FAITH forum 7B WESLEYAN WISDOM Why we must never forget we’re Arminians


BY DONALD W. HAYNES UMR Columnist


A septuagenarian friend of mine, a


graduate of Asbury College and Duke Divinity School, said to me recently, “Don, I think I understand Wesley’s grace theology, but the word ‘Armin- ian’ is an oblong blur to me. Tell me again what you mean when you say that we are Armini- ans.”


He’s not alone.


Recently, while teaching a group of 25 older adults, many of whom had advanced degrees, I asked, “What was the most helpful thing you gained from reading my book, On the Threshold of Grace?” Hands of octogenarian Ph.Ds went


Donald Haynes


up around the room and one by one said, “I learned that I am an Armin- ian, but I did not ever know it until now!” No subject in my book has elicited as much response as the chap- ter, “Methodists are Arminians—what is that?” So I think it’s worthwhile to dig


again in the quarry from which all children of Wesley have been hewn— the “quarry” of Arminianism. Jacob Arminius was a Dutch


Calvinist who came to believe that Calvinism was contrary to the charac- ter of God. God is sovereign, but chooses to express His sovereignty as love, not power. We hear so much “generic Calvinism” with statements like “It was his time to go,” when a beloved grandparent dies or a loved one is killed in an accident. Some still say, “It’s all up to God,”


even when we just took a loved one to the best available surgeon. We fail to recognize the contradiction in having surgery at all, if the dates of our deaths were all predestined by the Almighty. Millions have inhaled Rick War-


ren’s Purpose Driven Life and it has been taught without rebuttal in thou- sands of United Methodist Churches. If we are Arminians, though, we must take issue with passages like this, where Mr. Warren writes, “He planned the days of your life in advance, choosing the exact time of your birth and death.” If we took that literally, we would discount the effects of smok- ing, asbestos, alcoholism, diet-in- duced diabetes, obesity and occupational hazards, car wrecks or battlefield deaths. Do we not see the human hand in our ability to abbrevi-


ate our days upon this earth? The cardinal principle of Wesley’s


Arminianism is unlimited atonement. That is, Jesus died for all, not just the predestined elect. Jason Vickers at United Theologi-


cal Seminary is one of a growing number of superb Wesley scholars in our seminaries. In the Cambridge Companion to John Wesley, which he edited with Randy Maddox of Duke, Dr. Vickers has made a significant contribution to any conversation about Arminianism and Calvinism. For instance, note Wesley’s letter to Mary Bishop in 1778, “Nothing in the Christian system is of greater conse- quence than the doctrine of Atone- ment.” Most scholars jump directly from that statement into the age-old debate of the doctrinal theories of the atonement, but Dr. Vickers adroitly takes us to Wesley’s prior treatment of Creation and the Fall. For Wesley, according to Dr. Vick-


ers, “the divine will or purpose in cre- ation is moral law given at creation. God is manifested to his creatures as they are able to bear it, manifested to give and not to destroy life that they may see God and live.’” Wesley contin- ued, “The moral law is the heart of God disclosed to man.” In his Sermon No. 34, Wesley insists, “The law of God . . . is a copy of the eternal mind, a transcript of the divine nature . . . the visible beauty of the Most High.”


Covenant of grace We need to say that about the


character of God and the “moral law of God” reflected in us when we are created “in God’s own image” (Genesis 1:27). Wesley insisted that Adam did “know God, did unfeignedly love God and uniformly obey God.” Wesley calls this “original righteousness.” This is the original content of the covenant of grace—a good and loving God creat- ing humankind to love our Maker and each other. If you are still “with me,” you are


no longer a Calvinist. But don’t stop here or you will misquote Mr. Wesley. Let’s get the rest of the story. Another dimension God’s grace is


the liberty that God gave us to choose relationship or independence. We often call this “free will” which it is, but not in the context that humanists assume. Liberty and free will are God’s loving gifts to us—the same gifts we give to maturing children as we cut the apron strings and let them make decisions, some of which may break our hearts. Wesley’s mother, Su- sanna, wrote to him in college that “foreknowledge does not mean pre-


destination.” She illustrates that by saying that she foreknows the rising of the sun tomorrow, but she observes it rather than causing it. God is like the guide who gives us


a long rope as we descend a dark and treacherous cave. We can use that rope as a lifeline with which to find our way back to light and freedom or we can use that rope as a noose. So it is with God’s love. In Wesley’s words in his sermon “The Image of God”: “Man was made . . . either to keep or change his first estate; it was left to himself what he would do. . . . . So that, in this sense, he was the sole lord and sover- eign judge of his own actions.” No Calvinist could tolerate this Wesley statement. We know the Genesis story well.


Adam and Eve abused their liberty, broke the moral law, hid themselves from God and entered into an es- tranged relationship. We call it “the Fall.” The theological consequence we call “original sin.” As Dr. Vickers sums it up, “In other words, they were now in the bondage of sin.” We must get this part of our Methodist message straight again, because it was grossly distorted in late-19th-century theo- logical liberalism. To gloss over Wes- ley’s conviction about original sin is unconscionable. Listen to our “dear old father”:


“Our sins . . . are chains of iron and fetters of brass. They are the wounds wherewith the world, the flesh, and the devil have gashed and mangled us all over. They are diseases that drink up our blood and our spirits, and bring us down to the chambers of the grave.” Arminians recognize the de-


pravity of sin; we just do not forget the morning of creation or the noon of salvation. We are indebted to Shelton Smith,


a Congregationalist, for ferreting out this virtual heresy: “The doctrine of immanence afforded liberal religious thought a basis upon which to con- ceive of man as being essentially di- vine in the depths of his being, and therefore as containing within himself the essential principle of his own worth and government.” Dr. Smith quoted A.C. McGiffert, “Education should be such as to convince every- body that things can be controlled and moulded by the power of man. Democracy demands a God with whom men may cooperate, not to whom they must submit.”


Losing our message The result was a generation of


Methodist Sunday School literature reflecting no original sin, very little Christology, a “marriage” to psychol- ogy and sociology, and a naïve world- view. In the very influential periodical “Religious Education,” Dr. Smith found words typical of the times: “We are making religion new. . . . In this view the value of the Bible lies chiefly in its power to stimulate a religious quest that will result in the creation of spiritual norms that transcend those embodied in the Bible. The ‘normal’ process of change is better conceived, not as catastrophic and sudden, but as a ‘normal outcome of wise and contin- uous training.’” In short, “gradualism” replaced


“conversion” as the premise of most Sunday School literature with the re-


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sult that all subsequent Methodist growth was out of the cradle, not from “the last, the least and the lost” as it was in “old Methodism.” That was the zenith of grossly distorted Arminian- ism. To this day, Calvinists use that era of liberalism in caricaturing Armini- anism as “works righteousness.” Let us do our Arminian home-


work. Arminius’ insistence on “univer- sal salvation” means that Jesus died for everyone, not just the Elect. Con- trary to Calvinism, grace is resistible. Human liberty equally insists that just as human love can be rejected, so di- vine love can be rejected. We must have a moment or a season of “coming to faith.” As Wesley said: “Christian faith is


then not only an assent to the whole gospel of Christ, . . . a recumbency upon him as our atonement and our life, as given for us, and living in us. It is a sure confidence which a man hath in God that through the merits of Christ, his sins are forgiven and he is reconciled to the favour of God.” In a word, grace is universally given but is not irresistible. Wesley affirmed the “whispering of


the Spirit” upon the soul. This is a di- vine initiative we call “preparing grace” that comes at some juncture in life to every person. Whosoever will may come. Let us get our Arminian message


straight and get it out!


Dr. Haynes is a retired member of the Western North Carolina Conference. He is the author of On the Threshold of Grace: Methodist Fundamentals. Email: dhaynes11@triad.rr.com.


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UNITED MET HODI S T REPORTER | AP RIL 1, 2011


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