecraft, because society they think has become too depraved for reformation.
Calvinists, and all traditional Christians, should know that society is always depraved. But the church is called constantly to work for incremental social reformation as a witness to the truly perfect Kingdom that’s not yet realizable.
So let’s hope that Calvinists come to the rescue, inspiring many others to follow, lest the Protestant/Evangelical church careen more completely into the perfectionist black hole. Calvinists, come forth!
Comment by Jon Thompson on July 11, 2014 at 8:48 am
Here we are! Seriously, though, I saw many opportunities at my local UMC when my family decided to join with it. My children enjoyed their youth program, we had a lot of friends who went here, and more importantly this LOCAL UMC was solid biblically. Yet, I felt comfortable with my Reformed views attending and worshiping with these folks. Can I learn something from them? Absolutely, but I also feel like as a part of the conversation I can contribute something as well.
Reading this article, I do see the inherent activism that is found in most Methodist churches in our local church, but at the same time, I will give them credit that they do want to pursue biblical discussions, or at least some do. A great many would rather do than think, which there is a place for both in our faith lives. There does to be a dearth of sharing the gospel openly and boldly when “doing”, and from my understanding in explicitly Methodist mission trips, it is often discourage “officially” in sharing the gospel for fear that the “good deeds” that are being done will be misunderstood, and even rejected.
The church needs to lean upon all of our parts to find itself whole again. Yes, Calvinists can lend a solid leg to stand on doctrinally, and if we stand boldly like Martin Lloyd Jones and the Welsh (Calvinist) Methodist, or the Whitfield tradition of Methodism, we stand in good stead.
Comment by brookspj on July 11, 2014 at 1:16 pm
It’s a strange day when a card-carrying Methodist asks the Calvinists for help, though it does seem to reiterate one of my key fears towards movements like IRD, that claim to support the conservative/traditional camp of denominations they claim have swung too far to the left, but then on close examination seem more interesting in making these denomination more like their conservative Evangelical neighbors than the churches they use to be.
Perfectionism is one of the least understood doctrines by outsiders and many Methodists alike, but it is has been the driving force behind so much of Methodist history. It’s not about trying to bring the Kingdom of Heaven on earth (we know only God will bring that about). But does mean living as citizens of the Kingdom now. Living as ones who know Christ has already won. It means living out the two greatest commandments fully. And yes it also means we don’t let society or institutions become an excuse for inaction. We don’t believe we can change the sanctify the entire world overnight, but we believe we can hell of a lot further than we so far.
It’s funny isn’t it? How the same people claiming that institutions are people with the same rights as individuals are the very ones who don’t try to convert them.
Comment by Kenton Slaughter on July 11, 2014 at 4:43 pm
“But the church is called constantly to work for incremental social reformation as a witness to the truly perfect Kingdom that’s not yet realizable.”
Called where? By whom? I’m quite sure that the church’s “call” is to pursue its own growth in Christ so that it might better display and herald [not implement] the gospel of Christ and the kingdom he will establish at his appearing according to God’s timing.
Comment by Dan on July 11, 2014 at 11:43 pm
I’d like to add a plug for classical Lutheran doctrine as helpful for combating perfectionism. IMHO, the American penchant for self-improvement, along with a creeping “works righteousness” mentality in Methodism and its holiness offspring sects, breeds an environment where activists are emboldened to coerce people by rule of law, if necessary, to ensure proper behavior, as they see it. The great failed experiment here is Prohibition, except many have not learned from it.
The “you can believe anything and be a Methodist” meme has attracted lots of leftists and Social Gospel devotees who are more interested in activist causes than they are in pursuing a life pleasing to God. This has led to the blasphemy and heresy of UMC boards like GBCS championing all manner and form of abortion on demand and promoting anti-semitism cloaked within the rhetoric of supporting the “underdog” Palestinians.
I’m not sure what can wrest the UMC from the grip of leftists, Socialists, “red letter” Christians, outright Unitarians and deists, but something better happen soon before total anarchy engulfs the UMC, led amazingly by many of its own clergy and bishops.
Comment by Aaron Rowe on July 16, 2014 at 8:29 pm
I’m a Calvinist through and through — except for that whole paedobaptism thing, but we don’t need to talk about that. Even so, I attend Asbury University (a Wesleyan institution) and for a year attended a UMC church.There’s much to be said of UMC liturgy and holiness emphasis. And if I could ever bring myself to embrace “Prevenient Grace” I’d finish seminary and seek ordination in the UMC. But for now the “Piperites, Sproulites, and MacArthurites” are sticking with Presbyterian or Baptist denominations (with love to CJ Mahaney).
I don’t think you have to have Calvinism resuce the UMC (though I’d like to see more Calvinists). What you need is a restoration of the sufficiency, authority, and — dare I say it — innerrancy of Scripture. Sola Scriptura, not Sola Gratia, will bring reformation to the UMC. Send the likes of Al Mohler into your liberal seminaries and see how radically the denomination changes in 30 years once the stink of death proceeding from the liberal theologians of our day has dissapated.