Methodist Camp Meetings
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METHODISM “When ideas fail, words come in handy.” — Anonymous HDT WHAT? INDEX METHODISM METHODISM 1738 May 24, Wednesday (Old Style): John Wesley’s “New Birth” experience of the “grace” of spiritual consolation. From the very beginning of his Methodist movement the Reverend Wesley would be advocating plainness of dress and avoidance of jewelry. In his ADVICE TO THE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS, WITH REGARD TO DRESS, he wrote: “Wear no gold, no pearls, or precious stones.... I do not advise women to wear rings, earrings, necklaces.” Wesley went to great length to give Scriptural support for his position, quoting among other scriptures the injunction in 1 Peter 3:3, “Let not yours be the outward adorning with braiding of hair, decoration of gold, and the wearing of fine clothing, but let it be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable jewel of a gentle and quiet spirit.” ONE OF THE PRIMARY FUNCTIONS OF THE HISTORIAN IS TO HELP US CONSTRAIN STORYTELLING. IF, FOR INSTANCE, A POLITICIAN PRESENTS HIMSELF AS THE MESSIAH, WE HISTORIANS CAN PULL UP ONE OR ANOTHER OF THE MANY THOUSANDS OF HISTORIES OF JESUS CHRIST AND GO “NO, HERE’S A MESSIAH, AND YOU WILL NOTE THAT ON THIS LIST OF THE VARIOUS MESSIAHS THAT WE HAVE PLACED ON RECORD, THE NAME OF JESUS IS PRECEDED BY THE NAMES OF 5 OTHER IDENTIFIED MESSIAH CLAIMANTS AND HAS BEEN SUCCEEDED TO DATE BY THE NAMES OF MULTIPLE OTHER IDENTIFIED AND RECORDED MESSIAH CLAIMANTS.” HISTORY IS NOT PRIMARILY ABOUT RECORDING WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED, BECAUSE PRIMARILY IS ABOUT SETTING NEEDED LIMITS ON OUR CREDULOUS STORYTELLING. HDT WHAT? INDEX METHODISM METHODISM 1740 The Great Awakening — the Reverend George Whitefield’s 1st tour of New England. It would be during this decade that this traveling evangelist would compose the macabre hymn which would eventually be sung at his funeral: Ah! Lovely appearance of death, No sight upon earth is so fair; Not all the gay pageants that breathe, Can with a dead body compare. (Hey! Hey! –Don’t knock decomposing ’till you’ve tried it.) METHODISTS YOU WILL UNDERSTAND MY GREEN-LETTER COMMENTARIES SUCH AS THIS ONE, AS SOON AS YOU GRASP THAT YOU ARE DEALING HERE WITH A COMMITTED BERGSONIAN. IN 1922 IN PARIS, WHEN ALBERT EINSTEIN AND HENRI-LOUIS BERGSON FACED OFF OVER THE NATURE OF TIME, EINSTEIN CONSIDERED BERGSON’S CONCEPTION OF TIME TO BE UNSCIENTIFIC, AMOUNTING TO A MERE PIECE OF SUBJECTIVITY, WHEREAS BERGSON CONSIDERED EINSTEIN’S CONCEPTION OF TIME TO BE UNSCIENTIFIC, AMOUNTING TO A MERE PIECE OF HDT WHAT? INDEX METHODISM METHODISM PRESUMPTUOUS ILL-CONSIDERED METAPHYSICS. ILYA PRIGOGINE WOULD POINT OUT THAT “IT IS TRUE THAT BERGSON HAD NOT UNDERSTOOD EINSTEIN. BUT IT IS ALSO TRUE THAT EINSTEIN HAD NOT UNDERSTOOD BERGSON. BERGSON WAS FASCINATED BY THE ROLE OF CREATIVITY, OF NOVELTY IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE. BUT EINSTEIN DID NOT WANT ANY DIRECTED TIME. HE REPEATED OFTEN THAT TIME, MORE PRECISELY THE ARROW OF TIME, IS AN ‘ILLUSION.’ SO, THESE IDEOLOGIES SEEM TO BE IRRECONCILABLE.” AS LONG AS YOU ARE TRAPPED IN THE ILL-CONSIDERED EINSTEINIAN MINDSET, TRAPPED BY THE PRESUMPTUOUS ILL-CONSIDERED METAPHYSICS OF SPURIOUS METAPHORS THAT HAD TRAPPED HIS GREAT MIND — YOU WILL HAVE NO CLUE WHATEVER WHAT I AM RANTING AT YOU ABOUT. RATHER THAN BEING OF THE OPINION OF BOETHIUS, WHO WROTE IN 523AD THAT GOD, BEING ETERNAL, MUST BE “OUTSIDE” TIME AND ABLE TO VIEW THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE AS INDIFFERENTLY AND UNCHANGINGLY PRESENT IN HIS ONE WHOLE CREATION, I AM OF THE OPINION OF MAIMONIDES, WHO WROTE IN THE 12TH CENTURY THAT ACCORDING TO THE TALMUD FREE WILL IS GRANTED TO EVERY PERSON BY GOD SO THAT WE MAY BE JUDGED ACCORDING TO OUR ACTIONS. AS GERSONIDES POINTED OUT IN THE 14TH CENTURY, THERE ARE DECIDED LIMITS TO FOREKNOWLEDGE, AS GOD CANNOT KNOW IN ADVANCE WHICH CHOICE A FREE INDIVIDUAL, IN HIS OR HER FREEDOM, WILL MAKE: “I HAVE SET BEFORE YOU LIFE AND DEATH, BLESSING AND CURSE: THEREFORE CHOOSE LIFE.” HDT WHAT? INDEX METHODISM METHODISM 1743 In England, the 2d gin Act, which had been enacted in 1736, was at this point superseded by a licensing system. In the general rules of the Methodist church, the Reverend John Wesley included a prohibition against drunkenness and the buying, selling, or drinking of spirits. I AM A NEGATIVE PHILOSOPHER, NOT A POSITIVE ONE: PHILOSOPHY NOT BEING ANY SORT OF SCIENCE, I WOULD HOLD THAT ANY PHILOSOPHICAL ASSERTION THAT TRAVELS UNDER THE PRETENSE THAT IT IS FACTUAL AND ACTUAL MUST BE, TO THE CONTRARY, NECESSARILY SPURIOUS AND UNSUBSTANTIATED. A GOOD EXAMPLE IS THE OFT-HEARD SUPPOSITION “GOD KNOWS THE FUTURE.” AS A NEGATIVIST I NEGATE ANY AND ALL SUCH ASSERTIONS. THAT DOES NOT REQUIRE ME TO REPLACE THESE PSEUDOFACTUAL PHILOSOPHICAL ASSERTIONS WITH MY OWN COUNTERCLAIMS, SUCH AS A POSITIVE ASSERTION THAT IN ORDER TO ALLOW FOR FREE WILL AND FREEDOM OF DECISION “GOD CANNOT KNOW THE FUTURE.” I DO NOT INTEND TO TAKE YOUR GRITTY, GRIMY TEDDY BEAR AWAY FROM YOU AND PRESENT YOU WITH A CUTE CUDDLY PANDA. I WILL TAKE AWAY YOUR TEDDY LEAVING YOU EMPTY-ARMED. I HAVE SAID THAT RATHER THAN BEING OF THE OPINION OF BOETHIUS, WHO WROTE IN 523AD THAT GOD, BEING ETERNAL, MUST BE “OUTSIDE” TIME AND ABLE TO VIEW THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE AS INDIFFERENTLY AND UNCHANGINGLY PRESENT IN HIS ONE WHOLE CREATION, I AM INCLINED TO THE OPINION OF MAIMONIDES, WHO WROTE IN THE 12TH CENTURY THAT ACCORDING TO THE TALMUD FREE WILL IS GRANTED TO EVERY PERSON BY GOD SO THAT WE MAY BE JUDGED ACCORDING TO OUR ACTIONS. AS GERSONIDES POINTED OUT IN THE 14TH CENTURY, THERE ARE DECIDED LIMITS TO FOREKNOWLEDGE, AS GOD CANNOT KNOW IN ADVANCE WHICH CHOICE A FREE INDIVIDUAL, IN HIS OR HER FREEDOM, WILL MAKE: “I HAVE SET BEFORE YOU LIFE AND DEATH, BLESSING AND CURSE: THEREFORE CHOOSE LIFE.” HOWEVER, I WAS LYING WHEN I SAID THAT. ACTUALLY I HAVE NO HDT WHAT? INDEX METHODISM METHODISM PREFERENCE FOR THE PSEUDOPHILOSOPHICAL RANTINGS OF MAIMONIDES AND GERSONIDES OVER THE PSEUDOPHILOSOPHICAL RANTINGS OF BOETHIUS. I AM ENTIRELY NEGATIVE. THERE IS NOT A POSITIVE BONE IN MY BODY. HDT WHAT? INDEX METHODISM METHODISM 1748 In approximately this year the Reverend John Wesley said: I am not careful for what may be a hundred years hence. He who governed the world before I was born shall take care of it likewise when I am dead. My part is to improve the present moment. Wesley taught that any one might enter, and maintain, a bliss state he termed “Christian perfection,” and that this bliss state was well worth the trouble required to enter it. The technology for entering this state was a concentration on the perfect love of God for each of us, and the imitation of this perfect, indifferent-to- condition and indifferent-to-degree love in our own lives. If, irregardless of how one is treated, one always does good to others, the payoff is this affective state — the Methodist state of mind. Consider the following musing by Henry Thoreau: February 1, Sunday, 1852: Every man’s laws are hard enough to obey. The christian falls as far short of obeying the heathen’s moral law as the heathen does. One of little faith looks for his rewards & punishments to the next world—& despairing of this world behaves accordingly in it— —another thinks the present a worthy occasion & arena—sacrifices to it and expects to hear sympathizing voices. The man who believes in another world and not in this is wont to put me off with christianity— The present moment in which we talk is of a little less value to him than the next world— So we are said to hope in proportion as we do not realize. It is all hope deferred. But one grain of realization—of instant life—on which we stand is equivalent to acres of the leaf of hope hammered out—to gild our prospect— — The former so qualifies the vision that it gilds all that we look upon with the splendor of truth. We must meet the hero on heroic grounds.— Some tribes inhabit the Mts. Some dwell on the plain. We discourage one another. We obey different laws. IT IS A PROBLEM, FOR A “PHILOSOPHER OF HISTORY” SUCH AS MYSELF (AUSTIN MEREDITH), THAT PEOPLE WHO HAVE HEARD THAT THERE IS SUCH A THING AS “HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY” –PEOPLE WHO MAY EVEN HAVE GONE TO THE LENGTHS OF CONSULTING ONE OR ANOTHER “HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY” SUCH AS THAT CREATED BY UEBERWEG IN THE 19TH CENTURY– HAVE NEVER SO MUCH AS CONTEMPLATED THAT HDT WHAT? INDEX METHODISM METHODISM THERE MIGHT BE SUCH A THING AS ALTERNATIVE PHILOSOPHIES OF HISTORY BASED ON DIFFERENT UNDERSTANDINGS OF THE NATURE OF TIME. THE GIST OF MY PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY, BASED ON MY OWN UNDERSTANDING OF THE NATURE OF TIME, IS AS FOLLOWS: OUR SO- CALLED HISTORIANS ARE DOING IT EXACTLY WRONG. IN THEIR FABRICATIONS ABOUT HISTORY, THEY ARE CHRONIC ANTICIPATORS. THEY PERPETUALLY OFFER TO THEIR UNSUSPECTING AUDIENCES THAT ACCOUNTS THEY HAVE PATCHED TOGETHER IN THE LIGHT OF SUBSEQUENT EVENTS ILLUMINATE OUR PRESENT CONDITION. THEIR CONSTRUCTED PASTS BECOME OUR PREAMBLE FOR OUR PRESENT AGENDAS. THESE ACADEMIC PSEUDO-HISTORIANS WHO ENGAGE IN THIS ANTICIPATION AGENDA ARE WELL PAID BUT THEY OFFEND AGAINST REALITY. ANY HISTORY CONSTRUCTED IN THE LIGHT OF SUBSEQUENT EVENTS CAN AMOUNT TO NOTHING MORE THAN SPURIOUS MAKE-MAKE-BELIEVE, SPECIAL PLEADING. THE WARNING OF THE HIPPIE WAS “NEVER TRUST ANYONE OVER 30!” THE WARNING I PROFFER IS: “DON’T CREDIT ANY HISTORY THAT IS CREDIBLE. WHEN ANY OF THIS BEGINS TO MAKE ANY SENSE, DOUBLE-BEWARE!” TO BE SPECIFIC, THIS KOUROO DATABASE IS JUST CHOCK-FULL OF HISTORICAL CHRONOLOGIES.