The Evangelical Awakening

Winter Chapter 11 The Evangelical Awakening Since the Evangelical Awakening is the engine Evangelical Awakening. Now, of course, they of the great renaissance of the Fifth Epoch, our weren’t invented. They’re right in the Bible. topic today is really, of all the topics we could They were not non-existent before—they possibly take up, in some ways the most impor- became public in the Evangelical Awakening. tant. That being the case, I hardly need to com- Now what were some of these traits? The ment on it, because all of you people plunging most obvious one for this class is the fact that into the reading will find immediate rapport missions as theory and practice really didn’t with the material. exist in Protestantism to any extent until the The “Evangelical Awakening” as a phrase Awakening, with the exception of the Moravians, has got to be the most significant pair of words who were ahead of the times but who weren’t, since the days of the apostles for most of us strictly speaking, Protestants. It was the Mora- gathered in this room. I don’t how many of vians whom John Wesley went to visit and whom you come from a Lutheran background, or a he first met on his trip to America when, in a Catholic background. But even in that case the big, terrible, horrifying storm the main mast reason you ‘re in this particular room is more was split, and everybody on the ship was just likely because of the Evangelical Awakening trembling in horror—except the Moravians, the than any other single movement in history. depth of whose Christian faith was apparently Protestantism was a very different animal such that they simply quietly prayed and sang prior to the Evangelical Awakening. We talked hymns in the midst of that ghastly storm. And the other day about the fact that in the time of John Wesley took note! the Reformation you had the Roman Catholic Later, back in London, after fumbling and armies and the Protestant armies. Then you bungling in Georgia, John and Charles Wesley also had the Anabaptists, the various non- fellowshipped with a small group of Moravians. conforming groups, the “Radical Reformation” One of the leaders, as Latourette puts it, spoke so-called. Roland Bainton, himself a Quaker in to them of “self-surrender, instantaneous con- background, reminds us of the significance of version, and joy in conscious salvation.” This is that Radical Reformation. But that third force quintessential evangelicalism. After that kind did not come to the surface really until Pietism of an experience John Wesley actually made a extended it. There was a connection, and in trip to Germany. He got terrible Germanic cul- Pietism the essence of the Radical Reformation, ture shock, and went away with mixed feelings the third force, finally burst into full view. It about the Germans and no longer eager simply appears more clearly than in any other place, to be Moravian. But that was culture shock; he in England in the eighteenth century in the wasn’t prepared for it in an anthropology class! person of John Wesley, in what is called the But he did translate some of their hymns into Evangelical Awakening. People who are evangel- English. The Moravians very definitely influ- icals today may carry their several theological enced him, even before he went to Germany. In traditions. But also, even more importantly, Wesley’s Aldersgate experience, Peter Boehlar, they trace their whole lifestyle and attitudes the Moravian, had worked with him, and he back to the Evangelical Awakening more likely found that there was something richer and fuller than they do all the way back to the Protestant in the Bible than the determined, almost ascetic Reformation. obedience which was the pattern of his life It’s just simply a fact. I’m sorry to have to before that point. disturb other subtle opinions on this subject, The theologians don’t know what to do with but most of the distinctive traits of evangelical this so-called conversion of John Wesley. You Christianity were virtually invented in the can make out a case for him not being a true © 1996 R. Winter. No copy may be made without the author’s permission. 11 – 1 11 – 2 The Evangelical Awakening Christian before. If you do, you consign almost an absolutely autocratic dictator! I shouldn’t use all Christians in history to the outer darkness. the word dictator, for there was nothing harsh As one Christian leader said, “If John Wesley or insensitive about him. But, boy! He was a was not converted before Aldersgate, God help small man, and his wife on occasion dragged Christendom!” That is one approach. The other him by the hair. They say that if he had had a approach chooses to explain what happened as a happy home life, there wouldn’t have been a second work of grace. It was thus an evangelical Methodist movement. But to those who would experience of the type which became famous in listen to him he was very, very firm. And he the Holiness movement (directly derived from was out on the road much of the time, as you Wesley’s impact on history) which emphasizes might imagine. a second work of grace. In modern terminology, It was Kenneth Scott Latourette, whom I’m you can say that it was the baptism of the Holy sure by now you all respect, that pointed out Spirit. You can go round and round. that the Methodist preachers were in all func- Nevertheless, Aldersgate was an important tional respects similar to the friars. Poverty, event. For here was this giant of discipline and chastity, obedience—they lived up to all those obedience, a man who years and years before ideals. That really shook me when I first read was studying his Greek New Testament along it years ago. I said, “How could this be? Why with George Whitefield and Charles Wesley and would anyone even try to make comparisons.” others in that little student group at Oxford—a But Latourette made the comparison. Latourette godly person, visiting the poor and the homeless himself never married, and we might not have and the prisoners and witnessing for Christ and all these books from his hand if he had. reading the Bible every day—but there was some- In any case, the fact is that this tremendous thing more. Somehow, whatever the experience determination of Wesley put steel and toughness was, it opened John Wesley’s heart to the world into the fiber of that movement, derisively called on a scale and a level of intensity that had never the Methodists, who were so rigorous in their before existed in his life. management structure and accountability. To This was the opening shot! There is no other this day, in no place on the face of the earth do way to describe the course of events in eight- you find a church structure of any size, or length eenth-century England than to say that this was of existence, with a tougher internal discipline the opening event. It caught on to Charles Wesley than in the Methodist tradition. An Anglican and to George’ Whitefield (other members of the bishop or a Roman cardinal has no power Oxford student group). What would we have whatsoever compared to a Methodist bishop! done in America without George Whitefield? This is John Wesley’s legacy in that tradition. Four or five times Whitefield made trips to Of course, there were many other things that America—a very hazardous voyage! You only came out of the Methodist movement. A tre- had about four chances out of five to get to mendous holy glow was spawned in England. America in those days. The hallmarks of the movement were not, as is [It is an interesting thing that, in that whole often stressed, a return to the Bible, although period, about as many people lost their lives on that was part of it. But John Wesley wouldn’t board ship coming over from England as among allow his preachers to make sermons up from those coming over in slave ships from Africa. It the Bible. He gave them twenty basic sermons was about the same degree of risk, and the ships and that was all they were supposed to preach! were virtually identical, except for the chains. So let’s not be too hard on Campus Crusade, The structure of the ships, the way they packed when they prescribe for all their new workers the people in and everything was virtually the exactly what it is that they are supposed to teach. same in the slave ships as it was in the free ships. John Wesley didn’t expect these people to That, of course, was one reason why the people develop their own sermons. These men whom often did not survive coming across.] he scrounged up here and there—their sole Yet, Whitefield made that trip a number of common denominator was their responsiveness times, against John Wesley’s stern urgings to to an absolute obedience—not to Christ, but to stay with the work in England. But, as to the John Wesley; Wesley was the one who obeyed kind of person Wesley was, the disciplined Christ. He said as Paul did, “Be ye imitators of founder of the Jesuits, Ignatius Loyola was a me, even as l am of Christ.” I think that some- namby-pamby by comparison—or at least the times, in our extreme individualism in America two should be compared—because Wesley was today we have moved a long way away from Ralph D.

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