Methodists Need a Charismatic Upgrade!

Revd Hywel Harris' healing meeting at St John's Methodist Church, Llandrindod Wells, Wales, 1951

A few years ago, I wrote an article for Firebrand entitled, “Wesley, the Almost Charismatic.” In it, I asked the question whether Wesley was a Charismatic in the modern use of the word, meaning one who holds the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit to be normative in the life of the believer. After much examination, as the title indicates, I determined Wesley was “half a charismatic,” or “almost a charismatic.” He was not a cessationist. He did not believe that the gifts passed away with the Apostles, but unfortunately, he relegated the gifts to extraordinary and not normative status. Wesley did not claim to have any supernatural gifts. Nevertheless, he and the early Methodists abundantly experienced the charismata, thus an almost charismatic. 

I would encourage the reader to take a journey through Wesley’s literary corpus, which is quite an undertaking. Perhaps, start with his Journal, and maybe begin reading from 1758 and continue through until 1765. If you are like me, you will find Wesley’s entries to be contagious, like binging on a good Netflix series. Perchance, after reading this selection, you will read the rest of his journals and move onto his Letters and so on. One thing you will notice, among the many, is that Wesley and early Methodists regularly encountered the supernatural in their personal lives and in their ministries. From visions, dreams, prophecies, healing, deliverance, and miraculous faith, as well as other charismatic manifestations, the people called Methodists, in many ways, would be unrecognizable to mainline and even evangelical Methodists today. Old school Methodists were more likely “Methacostals” than anything.

As far as I am aware, not much scholarly, pastoral, or lay material has been produced specifically on the supernatural ministry of John Wesley and the people called Methodists. I know of only a handful of books. Why is it that in the last two hundred or more years there has been relative silence on this topic? A proper response to the question would probably require a hefty volume and not a short article. Somehow, we have overlooked, ignored, downplayed, demythologized, or reinterpreted the narratives, references, teaching, and preaching on the subject in Wesley’s written works. The disinterest and gross neglect of the topic would be a proper beginning for such a volume, which would require an investigation too vast to be undertaken here.

Hypothetically, I suppose one could take the easy and tired route of reducing early Methodism’s supernatural phenomena to some socio-psychological explanation. Wesley’s detractors and other Enlightenment thinkers did the same. Contrastingly, Wesley opposed a closed natural worldview and embraced a spiritual (supernatural) one. Regarding the supernatural and a scriptural worldview, Wesley understood the plain sense of scripture, and I take Wesley at face value. There has been much ink spilled on this debate, including my own. I will not be dealing with that problem directly beyond referencing the issue. Supernaturalism simply offends our modern sensibilities. But the question remains, why don’t we see the power of God in our churches and communities like early Methodists did? 

In short, the theology and especially the practice of the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit in Methodism today is sparse for reasons that can perhaps be addressed expeditiously with three questions. First, do Methodists today share Wesley’s worldview and theological empiricism that can account for the reality of the miraculous power of both God and even the demonic in our world? Modern science and biblical criticism have been major influences on a mainline Protestant worldview that eschews the “supernatural.” My guess is that the tandem of the causal closure of scientific naturalism and the higher criticism of the Bible wiped out the possibility of such a perspective from our seminaries over a century ago. Put another way, we know better than to believe in miracles, raisings from the dead, angels and demons, and other fairytales. We have put away childish things!

Regarding a scriptural spirit-worldview, those who still carry Wesley’s torch are some of his more revivalist descendants, such as Holiness, Pentecostal, and Charismatic Christians. While we Methodists were working to become America’s denomination in the twentieth century, building a socio-political kingdom on earth with the power of our ecclesial machinery, store-front Spirit-filled churches were overthrowing the kingdom of darkness with Pentecostal power from on high. Two different worldviews at work!

The problem is, in part, a teaching issue. We are no longer taught the plausibility and viability of such a worldview that allows for the “supernatural.” It’s seen as an antiquated oddity like bloodletting with leeches or practicing alchemy. Miracles are explained away as pre-scientific explanations of what God was “really doing.” The supernatural content is demythologized. Blind eyes weren’t literally opened. It meant they could now see the truth. The lame didn’t really walk. It’s a metaphor. It means that before, they were not living for God, but now they are able to walk with him. In terms of spiritual evil, there is either no such thing as the demonic, or it exists symbolically as socio-political systems. And for the latter, we do not need the power and authority of the name of Jesus. We just need a dash of liberation theology sprinkled on our own home-baked cultural Marxism to get the job done. And we get that in seminary! It is, in part, a problem with our teaching ministry. What originated with the professor, then trickled down to the pulpit, and finally to the pew. Unlike St. Paul, our people “have been taken advantage of by Satan” and are “unaware of his schemes” (2 Cor 2:11).

Today, Wesleyans are often not taught to take the Bible at face value regarding an invisible creation filled with preternatural spirits (Col 1:16). We know better. It offends our scientism. We are not taught to take the demonic seriously, let alone how to minister to persons who are bound by it. We cannot expect the Spirit today to work the miracles that Jesus worked, if we believe that he really did not work them, that miracles are metaphors. It’s not that most Methodists are cessationists and believe that the supernatural gifts of the Spirit have ceased. A sizeable portion of Methodists are modernists and believe that miracles never literally occurred. “Jesus didn’t heal; this I know; for my science tells me so.” The supernatural worldview assumed by scripture, we have jettisoned. In its place we have assumed a scientific worldview that is solely natural (physical) and closed (causally). There is no divine or supernatural interaction with our world. 

Consequently, belief in the miraculous for many Methodists has gone extinct like the dinosaurs and disco. However, this is not the case in growing two-thirds world Christianity. There, a spirit-worldview, embracing “all things visible and invisible” (Col. 1:16), is commonly held, and deliverance and miracles take place regularly and normatively, while the church explodes and expands. Such an integrated, holistic worldview that holds two aspects of reality together (physical and spiritual) may not be acceptable in the West, but the prevalence and power of the occult, addiction, sexual perversion, radical violence, and overall moral corruption in the West is not diminishing but is on the rise like never before. And Wesleyans and other Christians feel powerless to confront it–and they are (without the Spirit).

The second question for Wesleyans is, are we ministering among the people in the streets, fields, and marketplaces as Wesley did? Outside the church’s four walls, that is where we encounter real people with real problems. That is where the devil is busy, the church is absent, but God wants to show up. That is where we find what we think does not exist, the miraculous, the cleansing of the leper, raising the dead, or the casting out of demons. In the shadows of the alleys, fields, offices, and blight of people’s souls is the hell on earth that we dismiss and deny, while we ourselves drown in its deceit. “Demons do not exist,” we say. “Where are they?” Well, everywhere and nowhere. All around and nowhere to be found. We see the fruit of evil, but the root remains hidden. And the church lacks any deep spiritual discernment to see in the Spirit and fight the invisible battle. 

Ironically, our eyes are blinded by the very one who “does not exist” (2 Cor 4:4). Doubt or agnosticism about his existence is imperative to his mission. The mission is to steal, kill, and destroy, but, above all, to do so undetected, anonymously. The French poet Baudelaire is credited with saying, “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” The “god of this world” has seduced, captivated, and captured its inhabitants through a diversity of deceptions, a plethora of ploys, and an array of targeted traps, knowing that we have eyes but do not see. We, the church, do not live with the people, nor do we listen and see with our hearts the sounds and sights of suffering. And worse, we do not walk in the light that exposes the darkness. And another day passes.

Wesley wasn’t looking for the miraculous but was looking for lost souls among the miners. Wesley did not plan to have a “deliverance ministry.” It happened along the way. He also did not plan to have an open-field preaching ministry that would birth a deliverance ministry. It happened along the way. It happened where the people lived and worked. It happens when we are present. George Whitefield was already outdoors preaching to the masses in Bristol and was witnessing a tremendous response from sin-sick souls to the grace-filled preaching of the gospel. The nets were breaking. The harvest was plentiful, but the laborers were few. Whitefield needed help. Wesley obliged. They combined forces. Wesley unleashed an assault on the enemy’s camp hurling dunamis-filled homiletical missiles targeted at the prison bars of human minds that were being watched over and guarded by the godless garrisons of Satan’s soldiers.

Wesley and his Methodists, equipped with the sword of the Lord, full of faith and the Holy Spirit, launched an all-out war on the hordes of hell, bent and intent on plundering the house and overthrowing the “strong man” of sin and death, healing the broken-hearted, and setting free the oppressed. The Spirit of the Lord was upon early Methodists with power and authority to preach good news to the poor and minister deliverance to the captives. Are Methodists today walking among the poor with the same power and authority?

That is the third question. Are we walking in the same anointing as Wesley and the early Methodists? Are we walking in the same authority and power that could preach to thousands at a time and witness dozens upon dozens drop as dead under the convicting power of God without anyone laying on hands or without direct prayer for such a manifestation? The manifestations are not the point; the radical salvations are. The fruit of such authority, power, and anointing cannot come from perpetual pastoral prayerlessness; politically correct, arid annual conference-run borderline-heretical programming that invites every spirit but the Holy Spirit; Saturday night specials scanning and scamming sermons from the internet at midnight; weekly gorging on potlucks and bursting from the seams from buckets of chicken baptized in fire and Crisco; late night internet searches down highways to hell looking for forbidden fruit; church decisions devoid of the divine, constipated by committee, and led by the loudest lout or the biggest giver! No, Wesley and early Methodists were not playing church! They were in it big!

Early Methodist divine success was not accidental but intentional. It was the fruit of methodical daily prayer before dawn and throughout the day and night; weekly fasting; daily reading and preaching the Scriptures; weekly partaking of the holy sacrament; a healthy desire to flee from the wrath to come; ruthless self-denial; an earnestness and openness to  take part consistently in a discipleship community that holds the soul accountable; participation in acts of mercy with the poor in prison, the hospitals, and in the streets; attending the gathering of the saints for worship; and all the other “means of grace”; and a common vision and heart to see scriptural holiness shake and transform the nations.

There was a steep cost to be a Methodist, and the sacrifice paid off. Today, we have desperately marked down the scriptural Jesus and removed his features that will not sell, for example, his call to sacrificial and holy living. We have sanded down his rough edges, so we can handle him. We have marked down his cost and put him on the discount table in our churches. We have cut the cost, cut out the cross, and still can’t give him away. With our discount Jesus, we Methodists cry out for revival, or at least for more people, for our empty churches but wonder why we do not have enough power to blow our own nose. Today, are the people called Methodists willing to pay the price to be renewed in the doctrine, spirit, and discipline that sparked the original movement?

John Wesley held to a second work of grace, called entire sanctification (Christian perfection). John Fletcher, his would-be successor, interpreted Wesley’s second work in Pentecostal terms as a baptism in the Holy Spirit. The Wesleyan Holiness movement beginning in the 19th century often interpreted the experience similarly to Fletcher, in Pentecostal language (baptism in the Holy Spirit). Wesleyan-Pentecostals at the Azusa St. revival added a third blessing subsequent to the second work of grace (entire sanctification). It was early Pentecostalism’s version of the baptism in the Spirit that included speaking in other tongues and charismatic power for service. In the second half of the 20th century, traditional Methodists participated in the Charismatic renewal movement among Catholics and mainline Protestants. They enjoyed expressive worship, were filled with the gifts of the Spirit, and spread the fire inside and outside of their denomination. 

These moves of the Spirit are to be celebrated, but they pose a problem. The Spirit at Pentecost was poured out on all people. The sanctifying and charismatic grace of the Holy Spirit is not an option for the church. Sanctification of the soul, casting out demons, healing the sick, miracles, preaching in boldness, manifesting the gifts of the Spirit, and experiencing the fire-baptizing power of the Spirit are meant to be normative practices for believers. This list is not a menu to pick and choose what we want and don’t want. These works are the features of normative Spirit-filled Christianity. If you aren’t walking in the fullness of God, including his holiness and power, then you need a charismatic upgrade and an update to your Methodism. Many of us Methodists, while being spent fighting for orthodoxy, which is a good thing, have missed out on the outpouring of the Spirit over the last two-hundred years. We have a lot of catching up to do, a charismatic upgrade. We are not specifically contending for one, two, three, or four works of grace for the baptism in the Spirit or any one sign, like tongues, as a marker. We want everything that scripture promises. We simply want all that God has to offer; whatever it takes! Pray for it and receive it today!

Peter Bellini is Professor of Church Renewal and Evangelization in the Heisel Chair
United Theological Seminary and a member of Firebrand’s Editorial Board.