Site
Contents
 |
General Information about the Area Office
North Indiana Conference Office
South Indiana Conference Office
Prayer Guides
(Courtesy of the NIC Prayer Team)
Area United Methodist
Foundation
For resources to assist your congregation in welcoming guests,
click here
Seashore District Volunteer Center VIM project -- Completed
Hoosier United Methodist News Archives
| Hoosier United Methodist News |
September 2001 |
Comment:
Let's learn from Wesley,
focus God's gift of intellect
By Brad Foster
For most of its existence, the Church was a patron of the Arts and Sciences. Even the dispute between Galileo and the Catholic Church was not merely a case of the Church denying a demonstrable truth; the Inquisition simply feared the knowledge that the Earth revolved around the Sun would shake belief in the inerrancy of Scripture. The Jesuit fathers of old understood the importance of learning; to this day they are intellectuals without equal. In the 18th century, John Wesley once said that:
"It cannot be that the people should grow in grace unless they give themselves to reading. A reading people will always be a knowing people. A people who talk much will know little."
In his "advice to a young Lady," he writes that she ". not confine herself to the study of Scripture.", but also Arithmetic, geography, logic, ethics, natural philosophy, history, poetry, and divinity, to name a few.
In today's postmodern world, the existence of any verifiable truth is denied, and science is seen as just another social construct. In a culture where mass media marketing appeals to "felt needs," logic, reason and critical thought are held in low esteem. "Feeling" has come to replace "thinking." In John Wesley's day, critics accused him of being "too much in favour [sic] of reason."
Today, his Aldersgate conversion experience where he felt his "heart strangely warmed" is taken to be a blanket endorsement for 21st century "warm-fuzzy feel-goodism" In truth, Wesley sought a middle path between coldly rational Deism on one hand, and highly emotional Pietism and on the other. He realized that emotion, without the guidance of reason, is a dangerous thing.
In light of Wesley's insistence that we cultivate the intellect, it is a shame that so many Methodists today reject reason as they embrace the false gospels of prosperity, self-love, social justice, church growth, and post-modern futurism, often without theology or apologetics. Adult Sunday school classes function more as social clubs than as venues for instructing believers. Many of us avoid intellectual pursuits in favor of the "worldly passions" and other "false things."
I believe our biggest challenge in the 21st century will be to attack spiritual and intellectual poverty, rather than the physical poverty on which we are so focused. The poor will always be with us, and we are obligated to reach out to them. But we must also realize that our American poor often have more material goods than the middle classes of undeveloped nations, and that they are often kept down by their own attitudes and values. Has material gain alone really uplifted them? Indeed, Wesley's assault on the Spiritual and intellectual poverty of the day allowed his Methodists to over-come destitution.
Today, issues such as violence, substance abuse, social justice, and environmentalism must be addressed thoughtfully and practically, with reason, not emotion, as a driving force. Warm feelings and good intentions may cause more harm than good when not tempered by reason. Would it not be better to affect social change the way Wesley did, by changing the hearts and minds of individuals?
In an era where mainstream Protestantism is in crisis, we must approach internal conflicts with a spirit of discernment and objectivity. The Gift of Reason sets us apart from God's other creatures. The very roots of our spiritual nature, our ability to apprehend some idea of the divine, lie in our ability to think and imagine. The intellect is too precious to ignore.
The Rev. Bradley Foster is a member of Abundant Harvest UMC, Indianapolis.
Last updated on 01/14/2004