A Wesleyan Understanding and Experience of Happiness
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Christian culture repeatedly has shown interest in an understanding and experience of happiness. In the nineteenth century, Hannah Whitall Smith’s The Christian’s Secret of the Happy Life sold more than a million copies and continues as a perennial “must read” among believers seeking a deeper life in God. In the twentieth century, the church has been shaped by such popular books as Robert Shuller’s The Be (Happy) Attitudes: Eight Positive Attitudes that Can Transform Your life; Billy Graham’s The Secret of Happiness; and Gloria Osteen’s Love Your Life: Living Happy, Healthy and Whole. More specifically, the idea of Christian hedonism, as articulated by John Piper in his book Desiring God, has exerted considerable influence on the conception and experience of Christian happiness, particularly in Reformed circles. Unfortunately, not all of these treatments are equally helpful, many lacking the biblical, historical and theological reflection necessary to sanctify them properly as Christian.
As a United Methodist pastor-theologian rooted in the Wesleyan/Holiness tradition, I have an abiding concern for a Christian understanding of happiness. Through John Wesley’s relationship with the Moravians and their form of pietism, and more particularly through Peter Bohler’s tutelage, he became convinced that “holiness and happiness” are the natural fruit of true Christian faith in present life. His experience with the Moravians initiated Wesley’s frequent mention and discussion of happiness in journals, sermons, tracts, commentaries, and publishing ventures. He believed Christian happiness in this life is “real, solid and substantial” (Wesley, V:375).
Wesley taught that the desire for happiness is godly and the “end of our being” (Wesley, V:74). We are made to be happy in God. As such, this is the “best end” which any creature can pursue. More specifically, human “perfection, glory and happiness” are found in the fulfillment of the two great commandments—the love of God with our entire being and the love of neighbor as ourselves (Wesley, V:208). The love of God is brought about when God reigns in our hearts without rival and our soul “delights” in God, “seeking and finding all happiness in him” (Wesley, V:79). When we “desire God alone for his own sake” and when all other human desires are directed in reference to him, we fulfill the first and greatest commandment (Wesley, V:381).
The love of neighbor as ourselves is realized when we embrace our neighbor (defined by Wesley as any stranger, family member, friend or foe) with “the most tender good-will, the most earnest and cordial affection, the most inflamed desires of preventing or removing all evil, and for procuring for him all possible good” (Wesley, V:79). To love our neighbor is to have the same “invariable thirst” for their happiness as we have for ourselves (Wesley, V:79). When directed by the perfect love of God, Wesley teaches we are empowered to properly “delight” and “enjoy” our neighbor in the love of God (Wesley, VII:495).
According to Wesley, humanity experienced “truest happiness” in the garden of Eden before the fall. In a state untouched by sin “happiness in the love of God” in all its forms “naturally flowed,” including deep happiness with creation itself. Wesley states that Adam’s happiness in the garden “was increased by all the things that were round about him. He saw, with unspeakable pleasure, the order, the beauty, the harmony, of all the creatures; of all animated, all inanimate nature; the serenity of the skies; the sun walking in brightness; the sweetly variegated clothing of the earth; the trees, the fruits, the flowers, and the liquid lapse of murmuring streams” (Wesley, VI:224). In this state, the divine law, expressing God’s very character, was given to humanity as the condition of our perseverance in holiness and happiness.
While described by Wesley in many ways, the fall represents our seeking “happiness independent of God,” searching for happiness in creation and not the Creator (Wesley, VI:434). This assertion of independence resulted in humanity’s alienation from God, who alone is humanity’s “essential life and happiness” (Wesley, V:27). Pride, self-will, and idolatry prevailed in humanity. According to Wesley, where these reign, misery abounds and true happiness is absent (Wesley, VI:73).
While the general state of humanity is misery, nevertheless, God makes possible in present life the experience of humanity’s true end, happiness in God, through the ministry of Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Wesley taught that when we experience the new birth through saving faith in Christ, “happiness begins; happiness real, solid, substantial” (Wesley, V:375). Happiness here is “peace and joy in the Holy Ghost,” a “supernatural sensation, a divine taste, of the powers of the world to come,” and “a banishment of the fear of God and a deep realization that one is a child of God” (Wesley, V:79).
Holiness and happiness are joined together by Wesley because they are the fruit of the Kingdom of God experienced in present life and culminating in glory. Where God reigns in the human soul, setting up the divine throne in human hearts, we experience true righteousness, and experience “peace and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Wesley, V:81). The Holy Spirit enables us to become partakers of the divine nature, which is the life of God in the soul, bringing the kingdom of God in us—true righteousness in life, peace that passes all understanding, and “joy unspeakable, and full of glory” (Wesley, V:30). When we have our happiness in Christ, Wesley believed this enables us to “enjoy all that we possess” (Wesley, V:375). We can desire and enjoy other things as long as they are properly ordered by our love of God and happiness in God.
The experience of new birth, therefore, ushers us into a dynamic state of holiness and happiness. While Wesley allowed for some exceptions among Christians, where there may be occasional periods when happiness is suspended, such as those who undergo “violent temptation,” he argued that every Christian life should be characterized by happiness (Wesley, VI:434). Holiness and happiness, however, are not complete at conversion. While we may walk in obedience and love, there still remain “taints of former tempers and affections, though they cannot gain any advantage over (us) as long as (we) watch and pray” (Wesley, V:151). Wesley proclaimed throughout his ministry an experience of a deeper work of divine grace in Christian life, empowering us to perfectly love God and neighbor, thus fulfilling the law of God in life, and bringing the greatest felicity in present life. This is his doctrine of Christian perfection.
The success of Wesley’s teaching in human lives and the Methodist movement led Ted Runyon to state that
“one of the real outcomes of the Wesleyan revival in England was that it unleashed a sense of inward happiness which effectively freed many people from the drudgery and burden of eighteenth-century common life” (Runyon, 45).
One such example documented by Wesley included a woman who
“was confined to her bed, and in much pain, yet unspeakably happy, rejoicing evermore, praying without ceasing, and in everything giving thanks; yea, and testifying that she had enjoyed the same happiness, without any intermission, for two-and-twenty years” (Wesley, IV:289).
John Wesley’s teaching helps us to realize that through the experience of conversion and sanctification, true personal happiness is realized in present life. We can grasp the purposes of God for our lives and flourish in this life to the enjoyment of God, to the betterment of others, and the created order. This happiness is not dependent upon the external circumstances of our personal lives, the state of our physical health, or the transitory conditions of the world around us. It is found in our union with Christ through the fullness of the Holy Spirit, perfecting our hearts in love and holiness.
Works Cited
Runyon, Theodore.
“The New Creation: A Wesleyan Distinctive.” Wesleyan Theological Journal, 18.2 (Fall, 1996): 45.
Wesley, John.
The Works of John Wesley. 14 Volumes. Ed. Thomas Jackson. London: Wesleyan Methodist Book Room, 1872; Reprint by Baker Book House, 1978.
Rev. Christopher T. Bounds, Ph.D. is Dean of the School of Theology and Ministry at Indiana Wesleyan University. He is an ordained elder in the Arkansas Conference of the United Methodist Church.