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PAGE 5—August 23,1973
The Methodist Religion
BY WILLIAM J. WHALEN
The established Church of England in the 18th century
desperately needed reform and renewal. Morals, church
attendance, and evangelism had sunk to low levels. The working
man rarely took any interest in the worship and life of the
Anglican Church.
Into this situation came two remarkable brothers who sought
to invigorate the Anglican Church of which they were priests.
They crisscrossed England and Ireland organizing Bible classes
and taking the gospel to the common man. Eventually what
started as a movement of spiritual renewal within Anglicanism
became a separate church: Methodism.
John Wesley was born in 1703, the 15th child of the Anglican
rector at Epworth; his brother Charles was the 18th. As students
at Oxford University the pair organized a Holy Club whose
members agreed to form their personal lives through regular
prayer, Bible study, fasting, Holy Communion, and service to
others. Their methodical regimen of devotions and ascetical
practices won them the name Methodists.
After graduation from Oxford the Wesleys were ordained and
set off for the colony of Georgia in 1732 to convert the Indians.
Their missionary efforts were disappointing and they were
dissatisfied with the fervor of their own spiritual lives. But while
crossing the Atlantic they had been impressed by the calm faith
of a band of Moravians, followers of the Bohemian reformer
John Hus.
Wesley’s theology turned away from the strict predestination
taught by the Calvinists. He believed that a Christian could
actually aspire to perfection, complete freedom from sin.
Wesley never claimed to have reached the state of perfection
himself, but he insisted it was possible. His interpretation of the
Gospel was more hopeful, universal, and optimistic than that of
many other Protestants.
Methodist missionaries carried the movement to the
American colonies, although most major Protestant
denominations there had a 150-year head start. After the
Revolution a majority of Anglican clergy returned to England
and few remained to administer the sacraments to those who
belonged to Methodist societies. Wesley agonized over the
problem of ministering to American Methodists and finally
decided that he himself would ordain ministers. He had been
persuaded that the New Testament church saw no distinction
between priest and bishop.
The Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in Baltimore
in 1784. Two leading ministers were given the title “bishop”
although Wesley was displeased at the use of this title. The
Methodists drew up 25 Articles of Religion, abridged from the
Anglican 39 Articles. Their form of worship was modeled after
the Book of Common Prayer.
Methodist circuit riders-Bibles and hymn books in their
saddlebags-carried the Wesleyan teachings to the frontier. Like
the Baptists, the Methodists won many converts in the West and
South.
Back in England in 1738 John Wesley happened to drop by a
prayer meeting of Moravians on May 24. At this meeting he
experienced a conversion of heart which is the real birth of
Methodism.
Black Methodists formed the African Methodist Episcopal
Church in 1816 as well as the A. M. E. Zion Church (1821) and
the Colored (now Christian) Methodist Episcopal Church
(1870). These three churches now enroll about 2,500,000 black
Methodists.
Fired with enthusiasm John Wesley would spend the next 50
years traveling over 250,000 miles by foot and horseback
preaching and organizing Methodist societies. The Anglican
churches were usually closed to Wesley and his fellow preachers
but they preached instead in fields, factories, and mine pits.
Wesley urged all Methodists to remain in the Church of England.
Charles Wesley also became famous as the author of some
6,000 hymns including “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.”
Tyre & Sidon
Famous Cities
American Methodism also suffered divisions over the nature
of bishops’ authority and over it the question of slavery, but the
three major Methodist bodies reunited in 1939. Later a church
founded by German-speaking Methodists known as the
Evangelical United Brethren merged with the Methodist Church
to form the United Methodist Church. This church reports
about 11 million members.
Methodists have not placed much emphasis on matters of
doctrine. Wesley himself said: “The distinguishing marks of a
Methodist are not his opinons of any sort.”
Methodism in this country has been characterized as middle
class, activist, well organized, and theologically liberal. The
church still discourages smoking and drinking but is less inclined
to make total abstinence the test of Christian fellowship.
BY STEVE LANDREGAN
The eastern coastline of the Mediterranean, where it curves
gently northward from Egypt to Turkey is known as the Levant.
Hie word comes from the French verb “lever” to rise, and refers
to its easterly location from which the sun rises.
Because of its proximity to the centers of ancient civilization
the Levantine coast was the home of the world’s first great
commercial seaports and its seafaring men ranged the width and
breadth of the Mediterranean and beyond.
--Religions
of the World
“THE OBJECT OF FAITH, as no less a theologian loved in a personal relationship.” A baby experiences a
than St. Thomas Aquinas pointed out, is not doctrinal foretaste of God’s love in the security it finds in the
formulations about God. but God himself, known and love of its mother. (NC Photo by Richard T. Lee)
Methodist Faith in Experience
The waters of the Levant yield the famous purple die taken
from the murex shell. The Greenks, who were always naming
things, called the area Phoenicia, from the Green word phoenix,
meaning purple.
Among the most famous of the Phoenician cities were Tyre
and Sidon. The cities are located on the coast of Lebanon
today, Sidon about 28 miles south of Beirut and Tyre about 50
miles south.
Because of the close relationship of the two cities, known as
Tyre and Saida today, they are almost always mentioned
together.
Sidon is probably the older of the two cities, dating back to
the beginning of the second millenium before Christ. It is
generally acknowledged as the mother of Tyre. Sidon is
mentioned in the Table of Nations in Genesis 10:15, and Tyre is
not.
Both cities were seaports built partially on an island and
partially on the mainland. Both were great centers of commerce,
but after about 1100 B.C., Sidon yielded preeminence to Tyre.
This was possible due to the capture of Sidon by the Philistines.
The Sidonians were great merchants and great sailors but
history testifies that they were not such great fighters. Sidon fell
successively to the Assyrians, the Babyloniaris, the Persians.
Alexander the Great, the Seleucids of Syria, the Ptolemies of
Egypt, the Romans, the Crusaders and the Mongols.
BY FATHER CARL J. PFEIFER, S. J.
“If your heart is as my heart, then give me your hand,”
Smiling John Wesley stretched out his hand to his opponent.
Taken aback momentarily by this surprising move after an
hour-long heated argument, the other man finally shook hands.
Their intense theological debate about whether people are
predestined to heaven and hell or go there because of their own
free choices ended, if not in agreement, at least in a sense of
fellowship.
John Wesley, who is known as the founder of Methodism,
was an Anglican priest and theolgian at the time. His adversary
in that argument some 250 years ago was a Calvinist theologian.
Both were convinced that doctrine mattered, and that theology
was important.
But what characterized Wesley and the subsequent Methodist
tradition is symbolized by his gesture. He felt that if his heart
and that of the Calvinist were in the same place, there was no
reason why they should be separated by doctrinal or theological
differences. Doctrine was indeed important, but the experience
of Christ, the experience of the Holy Spirit, provided a deeper
and more vital bond than doctrinal agreement.
Methodist tradition has continued that placing of priority on
experience over doctrine. There has been less stress on theology
than on devotion, although theology has not been neglected.
Methodists from Wesiey’s time to the present have paid
particular attention to the action of the Holy Spirit in the
experience of the individual as well as in the Church.
The beginning of the Methodist revival began with such an
experience. It was May 24, 1738 during an evening religious
meeting in London. John Wesley later recalled: “I felt my heart
strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for
salvation.”
Deeply moved by the experience, he and his brother, Charles,
also an Anglican priest, went out into the fields and into private
homes to preach a revivalist, practical religion of hope, salvation
and free will. Today American Methodists need not subscribe to
any set creed, but need to promise loyalty to Christ.
The Methodist emphasis on experiencing Christ as more
important than adhering to certain doctrinal definitions about
Christ is admirable and radically sound. Roman Catholics may
have serious problems with the complete doctrinal openness of
contemporary Methodism, but may learn from the Methodist
focus on experience. Actually, without relinquishing its genuine
concern for doctrinal definition, the Second Vatican Council
restored experience to its proper place in the Church.
In a very traditional sense doctrine is the expression or
definition of the experience of God by the Christian
community. St. John in his First Epistle says he and the other
Apostles preach “what we have heard, what we have seen with
our eyes .. .and our hands have touched,” namely the Word of
God, Jesus Christ (1 Jn 1:1).
The experience of Christ necessarily precedes the definition
of that experience. The object of faith, as no less a theologian
than St. Thomas Aquinas pointed out, is not doctrinal
formulations about God, but God himself, known and loved in a
personal relationship.
Doctrine is important for many reasons, one of which is as an
objective community check on one’s subjective experience. But
doctrine about Christ ultimately rests on experience of him and
his spirit. Methodism can help us be mindful of that as all
Christians reach out their hands to fellow Christians in efforts at
closer unity.
During the Crusader years it was something like a ping-pong
ball. It allied itself with the Crusaders in 1107, and over the
next 200 years it changed hands six times prior to the final
defeat of the Templars in 1291.
Tyre, on the other hand, managed to stave off all the attacks
except that of Alexander the Great. Alexander besieged the city
in 332 B. C., because it refused to open the gates to him. The
Greek general destroyed the mainland city and used the debris
to build a causeway about 200 feet wide out to the island
stronghold. Then he moved his war machines over the causeway
to attack the city’s walls. The Tyrians poured pots of burning
naptha and sulphur over the wall onto the Greeks, and hurled
red-hot sand on the attackers with catapults.
Finally, after seven months, Alexander captured the dty with
the aid of a fleet of more than 200 ships and floating battering
rams.
The causeway still exists today, making the city a peninsula
instead of an island.
Renewed Rite of Anointing of the Sick
Tyre exercised considerable influence upon ancient Israel,
both cultural and religious. The civilization of King Solomon
borrowed more from Tyre than any other nation.
Tyrian craftsmen designed and built Solomon’s Temple.
Jezebel, the queen of the Northern Kingdom was the daughter
of a Tyrian king. Under the reign of her husband, Ahab, the
pagan cult of Tyre was introduced into Israel. Elijah the Prophet
confronted Jezebel’s Prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, and
destroyed them.
Both Tyre and Sidon are threatened and scored by Amos
(1:9). Joel (4:4), Jeremiah (25:22, 27:3). Ezekial (26), Isaiah
(23), and other prophets.
In the Christian era, Jesus visited the neighborhood of Tyre
and Sidon (Matt. 15:21. Mk. 7:24-31) and Paul visited both
cities in his missionary journeys (AA27:3, 21:3-7).
Both cities thrive today, and many of the inhabitants still
practice the famous craftsmanship of their ancestors.
The Crusader castle on the island fortress of Sidon is one of
the outstanding medieval monuments in Lebanon.
BY FATHER JOSEPH M. CHAMPLIN
Suffering and surviving a serious heart attack frightens a
person more than enduriing the ordeal of a crash airplane
landing. In the latter case, once safely on the ground, the danger
of death is over; but after a coronary arrest, the fear of future,
perhaps fatal incidents lingers.
The priest who arrives at a hospital’s intensive care unit with
ritual book in hand and oil stock in pocket may or may not be
well received by the shaken cardiac patient.
“Am I about to die? Are you going to give me the last rites?”
Anxious thoughts like these, sometimes expressed, often run
through a person’s mind. While fortunately less common today,
they should be even more infrequent when the revised rite for
anointing of the sick soon is introduced throughout the United
States.
This sacrament has always served a triple purpose: to forgive
sins, if necessary; to enable a seriously ill individual to bear well
present and future sufferings; to restore health, if that be God’s
will. However, the emphasis given to each aspect has varied over
the centuries.
*
The current ritual formula stresses the remission of sins:
“May the Lord forgive you by this holy anointing and his most
loving mercy whatever sins you have committed . . .”
In addition, the anointing of various senses (eyes, ears, nose,
lips, hands) and the words connected to that gesture accentuate
this penitential notion. “May the Lord forgive you,. . .whatever
sins you have committed by the use of your
sight . . .hearing .. .sense of smell . .,.sense of taste and the
power of speech . . .sense of touch.”
The renewed rite, without eliminating or denying that
element, emphasizes instead the healing power of this
sacrament.
A different “form” to accompany the actual anointing reads:
“Through this holy anointing and his most loving mercy may
the Lord assist you by the grace of the Holy Spirit, so that when
you have been freed from your sins he may save vo>i and in hi*
goodness raise you up.”
That formula is recited only once while the priest anoints the
forehead and the hands (a change from the previous anointing
of all the senses.)
This reform brings the ritual back closer to the words of St.
James (5:14-15) which is considered the scriptural
recommendation and promulgation of the sacrament.
That Apostle wrote: “If any one of you is ill, he should send
for the elders of the Church, and they must anoint him with oil
in the name of the Lord and pray over him. The prayer of faith
will save the sick man and the Lord will raise him up again; and
if he committed any sins, he will be forgiven.”
A small but significant modification in the rite directs the
priest immediately before the blessing and anointing of oil to
“impose his hands upon the head of the sick person, saying
nothing.”
The older ritual included a somewhat similar ceremony, but
this newer version seems to accentuate a bit more clearly St.
Jornoc woH" “nrqw pv'"’ hir*' ” ~’ 1 -~ ' ’ '""'mple of
Jesus. St. Luke (4:4U) tens us mat an wnu nau inenas who
were sick with various diseases brought them to Jesus; he placed
his hands on every one of them and healed them all.”