I’m a Wesleyan Christian. I find more value in John Wesley’s school of thought than I do any other reflections on the Christian life. I’m a cradle Methodist, and I’ve chosen the United Methodist Church to be my home as long it will have me.
That said, while reading a Wesley scholar’s book, I’ve hit onto a potentially critical difference between Wesley’s time and today, which may affect how we ought to apply his theology today.
Porch, Door, House
Rev. Dr. Kevin Watson is a United Methodist Elder in the Oklahoma Conference and Professor of Wesleyan and Methodist Studies at Candler School of Theology in Atlanta. Dr. Watson’s 2013 book The Class Meeting is an extended argument for contemporary Wesleyanism to reclaim the class meeting, which fell out of practice in the early 20th century. I’m not addressing that specific topic today; rather, in Chapter 3 of that book, Watson articulates that the practice was meant to convey doctrine, specifically the salvation process.
Here’s John Wesley’s process:
“Our main doctrines, which include all the rest, are three, that of repentance, of faith, and of holiness. The first of these we account, as it were, the porch of religion; the next, the door; the third is religion itself.” (Wesley, “The Principles of a Methodist Farther Explained”)
Dr. Watson outlines what this doctrine looks like as an individual metaphorically approaches God’s house:
- The first step (the porch) is Repentance of Sin: we are addicted to sin and need salvation. The first step on the journey of faith is to recognize we cannot save ourselves and to desire to repent of our sin.
- The second step (the door) is Faith in God: to turn to God for salvation and believe in God through Jesus Christ. This leads to a completely different relationship than before: one of adopted children in a family. This is the “justification by faith” stage of faith.
- The third step (the house) is Religion itself: moving all of our life into God’s house and making our whole lives reflect God’s goodness. This is the “sanctification” stage of faith, which must be lived out in Christian community.
This is a truly helpful articulation of Wesleyan theology.
However, I cannot help but wonder if the process is backwards today.
Believe, Belong, Behave…
John Wesley was writing in a time when America was steeped in Christendom, meaning where Christianity was the dominant belief system. Even including the Native Americans who were evangelized (often by force) as a Pre-Christendom nation, Wesley lived and wrote in a Pre/Dominant Christian context. While actual religious adherence rates were similar to today, Wesley came to America right during the First Great Awakening and rode the explosion of Christian participation from that revival period.
To apply the above doctrine, then, individuals first believed in their need for salvation, belonged (affiliated) with the Christian tradition by justification of faith, and then behaved differently as they sought personal and social holiness.
This should be very familiar: it’s the basic evangelical process that we have today. People are asked “if you died today, would you go to heaven or hell?” to get to belief, they pray the sinner’s prayer to belong to the Christian tradition, and then they attend church/bible study/service projects to live out their newfound life. Variances abound in style, but the believe/belong/behave process is the same.
It makes sense and it continues to make sense…or does it?
…Or Behave, Belong, Believe?
In contrast to Wesley’s day, huge swaths of contemporary America are in Post-Christendom. The fastest-growing religious group in America is the non-religious. Even the strongly evangelical denominations are curbing their growth. We spent our political capital in the 90s/00s with the Moral Majority, and now we are neither. So, culturally, we are on the other side of the coin that Wesley had, and Christianity will potentially become a minority presence amidst a plurality of others.
In these Post-Christian cultures, church often looks different. Here’s a glimpse into the successful discipleship process that we have at my church in post-Christendom Portland (Oregon):
Discipleship starts with behaving. First UMC has significant ministries of outreach that connect with the hopes and core beliefs of many Portlandians. And the church’s commitment to outreach, wherever the members live in the region, has become the most effective “front porch” the church has…As church folks interact with the others in the community in all these ways, they develop relationships. Church and community members move from behaving together to feeling a sense of belonging together. And then, when the time is right, the Rev. Smith says, he finds ways to help them take the next step: to commit to Jesus Christ through First UMC, and so to believing together.
As you see, in Post-Christendom, the process is reversed. Rather than power-narratives or sinner’s prayers or overwhelmingly emotional worship services, the entry point for Post-Christian outreach often is through behaviors, not beliefs. Furthermore, there’s biblical precedent for this reversal of order, though it is slightly different than post-modern writings on this topic.
The Reversal
Does the Wesleyan model look different in a Post-Christian context? The graphic above outlines what I mean:
- In Wesley’s time and expressed theology of Christendom, the process was “believe, belong, behave.” In Pre-Christendom, people had (mostly) not heard of Christianity and thus belief mattered a great deal.
- In contemporary times in Post-Christendom, it seems like the process is “behave, belong, believe.” In Post-Christendom, Christianity has been tried, tested, and rejected–so behaviors matter a great deal to overcome the past preconceptions.
In Post-Christendom, we begin approaching God’s house by behaving, by making our lives reflect our prevenient grace as much as we are aware of it. By affiliating with companions on the journey, we reach justification, and then we fuse our actions with newfound beliefs in sanctification.
I believe the utter reliance on God is the same in both models: one emphasizes that we cannot save ourselves without Christ, and after we know that in our heart, our lives can be transformed. The other emphasizes that our behaviors can be transformative, but salvation is only through Christ, and our development of beliefs help us truly repent and live a sanctified life.
Joys and Concerns?
This isn’t a fully-formed systematic theology, but rather a lingering concern about how to reconcile Wesleyan theology with a context that Wesley did not experience. So here’s my own joys and concerns about the above.
Joys:
- This fuses discipleship and evangelism. By showing how our behaviors matter both for our own discipleship and for evangelism, it makes our behaviors matter more than our beliefs or power-narratives.
- This reflects my own experience serving a church in the None Zone, the area of the country where Christianity is falling out of favor fast.
Concerns:
- Holiness is more than the practice: it is the intention behind it. While non-Christians can certainly participate in the same actions and even have the same benevolent motivations as Christians, they do not have the same intentions of sanctification that relies on God, not self-improvement.
- Roger Olson, an evangelical, writes persuasively about his concern that placing “believe” at the end of the chain leads to it being left off.
Your joys/concerns? Thanks for reading.
One little sticking point: Wesley wasn’t writing to an American culture. He was writing to the Methodists in England. Methodists were not actively involved in the Colonies at that period.
And it is questionable to say that the Colonies were steeped in Christendom. Yes, Christianity was the predominant, and dominating, religious force in the colonial experience. But the culture was just as wild and untamed as the frontier that was being settled.
Both good points, Todd, thanks. Regarding the timing, are you referring to the cited source or to the Great Awakening? I think they were pretty involved in the latter.
Initially, I was referring to the quote you have built the post on. It was mid 1740’s. But I was also referring to the ongoing spiritual state of the colonists. Countless ministers and missionaries speak of the entire time period as a pre-Christian climate.
And I do think you hit on a very good insight. Culturally, we are in a place where engaging people in shared purpose is the most effective way of tearing down stereotypes and preconceived images of what church is. Your second step is also spot on. People are seeking a place to belong and connect. Once the initial walls that kept people away are more malleable, then relationships begin to develop.
I can’t help wonder, though, if instead of reversing the steps to “get into the house” we have built a front yard. Imagine it this way: in order to engage in ministry with potential new housemates, we have to get out of our building, our yard, beyond the front gate and into the community. We have to get beyond the “white picket gate” (and all implications that accompany that imagery is intentional) and get into the neighborhood. When we meet each other out there in the street, then we can invite them into the yard for a barbecue and lawn party (minus the yard darts {intended imagery, again}).
Okay, enough of the imagery. The church needs to get out of the church and into the community to meet people where they are and discover the needs they have. The second step would be to create a “front yard” ministry. Don’t bring people into the church to meet those needs. Stretch the church into those places where the people are and where their needs exist. In that moment of relational building then the things that the church believes and holds as important can be introduced. When new people are interested and want to join in, then Wesley’s original pattern still holds up.
The traditional “house” analogy is till operational when we have someone who is engaged with the message we are proclaiming. Wesley did it with field preaching and social activism. He brought people into the organization by engaging them where they lived and where their needs existed. His preaching and writing were targeted to bring them into awareness of what the Methodists were trying to do. Once people were interested, they were then brought into the community.
I think you have hit on a practical outline of something that Wesley took as a given in his own work.
Great ideas….but I wonder why this process must be a linear one. Have you read Mary Douglas’ book Thinking in Circles: An Essay on Ring Composition?
“To read a ring composition in the modern linear fashion is to misinterpret it, Douglas contends, and today’s scholars must reevaluate important antique texts from around the world.”
While she takes a look at antique texts, I believe that a creative look at something that seems so linear, but could be circular or even a spiral that turns back in on itself, allows us to break “out of the box” and stretches us to “do” ministry in an organic way.
I totally agree that we must move out of our buildings, but it is important that we don’t assume that we know what they need. Listening and building relationships with no agenda except to get to know people must come first as we engage with love.
Thanks for this post that starts a conversation about how we can live into our Wesleyan heritage in the 21st century.
Here’s an explanation of Star Wars, using Mary Douglas’ ideas about ring structure. Apparently it works well for non-antique texts, too.
http://www.starwarsringtheory.com/
It seems to me that we are rapidly moving towards a religiously plural society, similar in many ways to what the first century Christians encountered.
Wesley was a creative guy who developed a systematic process that fit the society he lived an ministered in. I believe he would be appalled at the thought that anyone would expect that model to hold unchanged centuries later. I think the reversal described forms an approach, but wonder if today someone is first more likely to need to Belong before next deciding to Behave and be open to Belief. Like in Jesus’ time, many today dealing with competing priorities and beliefs first need to see you “walk the talk” before they are open to examining and buying into the basis for the “talk.”
Hi Jeremy. This is a very thought-provoking post. I’ve never seen the “B-words” presented in that order (either of the ones you mentioned). Those words are used by Becky Pippert in her classic work on evangelism Out of the Salt-Shaker and Into the World published in 79 and again in 99. The way she approaches it is to say that the church (and church culture) usually seems to expect “Behave, Believe, Belong,” but it would be more appropriate if we could instead have an attitude of “Belong, Believe, Behave.” That always made perfect sense to me, although I eventually came to question it a bit when l learned more of Christian history and modes of evangelism and catechesis which had worked to spread the faith. The reason Pippert’s ordering works is that it recognizes the central nature of *belief* – trust in Christ is necessary for true transformation. We shouldn’t expect people to “behave” before they know the Savior, but all too often that is the case. The difference in the way she and you use that word though is that she is talking about conservative churches and moral holiness type stuff, as well as politeness and etiquette. She was calling people to lighten up on all that stuff for unbelievers and kids, just love them, then gently disciple them once they meet the risen Savior. But you seem to be using the word “behave” in the sense of “good works / service / mission,” engaging those outside the church by all the good things we can do together, at least as the primary sense. That does make sense to me as a point of contact and I’m sure it often works. I’m kind of with Todd though – I would see it rather as the “front lawn” than the porch. Otherwise you are confusing the method and the message.
Speaking of confusing the method and the message, I think you are doing just that when you say “Watson articulates that the practice was meant to convey doctrine, specifically the salvation process.” That’s not what he was articulating at all; it’s almost the opposite of it. The practice (the Class Meeting) did not teach the doctrine, it rather *assumed* the doctrine. The doctrine had to be articulated in *other* contexts so that the class meeting structure could be all about *working out salvation* rather than teaching about it or convincing people they needed it. Those things happened, again, in other contexts – field preaching and large group teaching. I think you’re correct that the cultural environment and religious background made that method more easily workable in Wesley’s time than in our own and so we need to adapt it. [But even there I quibble with you calling Wesley’s time “Pre-Christendom;” it’s more like it was late Christendom and so most people shared the assumptions that they had some accountability to God and Jesus might help them figure it out. But such matters aside we agree that the context was different.]
I think perhaps that misunderstanding of what Watson was saying continues in your proposed reversal of Wesley’s order. You need to delineate whether you are talking about the message or the method. The actual order of salvation can’t be reversed; it just is what it is. It is a road-map to the interactions between God and humanity, a road-map specifically to the reconciliation of humans with God. Seeking clarity on the theology isn’t about being right or controlling what people do; it’s about having a good map so we can all potentially get to where we want to go. I’m of the opinion that the message and the method are *somewhat* separate. We can potentially agree on the message (the need for salvation and the good news that through faith/trust in Jesus Christ God offers it to us) but embrace varying methods which are adapted to the culture. I realize there are many on both the very conservative and the liberal sides who disagree. The most traditional/orthodox would say “the message demands a certain method,” while the most liberal/progressive would say “the method is the message and it all needs to change.” Wherever you fall on that spectrum, it’s best to be clear about it.
I think that behavior, acting in ways that reflect the love of God, is the key to being a Christian. All else can be debated through soteriology. To me, all else is somewhere between secondary and irrelevant.
I want to express my appreciation for the Wesley Upside Down article. It makes good sense and reminds me what happened in Canada during the 1950’s and 1960’s. The United Church of Canada in the post war years opened a new church building, church hall, or manse every few days. I recall it as a time when The United Church was very much of a community church. People were attracted to the church for the sake of their children who became members of Sunday Schools, Scouts and Guides, Cubs and Brownies, church camps, youth programs and choirs. Parents from the community were involved in the Women’s Auxiliary which raised money for the church while the hard core church members attended the Women’s Missionary Society, men worked on the Board of Stewards which looked after the church property and the finances while the hard core church members sat on the Session dealing with spiritual matters. Some congregations had a men’s group with the focus on food, fellowship, and funds for the church. Church Halls were filled with AA Meetings, weight loss groups, and card-playing seniors. The local church was a center of family social life. Then in the mid-1960’s the church was presented with a new educational program (The New Curriculum) which began by challenging what people believe. The New Curriculum brought forward the latest theological findings and people began to disappear from the congregations. Further education soon followed with Inclusive Language even changing the wording of some hymns and more people began to disappear. Inclusive Language was soon followed by a great debate on sexuality and the church suddenly discovered that the children of the former hard core members did not follow their parents and the children of the former hard working community church supporters expressed no use for the church. The children of both groups who were so active in the 1950’s became the leaders in the community’s service clubs, sporting activities, and political parties and their children follow them in community service and they have no need for the church. If they marry it likely takes place at a destination island, Celebration of Life (funerals) are held in pubs, and instead of baptism they have Greet and Meet Gatherings. This generation is nowhere near the door of the church and yet ethically reflect the core of the Gospel.
How to respond to what is happening? Do we return to Wesley’s emphasis on sin to post-modern people who believe that there is no wrong just a choice between two good options? Do we stress the afterlife to people who have read Becker’s “Denial of Death”? Do we emulate the Jews who keep observance to the Torah and the lifestyle that flows out of it?
Somewhere I read that Wesley was credited with preventing the French Revolution from being copied in England. Wesley was not a Prime Minister nor did he sit in the House of Commons. Wesley’s influence was generated through people who took action, upheld values that were not popular, and the movement went worldwide very clearly a Porch, Door, and House progression.
Wesley’s practice of Class Meetings holds merit for those who are today in the House. Much may be learned and experienced in dialogue. If the House is ever going to replace itself it must know what the House is all about. At present the House sees itself as a dying remnant instead of a clump of yeast ready for whatever rises.
Very interesting article and I love that it reminded me of the porch/door/house quote from Wesley. The main issue with it is he seems to have missed that Wesley wasn’t talking about evangelism. He was talking about a salvation decision. Following repentance we still must have faith and holiness. it is an interesting idea though to notice the similarities between behaving together as a pre-conversion experience and as an post-conversion experience. The real issue I see is that the church is starting to believe that the initiation of a walk with Christ is the whole point when in reality the walk itself is the whole point.