Was John Wesley "Emergent"? - an interesting thought!

My friend Jenny Sprong posted a link to the following very interesting article to a list for Methodist ministers.

I think the notion has quite a bit of merit... Although, one should always take care in trying to fit contemporary categories to persons, or approaches, from bygone eras!

Andrew Jones writes, “The emerging church might well be a protest (Don Carson) but it might also be a corrective measure to the excesses and imbalances of the reformation and the Enlightenment. Let the Reformation continue.”

Writing in the Advent/Christmas 2007-2008 issue of the Church of the Nazarene’s Preaching Magazine, Hal Knight (no relation), Professor of Wesleyan Studies at St. Paul’s School of Theology in Kansas City, writes about “John Wesley and the Emerging Church.” Keith Drury has helpfully summarized Knight’s points of comparison in this nifty table (HT).

Graduate student and research assistant/reader-grader Kalev Hinrich summarizes Knight’s article: “John Wesley has been turned into a leading Emergent, postmodern theologian who not only endorses Generous Orthodoxy from his grave, but was its leading founder without knowing it.”

Hinrich offers a pretty lengthy critique, concluding: “In short, Wesley becomes a gracious liberal theologian … but given the context of [Knight’s] argument, so does the Emergent Church and postmodernism. The grand conclusion: The postmodernism and the Emergent Church are basically new forms of liberal modernity, and nothing could be further from the truth.”

Both the original article and Hinrich’s response are interesting reads.

Please follow the links in the article to get the meat of the post... I think it is quite sound and sensible!

What do you think?

Technorati tags: emergent, John Wesley, Church

Comments

[Jenny Hillebrand]

Yes, I think John Wesley had the same aims in mind as the emergent church movement. I think that is why most Methodists don't find the emergents quite so radical as - well I suppose as - churches or thinkers who have followed John Calvin more closely do. Particularly in the realms of missional thinking. But this thought would probably not be popular with many emergents!
Jenny