John Wesley, Elections & Gratitude

This quote from Methodist evangelist John Wesley often circulates at election times:

October 6, 1774

I met those of our society who had votes in the ensuing election, and advised them

1. To vote, without fee or reward, for the person they judged most worthy

2. To speak no evil of the person they voted against, and

3. To take care their spirits were not sharpened against those that voted on the other side.

Wesley was then age 71, still robust, with much of two decades of life still remaining, and a venerated figure at the height of his celebrity.  His Methodist renewal movement had touched and reformed much of British society, especially among the poor who had been less engaged with the church. He strongly affirmed loyalty to his monarch and belief in the British Constitution as the world’s best.

During the American Revolution, Wesley defended to what he deemed ungrateful colonists the British system as inferior to none:

Can you hope for a more desirable form of government, either in England or America, than that which you now enjoy? After all the vehement cry for liberty, what more liberty can you have? What more religious liberty can you desire, than that which you enjoy already? May not every one among you worship God according to his own conscience? What civil liberty can you desire, which you are not already possessed of? Do not you sit without restraint, every man under his own vine? Do you not, every one, high or low, enjoy the fruit of your labour? This is real, rational liberty, such as is enjoyed by Englishmen alone; and not by any other people in the habitable world. 

Yet Britain was still more autocracy than democracy. Perhaps one in ten men were eligible to vote, and many parliamentary seats were “rotten boroughs” of few people and essentially controlled by wealthy barons. Probably very few Methodists were eligible to vote.  Wesley was still mostly right that his nation, for all its injustices, offered more liberty, justice and stability than almost anywhere else.  Although in earlier years he had been attacked by mobs hostile to his public preaching, he had mostly been protected by his nation’s laws and public habits of relative tolerance.

Much of the social fruit of Wesley’s revivals would come decades after his death, in the 19th century, when Methodist inspired reforms were enacted in law, democratizing Britain and lending more protections to society’s more vulnerable. Wesley in his final years wondered if his labors had been effective. Had religion been reinvigorated, or was Methodism only a passing phase, he self-reflectingly asked himself.  Hopefully in heaven he was subsequently apprised of how his exertions had indeed elevated and protected millions across decades and centuries.

Wesley believed Christians should be good citizens, should confront society’s evils, should work for reform, should not be naive about fallen humanity while also hopeful about God’s constant desire to bless creation with His abundant grace.  Wesley believed in gratitude. And he was a realistic, persistent optimist. His famous last letter to anti-slavery crusader William Wilberforce resonates with divine confidence:

But if God before 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.

Many dramatic social reforms that Wesley sought, like abolishing slavery, were eventually achieved, thanks partly to his original influence, and he would be amazed by the social improvements of today, above all the alleviation of global poverty, compared to his own time. God has indeed done a marvelous work, he would undoubtedly say, and the Lord summons us to work for so much more, always with a spirit of gratitude.

Yesterday, the day before the election, I reflected on the need for gratitude as an American while my Ethiopian taxi driver told me that while living in Johannesburg, South Africa over several years he was robbed five times, on the street in daylight, in his shop, in his home, ostensibly in a safe neighborhood, by armed gunmen.  The police (whites, blacks & Indian) were corrupt, accepted a bribe from one arrested robber, did not prosecute another robbery because a policeman was implicated, and tried to seize the remaining cash in his shop. I asked if there was serious crime in his native Ethiopia, to which he laughingly said no, but there the authoritarian government is criminal. I asked if he experienced any crime in the USA over last 15 years. No, never, he cheerfully responded.

As the taxi driver told his story, we drove down smooth and safe streets, full of prosperous and seemingly happy people, on a stunningly gorgeous Autumn day.  After the ride, and my appointment, I walked several miles back to the office, to savor all that is good and joyful in today’s America, for which we can never be too grateful.

There’s much about which to complain in America and specifically about this election. But we should, as Wesley implored, vote without acrimony, with minimal grievance and with gratitude as the most privileged people in human history.  And we should be hopeful about God’s plans for the future and how He continues to bless and rescue undeserving humanity.

In 40 years, by His grace, I look forward to cruising smoothly to the polls on Election Day in my self driving vehicle, my aged body vigorous thanks to high tech body part replacements, my mind nimble thanks to therapies against senility, participating in a hopefully and likely more prosperous, longer lived and healthier society, where the promise of liberty and justice are more perfectly fulfilled, in a much larger and greater nation of grateful people.

Or so we should all pray, and labor towards, with confidence in God’s unchanging goodness.