As we celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday, I want to offer a way that can and will make America great again. The way I propose is rooted in the Wesleyan movement started by John Wesley in the 18th century.
Leonard Sweet says that the Wesleyan Revival was born on its knees, rooted in fasting and prayer. For Wesley, prayer was the most powerful force in the universe.
Listen to what others have said about the Wesleyan movement.
The Wesleyan Movement
Roger Starr, a journalist known as a liberal, Jewish, Democrat, when writing for a journal called The Public Interest, discovered there was only one other period in world history that matched the time in which we live. It was 18th century England. There were problems of addiction, families decomposing, pollution, crime, violence, and rioting.
To find out what pulled England out of its crises, he consulted a historian by the name of Nathan Hatch at Notre Dame University. Through his research, he discovered that the thing that saved England was a movement called Methodism started by John Wesley.
Starr wrote, “Now, I don’t even know any Methodists. I don’t know anything about them. But Wesley started a movement that literally saved England. It was a movement that had profound social, economic, and political consequences and transformed and indeed saved that nation. And maybe what we need to do is to study those Methodists to find out how they did it, and to duplicate what they did back in the 18th century.”
Shortly after Starr’s article, George Will, a journalist known as a conservative, Roman Catholic, Republican, wrote an editorial for The Washington Post. Will wrote, “I never thought I’d agree with anything Roger Starr has ever written. But you know, this liberal has got a point. It is that in the 18th century you had the German and French revolutions, and other revolutions around the world, but you don’t have an English Revolution. But they did, you see. It was called the Methodist revolution. Because these Methodists turned their world upside down, maybe what we need to do is to take Roger Starr seriously and look at what was the secret of those Methodists.”
Then Will added, “I know this is going to sound strange for me, saying that we need some more Methodists to save this world, and I hate to end the column this way, but does anybody out there have a better idea?”
About a month after Will’s article, Fred Barnes, a journalist known as an evangelical, Episcopalian, moderate, and editor of the New Republic, wrote an article in response to George Will and Roger Starr.
He expressed both agreement and disagreement with Starr and Will. Barnes agreed that the world today needs another Wesley but found Will’s and Starr’s analysis coming up short.
He wrote that they forgot one thing: “The source of Wesley’s power was religious faith, and religion of a peculiarly social kind. Wesley’s evangelism was inseparable from his social activism.” People today are not just hungry for the things of the world, but for the things of the Spirit.” A secular Wesley with tips on how to shake poverty won’t grip the underclass. But a religious Wesley, a new Martin Luther King, Jr. might. I understand why Will didn’t play up Wesley’s religious appeal. Some people insist that religion not only can’t solve social problems, but it also shouldn’t even enter the national debate on them at all.” Barnes wrote, “I disagree on both counts.”
He wrote, “What they forgot was that basically the Methodist Movement was at heart, a spiritual awakening. Yes, it had tremendous economic, social, and political consequences, but it began as a spiritual revival…And unless we get in this nation a spiritual awakening and a spiritual revival that will create these kinds of economic and political implications in our day, it won’t work. It has to begin as a movement of the Spirit or else it doesn’t go anywhere. But we have to begin. We have to have a new generation of Methodists who will do for this day what they did in the 18th century.”1
Raise a New Generation
I suggest that we give them what they are looking for. Let’s start a movement of the spirit, a movement of holiness, that will make America great again. It is time for us, as United Methodist Christians, to bring hope to the people of our country.
As we celebrate 250 years as the United States of America, let’s begin to raise a new generation of Methodists to do in our day what those early Methodists did in the 18th century.