Link between John Wesley's Arminianism and Post Conservative [Emergent] Christianity?

[Stephen L Smith]

Just wondering if anyone has studied or reflected on a possible link between John Wesley's Arminianism and Post Conservative [Emergent Church] Christianity?

John Wesley was an Arminian but did not fall into the error of many modern day Arminians. Eg, he had a high view of the work of the Spirit in Salvation and would not have approved of much of the pragmatic evangelism in modern day Christianity. I think Iain Murray's "Revival and Revivalism" documents this and helpfully shows that Finney took pragmatic evangelism to a level that Wesley would not have gone. Nevertheless Murray shows that it all had its roots in Methodism. I guess it is one more step from Wesley, Finney to the Emergent Church.

Any thoughts?

 

[MW]

I agree it is important to distinguish Wesley from later revivalists like Finney. Finney was basically a moralist and thought of conversion in terms of moral persuasion.

Wesley's Christian Library is an important source for understanding the type of writings which influenced him. Some of the works from the Anglican and Eastern traditions indicate a mystical strain which runs counter to some of the Puritan influences. (It is available at the Wesley Center Online.)

 

[Stephen L Smith]

Thanks Rev Winzer. I guess I was specifically interested in how Arminianism opens the door for Emergent Church pragmaticism. It seems to me that Wesley was reluctant to take the pragmatic road (perhaps because of his high view of the Spirit's work in conversion) but others quickly went that way via Finney.

 

[Gforce9]

Stephen,
You ask a question which requires an answer that has many facets. At the foundation of this (at least one of the big rocks of said foundation), in my opinion, is Wesley's (and Arminius's) "handling" of Original Sin. When you, in effect, deny/alter/lessen the theology of a thoroughly corrupt man(kind), a ship leaving any of those ports is surely headed in a the direction of rough seas.....or a Kiwi island....

 

[MW]

Wesley had a number of factors in his favour. The importance placed on the work of the Spirit is certainly one of them. He wasn't a post-modernist, but then neither was Finney, and in that sense Finney would not have agreed with the Emergent Church. Primarily, though, his essential Anglicanism would have kept him from the whole idea that one "does church."