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MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

For Theodore H. Runyon, Jr., who opened the way and for my students at the Seminario Metodista de México, companions on the journey

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CONTENTS Sts ce oko vases Seda sa taney eens tari cent endo sent aoe 9 Preface........

Introduction.............c...csccsseccsonseesreesssssenseeeceeeees 13 Chapter 1 The Demystification of Wealth............:: 29

A Preferential Option for the Poot..............-. 47

Chapter 2:

Chapter 3:

Chapter 4:

Protest Against [njustice...........ssreireereeees a1 Stewardship: The Redistribution of Wealth... 97

Chapter 5:

Actualization and Controversy........:-.::e 119 Chapter 6:

Chapter 7:

The Theological Basis of Wesley's Ethic....... 139

Why Did Wesley Fail?........ssseseeeesereeee 157 Chapter 8:

The Relevance of Wesley.........::::s:seseeseeseees 181 Chapter 9:

Appendix:

Wesley on Politics..........:sssssseceesesesesesssesesenens 199 ip ee ee ee rom orn 223

PREFACE t may be of some help to the reader to know how I came to write on John Wesley and, in particular, on the subject of Wesley's social ethic. Although I am a Methodist and a descendent of one of the earliest circuit riders, although my middle name is Wesley, I confess to having contracted an antipathy to the study of Wesley. Indeed I avoided courses on that and related subjects even in seminary despite the fact (or because?) they were required of those who, like myself, sought to be ordained as ministers in The United Methodist Church.

The truth is that I found the whole business of eighteenthcentury Christianity unspeakably boring and the preoccupations of the founder of Methodism tedious in the extreme. I had imbibed the legends of Susannah Wesley and the Aldersgate experience from infancy. I outgrew them as I outgrew a taste for pabulum. I have little enough taste for hagiography as it is.

But the life of Wesley is definitely not the stuff dreams are made of. This is all the more true when you consider that the name of Wesley is associated, not without reason, with the sort of disciplined life that had little appeal to a young sophisticate in the heady days of the mid 1960s. Besides, I was interested in theology, and everyone knows that, whatever else he may have been, Wesley was not a theologian.

In the course of time I became a theologian, evena Methodist theologian—at least in the sense that I was teaching in a Methodist seminary. But I would still greet with horror the

Good News to the Poor suggestion that I offer a course (one of those dreadful required ones) on the theology of John Wesley. I managed to fend off those suggestions. When Ted Runyon told me he was working on an essay on the relation between Wesley and Marx with the aim of showing the relevance of Wesley for contemporary liberation theology, I must admit that I greeted the idea with considerable skepticism. It seemed just another way of trying to sell a worn out product by putting a fancy label on it. Even when

I read the essay and had to admit not only that it was wonderfully written but also that it seemed to make a surprisingly strong case, I did not run right out to buy a copy of Wesley's Works. Seven thousand pages of eighteenth-century hortatory theology still seemed something of a crucifixion of the intellect, a flagellation of the spirit, a Chinese water torture of tedium. While my respect for Wesley and those who studied him had grown, I did not feel called upon to (deny myself and) take up that study myself.

Through an improbable chain of circumstances, I found myself teaching theology and Bible in the Methodist Seminary of Mexico in the center of Mexico City. About the time my

Spanish was good enough to say "Buenos dias" without consulting my notes, I was entreated by the director to offer a yearlong required course on Wesley's sermons. There was no escape. Having so far avoided the study of Wesley, I was now condemned to reading and teaching Wesley in Spanish—rather like finding oneself on the inside of a tale by Borges! Late twentieth-century Mexico City does not at first seem a hospitable environment to the study of an eighteenth-century apostle of common sense and reason.

But much to my astonishment that course became one of the most exciting I have ever taught.

Partly this had to do with a community of interest that improbably joined the old Oxford logician with the adolescent evangelists who populated the seminary. These students were entirely innocent of academic pretensions. Their driving desire was to be Christians and to help others to be Christians. They found in Wesley a kindred spirit. Moreover they had a hunger to know what it might mean to be a Methodist, which made the study of Wesley particularly appealing to them. For the rather

Preface blasé world of triumphant Protestantism in which I grew up, ecumenism comes naturally, and the preoccupation with denominational particularity seems a bit of egregious bad taste.

But in a context where Protestants are a tiny minority and Methodists one of a gaggle of minuscule sects within that minority the question of identity is a rather pressing one. This is especially true if one cannot really be satisfied with the purely negative identity of "not Catholic" (even if one has learned the defensive stratagem of giving to Catholicism the negative identity of "not-Christian").

But this encounter with Wesley had an unexpected result.

The students found themselves confronting their own situation in a new way on the basis of the study of Wesley. Many of them had supposed that there was an inherent contradiction between evangelical piety and social action. Others had appropriated the gospel of wealth and success, which encourages a contempt for the poor and a self-contempt among the poor. They were not impressed by liberation theology, which was often viewed as a Catholic plot or (worse) an Argentine import! And the weight of tradition, in the form of sermons heard all their lives, made a fresh appropriation of biblical themes of justice and liberation quite difficult. But to find something like this in Wesley, that was another matter. Here was one who clearly shared their own concern for the gospel, for evangelization, for the new life in Christ. And he sometimes sounded like one of those liberation theologians!

The more I worked on Wesley, and the more experience I had of the grassroots church in Mexico, the more apparent it became that Wesley provided an opening to engagement with the staggering reality of life in modern Mexico not otherwise available to the church. The temptations of the church to fall back into a sectarian ghetto, to heed the siren call of the gospel of wealth and success, to separate the spiritual from the economic reality of the overwhelming majority of their fellow

Mexicans—all of these proved well nigh irresistible, until confronted with the example and teaching of Wesley. What had seemed to me to be Wesley's weakness—his concentration on the personal life of faith and the unsystematic and popular character of his theologizing—proved to be his strength. It was

Good News to the Poor this that made him "relevant" and provocative and even liberating in the context of the Methodist Church in Mexico.

My experience with the Methodist Church in Mexico, then, provides the point of view for this study. It is not my aim to show that Wesley had already figured out everything the liberation theologians are trying to teach us, or that Wesley was one of the great theological ethicists of all time, or even that he was the most socially aware man of his age. I still have no appetite for hagiography. But I do want to show that Wesley can provide a point of entry for the discussion of the meaning of faithful

Christian witness in the midst of the calamitous economic crisis of our planet.

Far from emphasizing the significance of Wesley as the founder of Methodism, it will emerge that Methodism has from the beginning been characterized as a rejection of Wesley's most deeply held convictions about what I will call evangelical economics. But that is getting ahead of the story.

I would not have undertaken this sort of study had it not been for the ground-breaking essays of Theodore H. Runyon, Jr., and José Miguez Bonino. To this was added the encouraging response of my students at the Seminario Metodista de México to my initial attempts at presenting the thought of John Wesley.

This response was then confirmed in a number of church settings at various levels of the Methodist Church in Mexico. My mother-in-law made it possible for me to acquire the computer without which the mysteries of word-processing would have forever been beyond my reach and this book but a dream. I am also grateful to Theodore H. Runyon, Jr., for helpful suggestions made at several points in the work on this study, and to my editor, Rex D. Matthews, without whose encouragement this manuscript would never have been completed or published.

My wife's commitment to the poor has extended to being willing to support my theological habit and to try out some of my ideas in the church of which she is the pastor.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

launching into the study of Wesley's economic ethics, it will be helpful to make clear how I go about reading Wesley, the problems that are encountered in such a reading, and the aim or intent of such a reading.

FROM POLITICAL TO ECONOMIC ISSUES

The study of Wesley's social ethics is frequently rendered difficult by the apparently reactionary character of Wesley's politics. Questions of political organization and institutional justice are those that many of us have on our minds when we ask about social ethics. The real questions, we suppose, are political ones. And the beginning set of assumptions with which we approach this set of issues has to do with the self-evidence of putatively democratic forms of government. Insofar as this is our starting point, the political views of Wesley provide an immediate obstacle to any attempt to take anything else he has to say seriously. Wesley was not only an apologist for the king (to the extent that some of his enemies assumed he was on the king's payroll), but he was persuaded that democracy was wholly unworkable and decidedly impious. The point is not to argue whether Wesley was right or wrong about this. It is to say that his operating assumptions are so at variance from our own as to render his views apparently irrelevant to any attempt to wrestle with issues of any importance to US.

Good News to the Poor This is important to remember when we encounter those who attempt to use Wesley's conservative political stance to legitimate their own desire to maintain the status quo as unquestionable, for Wesley himself makes clear that the duty to honor the king is one that depends on the impossibility of democracy. If power flows from the people, then the given political institutions are not immutable or above criticism. Thus

Wesley can be appealed to here only by those who agree that democracy is impossible and undesirable. Since Wesley was a critic of tyranny as well, that leaves only dedicated monarchists in a position to make an appeal to Wesley's political conservatism as in any way parallel to their own.

The supposition that political questions are primary is one that characterizes what is often called the "first world," the world of the "industrialized democracies." But for the majority of the earth's population the most pressing questions are those of economic justice. The brutal reality of murderous impoverishment, of exclusion from the abundant wealth of the planet, is the overriding problem. Each year that passes brings with it an unimaginable toll, a holocaust of victims to the economic demons that enforce a concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny few, while consigning the rest to precarious existence and even death. In the year of our Lord 1989, fourteen million children were sacrificed to the Moloch of economic injustice.

More children die of poverty (hunger and the diseases of malnutrition) every year than the total number of victims of the Nazi horror in over a decade! The victims of war and political violence are no more than a fraction of those who perish at the hands of institutionalized greed and indifference.

This is why many theologies of the Third World (or, as I prefer to say, of the real world) place a preferential option for the poor at the center of their reflection. In so doing they find that the Bible in general and the gospel in particular take on a fresh relevance and power. Thus a theological revolution has been launched, comparable only to that of the sixteenth-century

Protestant Reformation.

Between these two reformations of Church and doctrine stands another of more limited impact and _ intellectual fruitfulness, but one with surprising similarities to the latest one.

Introduction It is the attempt to reform Christian life, undertaken by Wesley in the eighteenth century. Although this reform is generally supposed to have focused exclusively on individual salvation, this is in fact an anachronistic characterization more applicable to many of the nineteenth-century revivals, which appropriated the cult of the individual and of personality, so important to bourgeois culture. Wesley had in view the transformation of all of life on the basis of the gospel. And this transformation was so intimately linked to economic issues that the enterprise of scriptural Christianity could be said to succeed or fail depending on the way in which it did or did not transform the relation to wealth, property, and the poor. Thus economics has a central place in Wesley's project of transforming the nation and spreading "scriptural holiness throughout the land." And this economics is an "evangelical" economics, since it emphasizes the gospel as the basis of the theory and practice of an economics totally at variance with the regnant theory and practice of "worldly" economic relations.

WHICH TEXTS?

It is easy for us to miss the significance and scope of this evangelical economics because we are trained to look for it in the wrong places. The systematic habit of mind that we owe, perhaps, to the ghost of Hegel encourages us to look for grand and sweeping theoretical vistas, which can then be made concrete through application to, and illustration by, particular instances. Nothing could be further from Wesley's approach. In theology he does not enunciate major themes like christology or atonement, from which to draw conclusions about, say, freedom from sin. He is more likely to begin from something like gossip or backbiting and show its incompatibility with love, and in the process say something about the divine nature or the "end of Christ's coming." The same is true of his economic ethics.

Wesley does not start off with a theory of actual or ideal economic relations, which is then applied to the problem of unemployment. Rather he begins with the concrete reality of his

Good News to the Poor hearers or readers. They are spending money on clothes, but their neighbor has none. This then opens the way to a demonstration of the incompatibility of this with the gospel.

Wesley's evangelical economics is most vigorously stated in sermonic essays on visiting the sick, on dress, and on stewardship, so that those who come at Wesley with a set of ready-made questions about class consciousness or government policy or free trade will be reduced to quarreling over scraps.

This is partly what makes the reading of Wesley seem so tedious. He seems to be endlessly preoccupied about triviality, about adiaphora. Unless we ask why Wesley is concerned about this or that seemingly trivial pursuit and listen attentively to what he says in reply, we will overlook his social and economic ethic entirely. The supposition that counsel about visiting the sick and not buying jewelry and abstaining from drinking tea are only "personal" ethics and so not relevant to broader social questions says more about modern alienated consciousness, with its segregation of the personal from the public, than it does about the triviality and legalism, let alone individualism, of Wesley's ethics.

In attempting to clarify Wesley's evangelical economics, then, it is important not only to pay attention to the texts that dominate the scholarly discussion of this problem—for example, Wesley's sermon "On the Uses of Money'"—but also to attempt a fresh appraisal on the basis of a rereading of all the pertinent texts. It will become clear that the deficiency of many readings of Wesley is that they endlessly repeat the same set of quotations from Wesley without placing them in the context of Wesley's economic thought as a whole. Thus the supposition that Wesley contributed to the rise of a capitalist ethos, whether this is viewed positively (Warner, Semmel) or negatively (Cort,

Thompson), is traceable to an arbitrary restriction in the data, to the lack of an appraisal of texts whose relevance has sometimes been obscured by the supposition that they deal not with the social question of economics but with the petty moralizing of a strictly personal ethic.

In fairness this partial reading of Wesley has been fostered by Methodist tradition itself, which has frequently sought to view

Wesley in terms of the narrowest interpretation of evangelical

Introduction concern for individual souls. But I will argue that this reading is mistaken. Those who seek to deflect attention from the pressing themes of social transformation by speaking of the evangelical imperative to save souls cannot find solace in Wesley's practice or thought. While Wesley did emphasize personal conversion, this was always inseparably linked to a real transformation in the form of one's life. This transformation did not simply make one a more complacent exemplar of conventional morality, but rather brought one into necessary conflict with the character of the world and its conventional wisdom. Above all it had to result in a transformation of one's relation to the world, especially as this world was instantiated in mammon, the desire of riches, the ethos of acquisition and expenditure. Those "evangelicals" who preach a conversion that does not turn us toward the poor, that does not result in a redistribution of wealth, cannot plausibly claim that there is any relation between saving persons and changing society. Rather they are offering individual salvation as a substitute for meaningful transformation either of persons or of society. Such a project receives no support from either

Wesley or the gospel he sought to serve.

A THEOLOGICAL READING

There have been a number of very useful studies of the rise of Methodism within the socioeconomic and political environment of the eighteenth century. This essay does not attempt to cover that well plowed ground. Rather it has seemed important to me to attempt to reread Wesley himself. I do not mean to suggest that Wesley can be fully understood apart from the social environment within which he worked. But I am persuaded that the studies of this social environment can become truly illuminating only insofar as they are informed by a thorough reading of Wesley himself, a reading that seeks to understand the relation between the apparently diverse themes of his treatment of evangelical economics. This is not, in the first place, a historical task, but a theological one. It is an attempt to understand the internal coherence of Wesley's thought on this

Good News to the Poor subject as a theme addressed also to us for theological consideration.

; I approach these texts not as a historian but as a theologian, as one concerned to understand what it might mean to consider economic life as a theme for theological reflection and as one whose main concern is to address contemporary Christendom with this theme.

This reading of Wesley is, then, an attempt at what Wesley called "practical divinity." That is, it seeks to clarify a dimension of the life of the Church and of Christians on the basis of, or by means of a reading of, Wesley. This is by no means the only way to engage in such a practical theology. One may do so, as I have attempted to do, by way of an interpretation of the central acts of the life of the community, its worship.' Or one may seek to develop studies of ministerial function (as in many forms of pastoral theology). Or one may seek, as Wesley did, to develop clarifications of particular doctrines that bear prominently on the Christian life; themes like "the new birth" or the problem of "sin in believers." Or one may even attempt a comprehensive theological treatment of all doctrines relevant to a direct consideration of Christian existence, as for example Reinhold

Niebuhr's Nature and Destiny of Man. But one may also attempt to clarify one or another of these issues by means of a reading of classic texts, whether biblical texts or texts produced by previous theologians in the attempt to clarify these issues for their own time. It is the latter task that this book sets for itself.

Now the aim of such an inquiry is, to a certain degree, historical—that is, it attempts to get at what the theologian in question was really after. It would be irresponsible to simply use isolated fragments of his or her thought as proof texts for one's own position. This would not only violate canons of academic inquiry, but it would also be discourteous to persons or texts that have no means of defending themselves from such misuse.

But it would be similarly inappropriate to confine one's reading of such texts to a strictly "historical" reading that relegates the text to the past, hermetically sealing it off from the possibility of illuminating any era other than its own. Too often a historical reading succeeds in producing a mound of scholarship heaped like a pyramid to cover the tomb of its

Introduction subject. There is a sense in which a theological reading seeks to allow a text from the past to speak again, to become contemporary, to "live on."

Clearly it is a delicate balancing act to combine both a respect for the actual text as it was written with an insertion of that text into the different context of contemporary debate. All one can do is make oneself aware of this difficulty and seek to be responsible to both sides of the tension. This also means that one will accept the necessary differences in interpretation as a reflection not only of better and worse readings but also of the differing contexts within which the text is being read.

THE CONTEMPORARY DEBATE

Since theological readings of Wesley's texts will necessarily differ in terms of the frame of reference of the contemporary discussion in which they are read, it is important to specify in a general way what I take to be the terms of the discussion within which I read these texts of Wesley. I have already indicated in the preface of this book the autobiographical context. Here I will indicate something of the theological context.

One of the conditions for a rereading of Wesley in this connection is the move from an emphasis on political issues to an emphasis on economic issues as significant for the general theme of social ethics. This change of orientation is especially important for the development of what is generally known as "liberation theology."

This reading of Wesley does not presuppose a detailed knowledge of this liberation theology; still less does it seek to introduce the reader to the growing literature on this subject. But what may be called the general point of view (as opposed to the detailed formulations) of liberation theology does provide a point of departure. To a certain degree this merely reflects the contingent fact that I began reading Wesley at the same time that I was coming to terms with some of the themes of that liberation theology (see the preface). But I have also come to be persuaded that these

Good News to the Poor themes do in fact help to make clear what Wesley was getting at in his own theological reflection on evangelical economics. That is, the general themes of liberation theology serve as a point of view that can illuminate Wesley's own concerns and offer a perspective from which to consider the positive contribution of Wesley as well as suggesting ways to develop some of those themes in ways that move "beyond" Wesley.

Liberation theology begins as a commitment to the poor. It is a commitment that seeks to make the point of view of the poor determinative for theological, especially practical or pastoral, discourse. It supposes that "reality," especially social reality, looks different, depending on one's place within the social reality.

Let's take a trivial example. My doctor's office looks quite normal to me. But to someone who is wealthy and powerful it seems not only drab but also inconvenient and _ positively irritating; it is necessary to wait, to take one's turn, and so on.

But to the woman who lives in the shelter for the homeless it looks like a place of astonishing opulence. It is also a place that she cannot afford; it represents a level of medical care beyond her reach, a place that excludes her. The same observation might be made about the church on the corner, the shopping center, and so on. The point is that these things look different and mean different things, depending on where one is in the economic, social, or political system.

This difference may be generalized to larger sets of phenomena. Thus the activity of The United Methodist Church may appear, to those who are relatively comfortable in the social and economic world, to be generous and humane. Others who fear the loss of their privileges in the social system, or who wish to further buttress this position, may regard this denomination as being under the influence of dangerous left-wingers.

Meanwhile the truly poor and marginalized may see this church as either irrelevant to their needs or as systematically excluding them from meaningful participation, and as serving only to salve the conscience of affluent do-gooders while actually preventing any significant change. Similar differences may be seen in relation to issues like universal suffrage, labor unions, trade policy, and so on.

Introduction Liberation theology takes this difference seriously, but it does more. It decides that the most "true" of these points of view is the one that belongs to those who are generally excluded and marginalized—that is, those who suffer most from the existing arrangements and realities: the poor. It sides with the poor and takes as its initial point of departure their plight, their condition.

This is what it means to make a "preferential option for the poor." It means to view reality from the point of view of those who suffer, who are helpless, who are victims.

Such a move is made not simply on the demographic grounds that this is the situation of the majority of people on our planet, but also on the theological grounds that this is what the gospel requires of us. Indeed much of liberation theology consists in the hermeneutical spiral by which the Bible illumines the situation of the poor and the situation of the poor illuminates the reading of the Bible. By this means it is possible to recognize in the Bible God's turning to the poor (whether as slaves in Egypt or the dispossessed of prophetic concern or the despised to whom Jesus turned and in whose plight he told his disciples he was to be found) as an analogue to what must be done in our own situation.

Of course, the point of this solidarity with the poor is to transform their condition of marginalization. It does this in part by simply making the cry of the poor heard where before it was silenced. It does this as well by enabling the poor to become not simply passive victims of the way things are but also agents for the change of society. Moreover it may do this by cooperating with other projects for the alteration of the plight of the poor and oppressed, even when these projects are governed by non-Christian perspectives. This option for the poor, then, becomes the starting point for the transformation of theological reflection, of pastoral action, and of social reality as a whole.

This multi-faceted project is developed in terms of the specific reality of the Third World, especially Latin America, and by using the available resources of social, economic, and political analysis. In Latin America especially this has meant an appropriation of some of the categories of Marxist social analysis, both because these seem to illuminate helpfully the social situation and because they are the categories in terms of

Good News to the Poor which the intellectual debate of Latin American culture is carried on. However, this does not mean that these theologians make themselves subservient to a particular ideological and superpower partner, any more than Wesley's use of the categories of Deism in considering questions like civil liberty made Wesley simply a Deist.

This is a brief sketch of what I take to be the terms of debate within which it seems helpful to read Wesley. I will argue that Wesley is in many respects far closer to this liberation theology perspective than he is generally recognized to be. Conversely, I will suggest that a consideration of Wesley's refusal of the point of view of wealth and power together with his determination to make the point of view of the poor normative is illuminated by the perspective of liberation theology. In evaluating Wesley's evangelical economics I will argue that Wesley in fact has something important to offer, not only in opening us to a fresh appreciation of the themes of liberation theology, but also

(perhaps) in making a contribution to the further development of liberation theology itself. It will also appear that the terms of our contemporary discussion suggest ways of "updating"

Wesley's point of view so as to take into account our altered theological, as well as socioeconomic, reality.

EVANGELICAL ECONOMICS

I have explained how I intend to read Wesley in this book, but now I must explain the theme of this reading. I have identified this theme as "evangelical economics." What I mean by this is the way in which the gospel may inform our interaction with the sphere of economics, with "making a living." Economics may and should be dealt with in terms of the larger picture of the means of production and modes of trade and so on. In the modern era we have become increasingly aware of the way in which this sphere of "macroeconomics" affects our lives and those of all our fellow creatures (not only human beings, as the ecological crisis makes clear).

This larger picture is one that has really only come into view in

Introduction the modern period. But the day-to-day reality of wealth and poverty, of accumulating and sharing, of gaining, spending, and giving has always been a subject of awareness. It affects all of us, and does so immediately. While in our own time it is necessary to address the larger economic picture in ways not possible for those to whom this picture was opaque, the reflections of earlier periods on the more immediate economic sphere are not without relevance for us, since they did attempt to clarify some of the basic values that pertain to human interaction in this sphere.

When we turn to earlier thinkers for help in this area, we cannot ask them what they have to say about nuclear power or labor-management relations or collective bargaining or Third

World debt or the effects of industrialization, still less post-industrialization. These were issues hardly even glimpsed by the eighteenth century. What we can ask of them is whether the economic sphere is one that may be helpfully illuminated in terms of basic human values, of basic commitments generated by hearing and adhering to the gospel.

Of course, many will suppose that we are entirely on our own here, that economic reality has so drastically changed that there is no possibility of getting help from previous periods of history, still less from something so ancient as the first-century gospel.

But Christians are unlikely to be fully persuaded of this. They are likely to suppose that certain basic principles apply to our own circumstances, however much altered they may be from those of the first century. The help may be only indirect, but it is nevertheless real.

This was certainly Wesley's approach. He recognized that eighteenth-century economic reality was not the same as that which obtained for first-century Palestine, or even the more cosmopolitan world of the Roman Empire. Still Wesley thought the gospel was not irrelevant to the task of clarifying the nature of an appropriate participation in the economic reality of his own time. It still spoke. That is what it means to say that Wesley developed an evangelical economics. He interpreted contemporary economic reality in terms or categories derived from the Bible generally and from the gospel in particular.

In this study, "evangelical economics" will refer to the set of

Good News to the Poor notions that Wesley developed on the basis of his reading of the Bible to illuminate and to govern the activity of Christians in the world of economics. It thus refers to the interrelationship between such notions as the criticism of wealth, the forms of solidarity with the poor, the notion of stewardship, and the vision of an economic practice based on the example of the Pentecostal community. I will try to show that these are not simply a set of isolated themes, but really have an integrated and unitary character in Wesley's thought.

A consideration of Wesley's evangelical economics may suggest something of the scope of such a task for contemporary theological reflection—not that Wesley is beyond reproach in all of this, or that he provides us with a fully adequate model of Christian ethics, or that we may simply appropriate Wesley's answers to our questions. Rather, by attending to what and how

Wesley thinks about economic justice, we may be provoked to do our own thinking about our own situation on the basis of the same gospel that provoked his thought and practice. This may be particularly useful for those who think of themselves as the spiritual or, at least, institutional descendants of Wesley and who find themselves perplexed about the relationship between evangelical piety and a preferential option for the poor.

SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT

To present Wesley's views as clearly as possible I will first indicate how it is that one who seems at first so reactionary in his political commitments can become an exponent of a radical socioeconomic ethic. While Wesley may have largely accepted the political status quo, this was not true of the economic one.

His critical stance toward given economic structures, relationships, and attitudes was made possible by a demystification of wealth and power. This demystification has its basis in a view of the danger that wealth poses for faith, and leads Wesley to a critique of the Constantinian alliance between the community of faith and the forces of economic power and privilege (chap. 2).

This demystification of wealth and power, then, makes

Introduction possible what we would today call a preferential option for the poor. Wesley overcomes the danger of a merely sentimental turn toward the poor by means of an immersion in the concrete reality of the poor. This results in taking the question of the plight of the poor as the criterion of all action, including the so-called "spiritual" action of the Church (chap. 3).

With the immersion in the concrete reality of the poor comes the possibility of a transformation in standpoint or point of view, such that otherwise commonplace activities and practices are seen to be destructive of the life of the poor. Out of such a transformation of standpoint comes Wesley's protest against injustice, whether in the domestic form of exploitation or in the wider arena of oppression represented by colonialism and slavery (chap. 4).

But Wesley is not content merely to condemn injustice. He is also concerned to develop a positive ethic that will alter the given socioeconomic reality. Thus he proposes a view of stewardship that breaks the spell of "private property" and leads to a redistribution of wealth whose criterion is the welfare of the poor. This goes so far as to lead Wesley to an acceptance of the economic model of the Pentecostal community of Acts 2-4, which "had all things in common" and "made distribution to the poor," as the proper expression of a Christian faith that works by love (chap. 5).

This Pentecostal redistribution of wealth is often dismissed as an unworkable economic model. Wesley attempts to counter this objection through his own example, that of other exemplary

Methodists, and the practice of at least some of the societies. At every opportunity Wesley seeks to counter other objections to the practice of an evangelical economics. Despite this it appears that the Methodists were recalcitrant. Wesley's relation to the Methodists thus becomes increasingly polemical (chap. 6).

To understand how it is that Wesley could place so much stress on evangelical economics as the criterion of the success or failure of the Methodist movement as such, it is necessary to see how the major themes of Wesley's theology of the Christian life are implicated in the theory and practice of evangelical economics. Far from being a mere addendum to his thought or a dispensable application, the transformation of relations to 43)

Good News to the Poor prosperity, to the poor, and to property itself are the necessary consequence of Wesley's view of the nature of faith and grace.

This connection makes it appropriate for Wesley to suppose that the Methodist movement, whatever its incidental successes, was in danger of self-destruction (chap. 7).

But if Wesley's project of spreading scriptural holiness did fail precisely at the point of this evangelical economics, then it is important to see what are the ways in which Wesley himself contributed to this failure. This analysis is to be distinguished from the attempt to assess the impact of Wesley on his followers or of them on their age. This has been attempted by a number of historians, but usually without attending to the question of the ways in which Wesley himself may have opened the door to a misunderstanding and a misrepresentation of the key elements of his evangelical economics. Such an internal criticism of Wesley's manner of presenting his evangelical economics helps us to see some of the pitfalls that must be avoided if the project of Methodism is to be realized

(chap. 8).

Finally it is necessary to ask about the relevance of Wesley's views for our own very different situation. Thus we will have to inquire about the limits and the possibilities of Wesley's thought for our own time (chap. 9).

This study then is organized in such a way as to permit the themes of Wesley's economic ethic to emerge in a coherent way.

Wesley was not a deductive but an inductive thinker. Accordingly the theological basis of his evangelical economics is not presented first but as a part of the argument for the importance of the ethic (chap. 7). Instead of attempting to present all of Wesley's social ethic, I have relegated his political thought to an appendix so that the true character of his economic ethic can emerge in its full radicality.

This book is an attempt to clarify Wesley's views on their own terms through careful attention to his own texts. I have not attempted a scholarly discussion of the important secondary literature on Wesley or his movement except in notes that serve to place my argument within the framework of representative texts in that scholarship.

The text cited is Thomas Jackson's edition of The Works of John

Introduction Wesley, except where otherwise noted. Since this text is the most widely available and the least expensive, it is in keeping with the aim of this study to use it. That aim is to address the nonspecialist with the question of an evangelical economics by means of a reflection on the texts of John Wesley.

CHAPTER TWO

THE DEMYSTIFICATION

OF WEALTH

H owisit that Wesley, who opposed democracy and seems to have believed it to be his duty to support the political status quo, could be the same Wesley who vigorously opposed injustice and dedicated himself to seek the welfare of the poor as the necessary consequence of saving faith? While

Wesley always supported the monarchy, he was by no means an apologist for wealth and privilege. Indeed he saw these as the chief enemies of faith and holiness. It is because of this that he was able to break the hold of conservative political views to embrace the cause of the poor. The entry point to a consideration of Wesley's socioeconomic ethic, therefore, must be an examination of the way he was able to demystify wealth and power. Since this is also a critical task today, it may be helpful to see what is at stake in such a demystification in our own situation. In this way we will better be able to see the importance of the breakthrough that Wesley makes in this sphere.

Perhaps the most pernicious threat to the gospel of Jesus Christ is the pseudo-gospel of wealth and power. This pseudo-gospel takes many forms in the contemporary world. It is most crudely expressed in the evangelizing message of Pentecostal and fundamentalist missionaries from the United

States in their penetration of the Third World. Their message is that socioeconomic upward mobility is the sign of divine approval. Those who are converted are promised that they will

Good News to the Poor receive material blessings. The present poverty that some of their hearers experience is a sign of God's disapproval, a curse that conversion will speedily remove. Those who have already begun their move toward wealth are absolved of any guilt they may begin to feel about the economic distance that separates them from their family and friends. Indeed any attempt to relieve poverty directly is not only unnecessary, but it is also impious, flying in the face of God's manifest will.

Far from being a scandal, the accumulation of wealth on the part of the apostles of this gospel is an appropriate consequence of their faith and is the divine seal of approval on their message and ministry. Since an obvious corollary of this message is that the immense wealth and power generated by the economic system of the United

States is a special sign of divine approval, it is similarly impious to attack the policies of the United States, especially as they relate to its dealings with poorer nations. It should not be too surprising, then, if we find the groups who bring this message to be well-funded by the wealthy in the United States.' This pseudo-gospel of wealth and power is the grassroots movement whose mission is to combat liberation theology. Indeed, one of its basic tenets as it moves into Latin America is that liberation theology is a satanic perversion of the gospel.

While this ideology may be found in its crudest form among those who launch "evangelistic" missions to the Third World, and especially to Latin America, it is not invisible in the United

States itself, as the recent scandals involving the PTL Club and others should make evident. It is noteworthy that in many circles it was not and is not felt to be scandalous that the electronic evangelists should make million dollar salaries, but only that they should do so while breaking the rules of sexual or financial conduct. Thus Wesley's comments about the willful ignoring of Jesus' prohibition of laying up treasure on earth among the Christians of his day apply with undiminished force to our own time.

There are many who will neither rob nor steal; and some who will not defraud their neighbour; nay, who will not gain either by his ignorance or necessity. But this is quite another point. Even these do not scruple the thing, but the manner of it. They do not scruple

The Demystification of Wealth the "laying up treasures upon earth;" but the laying them up by dishonesty. They do not start at disobeying Christ, but at a branch of heathen morality. So that even these honest men do no more obey this command than a highwayman or a house-breaker. Nay, they never designed to obey it. From their youth up, it never entered into their thoughts. They were bred up by their Christian parents, masters, and friends, without any instruction at all concerning it; unless it were this,—to break it as soon and as much as they could, and to continue breaking it to their lives' end.?

That the only thing that scandalizes the majority of persons even today is not wealth but underhanded means of acquiring it shows that we have not yet learned all we might from Wesley.

But before pointing the finger too gleefully in the direction of the religious right, we should acknowledge that the underlying suppositions that legitimate the egregious wealth of some of its leaders are widely shared even in the religious culture of more centrist groups. There are, of course, groups that explicitly make the support of capitalism (sometimes called economic democracy) a hallmark of Christian faithfulness. But even those who would think twice about equating Christianity and capitalism would not question the assumption that upward economic mobility is consistent with Christian faith or that the mcrease of middle-class comforts is a divine blessing. What

Protestant clergy in the United States would suppose that pastors should not receive a larger salary simply because they serve a larger or more wealthy congregation? Who supposes that there is an inherent contradiction between middle-class comfort and Christian discipleship? Thus, whether for the religious right or the religious "center," Wesley's lament of more than two centuries ago still holds:

They have read or heard these words [about laying up treasure] an hundred times, and yet never suspect that they are themselves condemned thereby, any more than by those which forbid parents to offer up their sons or daughters unto Moloch. O that God would speak to these miserable self-deceivers with his own voice, his mighty voice; that they may at last awake out of the snare of the devil, and the scales may fall from their eyes! ("Sermon on the Mount, Discourse VIII," V:366)* od

Good News to the Poor The gospel of wealth, whether in its more egregious forms or in the subtler (or perhaps simply less consistent) acquiescence in the dominant values of a consumer society, is a persistent and widespread ideology and ethos that makes the prophetic note sounded by liberation theology in the twentieth century, or by Wesleyan theology in the eighteenth century, appear to be either a perversion of the gospel or simply an unintelligible rendition of it.

No prophetic critique of this dominant ethos or of the ideology that supports it can make much headway unless wealth and power are themselves demystified. While the demystification of wealth and power is a dominant theme of the Old and New Testaments, it has also been undertaken by some of the theologians of the Christian tradition. For those who are members of the Wesleyan movement, the work of John Wesley in this regard is or should be especially significant. The various Methodist and holiness churches that derive from Wesley's movement of evangelization may find in his thought an antidote to the poison of the pseudo-gospel of wealth and a helpful point of entry into a more authentic understanding of the biblical witness. And those who do not stand within the Wesleyan tradition may nevertheless find here a provocative wedding of evangelical fervor and radical social witness.

THE TEMPTATIONS OF WEALTH

To see the way in which Wesley develops his critique of wealth and power, it will be helpful to begin where Wesley himself often begins, with the analysis of the perils and possibilities of the personal life of faith. For Wesley the stakes in the life of faith were always high, losing one's soul or gaining the kingdom of God. It is precisely this which is at stake, he maintains, in the economic life of the Christian. For those who take for granted the values of a society committed to consumer capitalism, the words of Wesley must seem decidedly perverse:

The Demystification of Wealth Those who calmly desire and deliberately seek to attain [possessions], whether they do, in fact, gain the world or no, do infallibly lose their own souls. These are they that sell Him who bought them with his blood, for a few pieces of gold or silver.

These enter into a covenant with death and hell; and their covenant shall stand; for they are daily making themselves meet to partake of their inheritance with the devil and his angels!

("Sermon on the Mount, Discourse VIII," V:369) What is the basis of this harsh judgment? Here Wesley was guided by his study of the life of faith both in the direct observation provided by the annual interview with all members of his movement and the store of learning gleaned from his work in producing The Christian Library. Hardly before or since has any theologian had such a vast body of data and reflection at hand for the development of an understanding of the life of faith.

An illustration of the application of this wisdom to the situation of those who had acquired possessions is Wesley's sermon "On Riches" (VII:214-22), which concludes the second series of sermons published in 1788. Here Wesley maintains, not for the first time, that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for those that have riches not to trust in them" (VII:215). Here as always Wesley defines the rich as "one that has food and raiment sufficient for himself and his family, and something over" (ibid.). This definition applies to any who find themselves in what today we would call the lower middle class!

But what is the harm in wealth? How does it imperil the life of faith? Wesley tries to make the answer as concrete as possible by examining the way wealth distorts the "tempers" that are the root of holiness.

In the first place, wealth is destructive of humility. In an earlier sermon, Wesley remarked of those who had possessions:

"How hard it is for them, whose every word is applauded, not to be wise in their own eyes! How hard for them not to think themselves better than the poor, base, uneducated herd of men!" ("Sermon on the Mount, Discourse VIII," V:368).

Good News to the Poor Wealth is also destructive of patience. Wesley illustrates this as follows:

Many years ago I was sitting with a gentleman in London, who feared God greatly, and generally gave away, year by year, nine tenths of his yearly income. A servant came in and threw some coals on the fire. A puff of smoke came out. The baronet threw himself back in his chair and cried out, "O Mr. Wesley, these are the crosses I meet with daily!" Would he not have been less impatient, if he had had fifty, instead of five thousand, pounds a year? ("The Danger of Riches," VII:13; see also "On Riches,"

VII:220) Even one who on Wesley's terms was in many respects an exemplary Christian was damaged by the baleful influence of wealth. And what must be the case of those who neither fear

God nor give away all but a tithe of their fortune?

Wealth has the tendency not only to destroy humility and patience, but also to produce vices. Thus it produces passions contrary to the love of our neighbour: Contempt, for instance, particularly of inferiors, than which nothing is more contrary to love:—Resentment of any real or supposed offense; perhaps even revenge, although God claims this as his own peculiar prerogative:—At least anger; for it immediately rises in the mind of a rich man, "What! to use me thus! Nay, but he shall soon know better: I am able to do myself justice!" ("On Riches," VII:220)

While Wesley did not accept the popular notion that the poor were lazy, he knew that the rich were:

You cannot deny yourself the poor pleasure of a little sleep, or of a soft bed. .

. Indeed, you "cannot go out so early in the morning; besides it is dark, nay, cold, perhaps rainy too.

. ." You did not say so when you were a poor man. You then regarded none of these things. .

. You are but the shadow of what you were! What have riches done for you? ("The Danger of Riches," VII:13)

And with the increase of pride and sloth, it is no longer felt to be appropriate to identify oneself with the poor, to minister to their

The Demystification of Wealth needs. The one who before was willing to visit the poor is so no longer:

What hinders? Do you fear spoiling your silken coat? Or is there another lion in the way? Are you afraid of catching vermin? And are you not afraid lest the roaring lion should catch you? Are you not afraid of Him that hath said, "Inasmuch as ye have not done it unto the least of these, ye have not done it unto me?" ("The Danger of Riches," VII:14) As the last quotation warns, the possession of wealth tends to a forgetfulness of God, a kind of practical atheism (see also

"On Riches," VII:217). Ultimately it leads to idolatry, loving the creature in place of the Creator: "But to how many species of idolatry is every rich man exposed! What continual and almost insuperable temptations is he under to 'love the world!' and that in all its branches,—the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life" ("On Riches," VII:218).

In sermon after sermon (with titles like "On Riches," "The Danger of Riches," and "On the Danger of Increasing Riches"),

Wesley hammers home the theme that the increase in possessions leads naturally to the death of religion. Wesley was not at all bashful about enforcing this message on the wealthy themselves. On several occasions in his Journal, Wesley reports his own attempt to carry his point directly to the rich. One

'lustration of this will indicate the general practice: "In the evening I was surprised to see, instead of some poor, plain people, a room full of men daubed with gold and silver. That I might not go out of their depth, I began expounding the story of Dives and Lazarus" (Journal, Mar. 29, 1750, II: 178). Wesley was a firm believer in confrontation. Indeed, he wrote an entire sermon on the subject, entitled "Ihe Duty of Reproving Our

Neighbor" (V1I:296-303).

But Wesley did not confine his reproof to the pulpit. In a letter to Mrs. Bennis, he wrote, "Some time since, when I heard brother Bennis had got very rich, I was in fear for you, lest the world should again find a way into your heart" (Dec. 1, 1773,

X11:397). In much the same vein, he writes to a wealthy man: ab

Good News to the Poor The grand maxims which obtain in the world are, The more power, the more money, the more learning, and the more reputation a man has, the more good he will do. And whenever a Christian, pursuing the noblest ends, forms his behaviour by these maxims, he will infallibly (though perhaps by insensible degrees) decline into worldly prudence. (May 16, 1759, XII:231)

His admonition to a woman in similar circumstances is even more direct:

Riches increased; which not only led you, step by step, into more conformity to the world, but insensibly instilled self-importance, unwillingness to be contradicted, and an overbearing temper. And hence you was, of course, disgusted at those who did not yield to this temper, and blamed that conformity...

Can you be too sensible, how hardly they that have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven? Yea, or into the kingdom of an inward heaven? Into the whole spirit of the Gospel? How hard it is for these (whether you do or no?) not to conform too much to the world! How hard not to be a little overbearing, especially to inferiors! (Journal, June 27, 1769, II1:368-69; see also letter of March 20, 1759, XII:225-26) Even on those rare occasions when the possession of wealth did not utterly destroy faith, Wesley thought he could still discern its destructive influence. In his Journal, Wesley writes of William Osgood: "He was a good man, and died in peace.

Nevertheless, I believe his money was a great clog to him, and kept him in a poor, low state all his days, making no such advance as he might have done, either in holiness or happiness"

(Dec. 13, 1767, I1I:309). But his more typical view is expressed in an earlier extract from his Journal: "I rode to S———, with one to whom a large estate is fallen, by her uncle's dying without a will. It is a miracle if it does not drown her soul in everlasting perdition" (April 30, 1754, 11:312).

Whether in Journal, sermon, or correspondence, Wesley did not flinch from what he took to be the clear teaching of the New

Testament, that the acquisition of possessions, the attainment of wealth in any form, must lead to the destruction of faith itself.

Far from being the sign of divine favor, the increase of worldly

The Demystification of Wealth prosperity destroys faith and love and so leads the unwary soul into perdition.

On this basis Wesley could give stern advice to parents, which flew in the face of convention, or as Wesley would say, "worldly prudence." To those who took thought to the career of their sons (daughters did not yet come into view here) Wesley wrote in his sermon "On Family Religion":

"In what business will your son be most likely to love and serve God? In what employment will he have the greatest advantage for laying up treasure in heaven?" I have been shocked above measure in observing how little this is attended to, even by pious parents!

Even these consider only how he may get most money; not how he may get most holiness! (VII:84) By now there should be no need to indicate that for Wesley these were not simply different but incompatible aims. One cannot serve both God and mammon. Thus getting more money is incompatible with getting more holiness. The same principle is invoked with respect to marriage (and here both daughters and sons come into view): "Now you know what the world calls a good match,—one whereby much money is gained....It is a melancholy thing to see how Christian parents rejoice in selling their son or their daughter to a wealthy Heathen!" (VII:85).

And in the sermon on "The Difference Between Walking by Sight and Walking by Faith," Wesley asks:

Which do you judge best,—that your son should be a pious cobbler, or a profane lord? Which appears to you most eligible,—that your daughter should be a child of God, and walk on foot, or a child of the devil, and ride in a coach-and-six?

(VII:261; see also the sermon "On a Single Eye," VII:302) Thus Wesley does not hesitate to enforce his view of the harmful influence of wealth even in the most concrete terms.

It is wealth, then, that is inimicable to faith. But why is this so?

In part Wesley is simply carrying forward a number of biblical maxims: "You cannot serve both God and mammon" (Matt.

6:24); "But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge men oT

Good News to the Poor into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all evils" (I Tim. 6:9-10 RSV); "But the cares of the world, and the delight in riches, and the desire for other things, enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful" (Mark 4:19 RSV, see also Matt. 13:22). These are, indeed, among Wesley's favorite texts for preaching.'

But more is at stake here than a random selection of texts.

Wesley provides a consistent rationale for his position as well. It is not, he maintains, that "money is an evil in itself" (VI:265) or that it is "more sinful to be rich than to be poor. But it is dangerous beyond expression" (VII:250). The ground of this danger is that "the possession of riches naturally breeds the love of them" (VI:265). And it is by means of this love for or attachment to riches that the love of the world enters to subvert a simple reliance on the gospel.

Wesley's pastoral concern for the souls of his hearers was by no means simply otherworldly. He saw that the life of faith was mortally wounded when it fell unawares into the snare of acquisition and consumption. The ethos of mammon in the form of the desire to seek possessions was seen to be every bit as great a destroyer of faith as naked unbelief. Indeed there is nothing that Wesley so emphasizes as being destructive of the life of faith as the acquisition and expenditure of wealth. Nor should we forget that he is thinking here not of millionaires, but of what for us is scarcely middle-class status. His experience in the "care of souls" (and what theologian has ever had more?) convinced him that the New Testament warnings about wealth were all too correct. His message may well have seemed radical in the heyday of mercantile capitalism. How much more is this true in the world of consumer capitalism!

THE CONSTANTINIAN TEMPTATION

The corrosive power of wealth applies not only to individuals but to the Church as well. Thus Wesley sought to safeguard

Methodists from this destructive force.

His vigilance in safeguarding the community from the temptations of wealth

The Demystification of Wealth was grounded in his understanding of the early history of the church. The glorious foundation of the church as Wesley saw it dated from Pentecost. But the fall from its original perfection came with Ananias and Sapphira, who disrupted the primitive communism of original Christianity by keeping back for themselves some of their own possessions (Acts 5:1-11). Wesley notes: "Mark the first plague which infected the Christian

Church; namely, the love of money!" ("The Mystery of Iniquity," V1:256; see also "The Wisdom of God's Counsels,"

VI:328) And when it comes to understanding the situation of the churches described in the Apocalypse of John, Wesley wonders why the corruption of the churches had not overwhelmed Smyrna and Philadelphia (Rev. 2:8-11; 3:7-13), and he concludes:

"It seems, because they were less wealthy.

. So that these, having less of this world's goods, retained more of the simplicity and purity of the gospel" ("The Mystery of Iniquity," VI:260).

It was Wesley's intention that Methodism regain a full measure of the "simplicity and purity of the gospel," and thus to undo the fall of the Church at the hands of those who desired riches, whether in the first or the eighteenth centuries. In this way he supposed it to be possible to launch a new era of genuine

Christianity by means of the people called Methodists. In this light, it is not hard to understand Wesley's repeated warnings to his societies.

I gave all our brethren a solemn warning not to love the world, or the things of the world. This is one way whereby Satan will surely endeavour to overthrow the present work of God. Riches swiftly increase on many Methodists, so called: What, but the mighty power of God, can hinder their setting their hearts upon them?

And if so, the life of God vanishes away. (Journal, July 11, 1764, III:187; see also the Journal entries for Oct. 20, 1764, I1I:200; June

28, 1765, I11:227; Dec. 5 and 9, 1779, 1V:172; and passim) In a later chapter we will have occasion to explore the way in which this theme brought Wesley into fateful conflict with Methodism itself (see chap. 8). Here it is enough to note that Wesley's admonition to the people called Methodists springs a0

Good News to the Poor from deeply held conviction and rigorously applied principle.

The observation common to sociologists since the time of Weber that protestantism produces upward socioeconomic mobility would cause Wesley no comfort. Unlike those who find the growing prosperity of their members to be a sign of divine favor, Wesley knew that what beckoned was a snare of Satan.

For those who suppose that the success of the gospel may be correlated with social, political, and economic advancement, the conversion of Constantine in the fourth century, with the consequent end of persecution and inauguration of the era of Christendom, must naturally seem to be the divine vindication of Christianity. This event cements the alliance of the Church with the most powerful and influential, and so establishes

Christianity as the defender of the status quo. But is the conversion of Constantine an appropriate paradigm of the success of the Christian mission?

Wesley's views on this point are most instructive. Despite his strong political conservatism, which made him an ardent defender of the king and a vigorous opponent of the American

Revolution, he was not at all mesmerized by the Constantinian paradigm. On several occasions he makes clear that the true fall of the Church (for which Ananias and Sapphira prepared the way) is to be located in the conversion of Constantine. In his sermon "On the Mystery of Iniquity" he writes:

Persecution never did, never could, give any lasting wound to genuine Christianity. But the greatest it ever received, the grand blow which was struck at the very root of that humble, gentle patient love, which is the fulfilling of the Christian law, the whole essence of true religion, was struck in the fourth century by Constantine the Great, when he called himself a Christian, and poured in a flood of riches, honours, and power, upon the Christians; more especially upon the Clergy. . .. Then, not the golden but the iron age of the Church commenced. (V1:261-62)

Thus Wesley finds himself in opposition to the view of "Dr.

Newton, the late Bishop of Bristol," who understandably, if somewhat incautiously, took the view "that the conversion of Constantine to Christianity, and the emcluments which he bestowed upon the Church with an unsparing hand, were the

The Demystification of Wealth event which is signified in the Revelation by 'the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven!' " ("Of Former Times," VII:164).

In contrast, Wesley emphasizes that this event has especially pernicious consequences for the clergy who were made so greedy by the reception of these favors that "it soon grew common for one man to take the whole charge of a congregation in order to engross the whole pay" thereby destroying the multiple ministries of the laity. ("The Ministerial

Office," VII:276) Wesley makes clear that his view does not depend on the particular features of Constantine's conversion but rather bears upon any alliance of the gospel with wealth and power.

From the time that the Church and State, the kingdoms of Christ and of the world, were so strangely and unnaturally blended together, Christianity and Heathenism were so thoroughly incorporated with each other, that they will hardly ever be divided till Christ comes to reign upon earth. So that, instead of fancying that the glory of the New Jerusalem covered the earth at that period, we have terrible proof that it was then, and has ever since been, covered with the smoke of the bottomless pit. ("Of Former Times," VII:164) It is important to note the vast difference that separates

Wesley's thought at this point even from that of those who have no experience with a State Church, for Wesley sees that any alliance with the power of the State must ultimately destroy the integrity of faith. Thus the attempts to gain influence, so characteristic of right-wing Christianity today in the United

States, is completely contrary to Wesley's view. Of course, in thus attempting to forge an alliance with the government of the most powerful nation on earth, the "conservatives" are only imitating the tactics of their mainline cousins.

Wesley is even led by the logic of his position to celebrate the total separation of Church and State, enshrined in the then brand-new United States Constitution. In what may be his only positive statement about the results of the rebellion of the American colonies, he notes that "the total indifference of the government there, whether there be any religion or none, leaves room for the propagation of true, scriptural religion, without

Good News to the Poor the least let or hindrance" ("Of Former Times," VII:165).

Ironically, what Wesley saw as a remarkable providence is attacked today by the religious right as secular humanism!

From Wesley's point of view, this could only be due to ignorance about the true character of the gospel. For Wesley, the loyal priest of the established Church, an alliance with wealth and power must ever corrupt the gospel. That is, there is an inherent contradiction between the gospel of love and peace, on the one hand, and the possession of privilege in the world on the other. Thus an alliance with wealth and power must result in the establishment of a pseudo-Christianity whose interests would lie in the maintenance of the system of wealth and power rather than in the propagation of true, scriptural Christianity.

In this way Christianity would become allied to the satanic Opposition to the gospel.

This is in fact what Wesley himself encountered in his own attempt to preach good news to the poor. The firestorm of persecution was unleashed by a combination of ecclesiastical authority, the wealthy, and the gentry. The alliance of wealth and power with ecclesiastical privilege is today often pitted against the church of the poor in many places of Latin America.

It is a situation that Wesley would have recognized.

The possibility of recognizing the opposition between Christianity and the powers of this world depends on the appropriation of apocalyptic imagery. Wesley supposed that Satan had control of the powers of the world and that Satan would not readily yield his dominion to the gospel of peace and love. Whether at the level of the individual heart or that of the socioeconomic arena, the entrance of the gospel must provoke a fierce struggle in which Satan would attempt to destroy the gospel. By allying itself with the very forces of wealth and privilege most intimately in league with Satan, Christianity walked into a trap. This is why Wesley could celebrate the entire separation of Church and State in the American experiment while the adherents to the gospel of wealth seek to make the State into the guarantor of its privileged position.®

Wesley's view of the conversion of Constantine as a catastrophe for the Church owes not to some notion that the wealthy and powerful should not be converted but to the effects

The Demystification of Wealth of that conversion. If Constantine had indeed been converted to a gospel that was good news for the poor, no damage need have resulted. But instead Constantine's conversion resulted in the subversion of this gospel. This occurs through the inundation of the church with "a flood of riches, honours, and power"

(VI1:261-62; VII:164, 178, 276; X:1). But of these three, by far the worst is riches.

The demystification of wealth, which Wesley carried out with such rigor in the analysis of the life of faith, provides him then with the possibility of breaking through the constraints of essentially conservative political views to a critique of the alliance of Christianity and the structures of the world. This does not bring Wesley to the point of a break with the established Church or the religiously sanctioned monarchy.

But it is remarkable that Wesley goes as far as he does, for the Constantinian paradigm was decisive for the Church of England, to which Wesley strove to be loyal. By bringing this paradigm into question, Wesley lays the ground work for a definitive break from that unity of religious piety and political loyalty that otherwise seems to characterize his political ethic.

Wesley does not himself draw this political conclusion from the critique of the Constantinian paradigm. But this critique does open the way to a fundamentally radical socioeconomic ethic. Once the attraction of Constantinianism is broken it is possible to become open to new ways of seeing the poor and their affliction.

THE WEALTH OF NATIONS

The demystification of wealth as carried through in relation to persons and to the Church also gives Wesley the possibility of understanding society generally from this point of view. His analysis of the causes of the American Revolution, in his essay-sermon "Some Account of the Late Work of God in North

America" (1778), makes use of some of the same themes he used in his analysis of the destruction of the work of God in the heart and in the Church. After noting the early history of the revival

Good News to the Poor of religion, forwarded by Whitefield and the Methodists, Wesley remarks:

But now it was that a bar appeared in the way, a grand hinderance to the progress of religion. The immense trade of America, greater in proportion than even that of the mother-country, brought in an immense flow of wealth, which was also continually increasing.

(VII:412)

Following an outline familiar to the reader or hearer of sermons on "The Danger of Riches," Wesley then traces on the wider stage of society at large the rise of those vices he had noted earlier on the personal plane. The American colonists now increased in pride (VII:412) and in luxury "particularly in food"

(VII:413), and this was accompanied by sloth:

Does not sloth easily spring from luxury? It did so here, in an eminent degree; such sloth as is scarce named in England. Persons in the bloom of youth, and in perfect health, could hardly bear to put on their own clothes. The slave must be called to do this, and that, and everything (VII:413).

This destruction of national virtue is what Wesley supposes to lie at the root of the spirit of "independency" and the consequent madness of the American rebellion. But the rebellion produces a loss of trade, a diminution of wealth, and so "by the adorable providence of God, the main hinderances of his work are removed" (VII:417).

The point here is not to argue the merits of Wesley's understanding of the causes of the American Revolution but to notice that his view of the dangers of wealth is applied to nations as well as to persons and to churches. Presumably Wesley would make a similar case with respect to the egregious wealth of contemporary heirs of that revolution and the pride, luxury

(consumerism), and contempt for the poor that too often issue from that wealth.

Just as wealth corrupts the life of the individual and subverts the life of the church, so also does it produce greed and violence in the life of nations. And as Wesley never tired of repeating, the resulting behavior of so-called Christian nations caused the

The Demystification of Wealth name of Christian to "stink in the nostrils" of the wretched of the earth. A similar case is made today by those who argue that the traditional alliance between Christianity and the structures of wealth and power make it inevitable that the poor and oppressed will turn from their faith when they reach out for freedom and justice, unless the church itself is converted to become in truth the church of the poor. The transformation in pastoral action called for and practiced by many of the theologians of liberation today in Latin America' has parallels to Wesley's call for a Christianity not allied with the powerful, a Christianity converted from the satanic snare of wealth and privilege.

CONCLUSION

While Wesley does not fully integrate his own demystification of wealth with what he would have called the "analogy of faith," he does provide a clearly articulated and consistently applied debunking of the basic assumptions of the pseudo-gospel of wealth and success. Indeed the concentration upon the personal life of faith, which is often cited as one of Wesley's weaknesses as a resource for social ethics, may actually be a source of strength.

Wesley does integrate the demystification of wealth and power with an evangelical concern for the life of faith, which provides an indispensable point of contact to a grassroots Methodism for which "spiritual" concerns have an undoubted primacy.

Moreover his concentration on the life of faith helps to make clear the extent to which the assumptions of cultural materialism have penetrated to the very heart and marrow of our consciousness. Think, for example, of his admonitions concerning marriage or the choice of a career."

And Wesley's very practical turn of mind serves also to alert the Church to the degree to which it collaborates in its own bondage to the structures of wealth and power, giving itself as hostage to them through, for example, the construction of expensive churches and in other ways making itself dependent on the patronage of the rich and powerful. Any serious critique

Good News to the Poor of society on the part of the people called Methodists must not forget to turn a critical eye on the aspects of its own institutional life that reflect the cultural values of getting and spending.

Although Wesley concentrates his attention on the personal and ecclesial aspects of a demystification of wealth and power, he does not ignore the larger social implications of this critique, as his analysis of the American Revolution indicates. Indeed, the critique of wealth and power makes it possible for Wesley to overcome some of the limits to his social ethic, imposed by his high church and monarchist convictions. It is precisely his understanding of the Constantinian temptation that opens the way toward a radical social ethic. While it is possible to fault

Wesley for not having seen all the implications of this insight, it is one that does permit him to develop an evangelical economics that can be an important contribution to contemporary Christian ethics, even in the context of the discussion of contemporary liberation theology.

CHAPTER THREE

A PREFERENTIAL OPTION

FOR THE POOR

henever wealth and power are uncritically celebrated W: the gift of God, and so as the sign of the divine favor, then the presence of poverty and powerlessness is all too naturally seen as an indication of divine disapproval, as punishment for sins of sloth or unbelief. The remedy suggested by the proponents of the gospel of wealth and success is conversion; this will then lead to those material blessings that, it is presumed, follow from a life of faith. Such a position makes it possible to hold the poor in contempt and makes the wealthy and powerful the role models of faith. But where wealth and power are not understood as the prima facie evidence of divine approval, where these are in fact understood in a negative light, then the way is open for what is today called a preferential option for the poor.

We have seen that Wesley has accepted this demystification of wealth and thus opened the way for a different assessment of the poor than that which attends the gospel of wealth. Of course, the danger is present that this turn toward the poor will remain at the sentimental level of extolling the virtues of poverty. This romanticizing of poverty then cuts the nerve of any attempt to alter the conditions of the poor. While the poor are not held in contempt, they are left in the condition of poverty as mere objects of charity. This is a danger that is present also today, when those who wish to evade the challenges of a liberation theology nevertheless employ the slogan of a

Good News to the Poor preferential option for the poor in a sentimental way that leaves the conditions of poverty unexamined and unchanged.'

In our analysis of Wesley's relation to the poor, we will have to first attend to the question of whether he forms merely a sentimental attachment to the poor or whether he moves to a concrete solidarity with them. We will then consider the way in which Wesley becomes an advocate for the poor, a voice raised on their behalf, articulating their affliction. This then leads toa consideration of praxis, in which concrete service to the poor becomes the test of Christian action. The presentation of Wesley's form of a preferential option for the poor will also have to take into account the question of the move from an ecclesial praxis to concrete proposals for public policy.

ATTACHMENT TO THE POOR

To some it seems scandalous that Christians should speak of a preferential option for the poor. After all, should our love not our concern? One can occasionally find in Wesley an attempt to be evenhanded in his assessment of the relative merits of the rich and the poor. In his 1735 sermon at Oxford, for example,

Wesley finds the rich and the poor equidistant from salvation by applying one of his favorite texts to the situation:

O faith, working by love, whither art thou fled? Surely the Son of man did once plant thee upon earth. Where art thou now? Among the wealthy? No. "The deceitfulness of riches" there "chokes the word, and it becometh unfruitful." Among the poor? No. "The cares of the world" are there, so that it bringeth forth no fruit to perfection. However, there is nothing to prevent its growth among those who have "neither poverty nor riches:"—Yes; "the desire of other things." ("The Trouble and Rest of Good Men," VII:368-69)

Already, here, Wesley has developed the view that economic considerations are the principal threat to the Christian life.

While a few other passages among his writings indicate that Wesley did not simply exclude the rich from the possibility of

A Preferential Option for the Poor salvation (Journal, 1:203; 11:52; I11:229), his attitude generally reflects the view that the gospel may more readily take root among the poor than among the rich. In a letter to Freeborn

Garretson, Wesley writes this rather typical assessment: "Most of those in England who have riches love money, even the Methodists; at least those who are called so. The poor are the Christians. I am quite out of conceit with almost all those who have this world's goods" (Sept. 30, 1786, XIII:71).

Thus when Wesley finds the well-to-do in his audience, he reports: "So I spake on the first elements of the Gospel. But I was still out of their depth. O how hard it is to be shallow enough for a polite audience!" (Journal, Sept. 25, 1771, 111:442). And when the wealthy appear attentive, he remarks, "Is it possible?

Can the Gospel have place where Satan's throne is?" (Journal, Mar. 8, 1767, I11:274). And when they do not return to hear his plain speaking, he remarks: "These dare not hear me above once: They find it is playing with edged tools" (Journal, May 4,

1767, I11:279). And when the rich are not discouraged by Wesley's pointed proclamation, Wesley himself might decide that it is time for him to go: "Many of the rich and honourable were there; so that I found it was time for me to fly away"

(Journal, Apr. 15, 1745, 1:490).

All of this is consistent with Wesley's missional priorities. In later years he could point to this as one of "the signs of the times," which confirmed the place of the Methodist revival in the eschatological plan of salvation: "And surely never in any age or nation, since the Apostles, have those words been so eminently fulfilled, "The poor have the gospel preached unto them,' as it is at this day" ("The Signs of the Times," V1I:308).

Wesley explains the importance of this strategy by saying, "Religion must not go from the greatest to the least, or the power would appear to be of men" (Journal, May 21, 1764,

III:178). Thus Wesley could say to some of his establishment critics, "The rich, the honourable, the great, we are thoroughly willing (if it be the will of our Lord) to leave to you.

Only let us alone with the poor, the vulgar, the base, the outcasts of men" (A Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion,

VIII:239).

Good News to the Poor As Wesley pointed out, this outreach to the poor was in part forced upon him when he was excluded from the churches of London. While this was sometimes then (and almost always now) attributed to his proclamation of justification by faith, Wesley himself provides a different explanation: "The far more common (and indeed more plausible) objection was, "The people crowd so, that they block up the church, and leave no room for the best of the parish' " (A Short History of the People

Called Methodists, X111:307). These are not really incompatible explanations, since the call for simple faith found a ready hearing among those who had nothing else to give. A church committed to a preferential option for the wealthy and the influential ("the best of the parish") is a Constantinian Church.

Such a Church will always find the responsiveness of the poor to the gospel somewhat discomfiting.

.As we have seen, Wesley's convictions about the corruption of faith by worldly prosperity lead naturally to a wariness concerning the effect of the wealthy and powerful on the commitment to scriptural Christianity., Thus Wesley can address a peer of the Realm: "I can truly say, I neither fear nor desire anything from your Lordship. To speak a rough truth, I do not desire any intercourse with any persons of quality in England. I mean, for my own sake. They do me no good; and I "4 fear, I can do none to them" (Letter to Lord

, July 26, 1764, XII:243). Wesley has come to see more clearly than he did before he was thrust out among the poor that it is the wealthy

are virtually impervious to the gospel, while the poor are willing and eager to hear.

It is not surprising, then, that Wesley should find the poor to be his favorite audience. Thus Wesley could write: "I love the poor; in many of them I find pure, genuine grace, unmixed with paint, folly, and affectation" (Letter to Miss Furly, Sept. 25,

1757, X11:200). The danger here is that this turn to the poor will simply be a sentimental attachment that ignores the harsh reality of poverty. Occasionally, passages in Wesley's works seem to indicate such a sentimental attachment. Thus he writes toward the end of his life: "O what an advantage have the poor over the rich! These are not wise in their own eyes, but all receive with meekness the ingrafted word which is able to save

A Preferential Option for the Poor their souls" (Journal, Sept. 19, 1788, IV:437). And again, "O how much better is it to go to the poor, than to the rich; and to the house of mourning, than to the house of feasting!" (Journal,

Apr. 2, 1782, IV:224). Despite these rare passages, which are susceptible of a sentimentalist reading, far more than a romantic attachment to the poor is involved here.

Attachment to and association with the poor, whatever motives may have inaugurated this movement, bring anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear into an encounter with the dehumanizing degradations of grinding poverty. Wesley had eyes. He also had a voice to lift up on behalf of the poor.

Scorning the words of a poet who claimed that ridicule was the worst part of poverty, Wesley wrote:

Has poverty nothing worse in it than this, that it makes men liable to be laughed at? It is a sign that this idle poet talked by rote of the things which he knew not. Is not want of food something worse than this? God pronounced it as a curse upon man, that he should earn it "by the sweat of his brow." But how many are there in this Christian country, that toil, and labour, and sweat, and have it not at last, but struggle with weariness and hunger together? Is it not worse for one, after a hard day's labour, to come back to a poor, cold, dirty, uncomfortable lodging, and to find there not even the food which is needful to repair his wasted strength? You that live at ease in the earth, that want nothing but eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to understand how well God hath dealt with you,—is it not worse to seek bread day by day, and find none? perhaps to find the comfort also of five or six children crying for what he has not to give! Were it not that he is restrained by an unseen hand, would he not soon "curse God and die?" O want of bread! want of bread! Who can tell what this means, unless he hath felt it himself? (""Heaviness Through Manifold Temptations," V1:96) Here speaks far more than sentiment. It is the voice of one who has entered into solidarity with the poor, of one who, unlike the poet, knows by long and intimate acquaintance the horrors of abject poverty.

Once compassion has been awakened, it opens the way to an identification with the poor and despised that protests on their

Good News to the Poor behalf the horror of their plight. For Wesley, this leads him to speak out not only on behalf of the poor but also on behalf of those whom society has incarcerated as criminals and lunatics.

In his Forms of Prayer, Wesley includes the petition: "Pity idiots and lunatics, and give life and salvation to all to whom thou hast given no understanding" (X1:225). And when, as an instrument of that compassion for which he has prayed, Wesley visits the infamous Bedlam, he writes:

It must be owned, aconfinement of such a sort is as fit to cause as to cure distraction; For what scene of distress is to be compared to it?-—To be separated at once from all who are near and dear to you; to be cut off from all reasonable conversation; to be secluded from all business, from all reading, from every innocent entertainment of the mind, which is leftto prey wholly upon itself, and day and night to pore over your misfortunes; to be shut up day by day in a gloomy cell, with only the walls to employ your heavy eyes, in the midst either of melancholy silence, or horrid cries, groans and laughter intermixed; to be forced by the main strength of those Who laugh at human nature and compassion, to take drenches of nauseous, perhaps torturing, medicines, which you know you have no need of now, but know not how soon you may, possibly by the operation of these very drugs on a weak and tender constitution: Here is distress! (A Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion, VIII:133) Scarcely a word of this description would have to be changed to make it applicable to the "mental health" hospitals of our time.

Wesley is equally passionate in his description of the horrifying conditions in which prisoners were kept:

You may easily be convinced of this, by going into either Ludgate or Newgate. What a scene appears as soon as you enter! The very place strikes horror into your soul. How dark and dreary! How unhealthy and unclean! How void of all that might minister comfort! .

. I know not, if, to one of a thinking, sensible turn of mind, there could be any thing like it on this side hell. (Ibid.,

VIII:173; cf. Journal, Feb. 3, 1753, I1:279)

A Preferential Option for the Poor Wesley protested not only the cruelty of this punishment but also its effect, that it merely served to make its victims "completely fitted for any kind or degree of villainy, perfectly brutal and devilish, thoroughly furnished for every evil word and work" (Ibid., VIII:173). Happily Wesley was, some years later, to find that these conditions could be improved (see

Journal, Jan. 2, 1761, III:33).

AND YOU VISITED ME

How is an attachment to the poor transformed from sentiment to solidarity? This question is one that is no less important for us today. Perhaps it is even more urgent today than it was in former times. Except for flickering images brought to us in the comfort of our homes by the modern miracle of satellite television, most of us live in entire isolation from the scenes of distress of which Wesley so eloquently spoke.

Thus talk of those who are impoverished or oppressed_or imprisoned or in other ways marginalized becomes abstract. We

. ave no direct experience to draw on to awaken passion or to provoke commitment.

— :

Wesley was, if nothing else, the theologian of experience. This did not mean for him a concentration upon isolated moments of interior religious excitement, but rather the immersion in lived experience, in the texture and duration of sensory involvement.

If you want to know what love is, you live the life of love and reflect on the vicissitudes of this journey through time.

Similarly, if one is to know something of poverty one must spend the time and energy to be with the poor and to appropriate what is encountered there.

It is in this light that we can understand the importance for Wesley of "visiting" the sick, the poor, the imprisoned. Apart from this practice of visitation, no real experience of the plight of the poor is possible. Without it, the nerve of compassion is cut and the possibility of a pertinent and transforming praxis wa is lost.

The practice of visiting the destitute and marginalized of

Good 'News to the Poor 70000000 English society was a feature of | Wesley's own Methodist discipline from the early days at Oxford until the end of his long career. Wesley's early motivation may have been simply to obey what, on the basis of Matthew 25, he took to be aclear command of the gospel. In his view, this would seem to be adequate motivation for anyone. Thus he maintained that although he certainly had plenty of other work to occupy his time (lovely understatement) and dearly loved solitude, "Yet I find time to visit the sick and the poor; and I must do it, if I believe the Bible"

(Letter to a Member of the Society, Dec. 10, 1777, X1I1:304).

And he warned that the rich would learn that they should have "constantly" visited the poor "in that day when 'every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor' " (Journal,

Jami (57 Lye).

However, Wesley realized that there were additional, and no less weighty, reasons for this practice than the sheer force of dominical authority. Thus he could remark that it was far better

"to carry relief to the poor, than to send it" not only for their sake but also because this was "far more apt to soften our heart, and to make us naturally care for each other" (Journal, Nov. 24,

1760, III:28). This last point is reinforced by Wesley when he adds that this visitation may also serve as a means of "increasing your sympathy with the afflicted, your benevolence, and all social affections" ("On Visiting the Sick," VII:119). Without this sort of personal engagement "you could not gain that increase in lowliness, in patience, in tenderness of spirit, in sympathy with the afflicted, which you might have gained, if you had assisted them in person" (Ibid., VII:120). Thus the practice of visitation was directly necessary for developing the sort of compassion that, for Wesley, was the heart of true religion.

Indeed Wesley could even maintain that visiting the poor and sick' and imprisoned was a means of grace, to be ranked alongside private and public prayer or the sacraments themselves ("On Zeal," VII:60). Thus Wesley said of visiting those whom today we would call the marginalized: "The walking herein is essentially necessary, as to the continuance of that faith whereby we are already saved by grace, so to the attainment of everlasting salvation" ("On Visiting the Sick," VII:117).

Closely connected to this is what we might today call the

A Preferential Option for the Poor consciousness-raising function of visiting the poor. Thus in his sermon on this theme Wesley remarked: "One great reason why the rich, in general, have so little sympathy for the poor, is, because they so seldom visit them" (Ibid., VII:119). Of the importance of this, especially in dispelling false stereotypes by which an indifference to the poor is often justified, Wesley attests from his own experience:

On Friday and Saturday, I visited as many more [of the poor] as I could. I found some in their cells underground; others in their garrets, half-starved both with cold and hunger, added to weakness and pain. But I found not one of them unemployed, who was able to crawl about the room. So wickedly, devilishly false is that common objection, "They are poor, only because they are idle." If you saw these things with your own eyes, could you lay out money in ornaments or superfluities? (Journal, Feb. 9-10, 17535

I1:279-80)

And on the next page of his Journal he reenforces the point:

I visited more of the poor sick. The industry of many of them surprised me. Several who were ill able to walk, were nevertheless at work; some without any fire, (bitterly cold as it was,) and some, I doubt, without any food. (Journal, Feb. 21, 1753, 11:281)

The value, then, of visiting the poor is that both hearts and minds may be transformed, that experience may lead to understanding.

The stereotype that Wesley explodes here and throughout his Journal is that of the laziness of the poor. Then as now there were those who shrugged off the plight of the poor and even made the poor culpable of their poverty with the smug assertion that the poor are indigent because they are indolent. Neither then nor now could such a generalization survive any acquaintance with the poor themselves.? This blindness can only be cured by the sort of concrete experience with the poor that Wesley insisted on as part of Methodist discipline in his own day.

Only in this way is it possible to experience the transformation of heart and mind that comes of visiting the poor.

With a change of heart and mind comes the possibility of

Good News to the Poor action.

It is then possible to speak out on behalf of the marginalized, as Wesley does when he speaks of the horrors of poverty or attacks the "devilishly false" bromide that the poor are lazy. This leads to a call for the transformation of others in their attitudes and behavior. Again Wesley reflects on his experience:

In the afternoon I visited many of the sick; but such scenes, who could see unmoved? There are none such to be found in a Pagan country. If any of the Indians in Georgia were sick, (which indeed exceedingly rarely happened, till they learned gluttony and drunkenness from the Christians,) those that were near him gave him whatever he wanted. O who will convert the English into honest Heathens! (Journal, Feb. 8, 1753, 11:279)

We will return to develop this theme of protest on behalf of the poor in the next chapter. Here it is important to note that this protest grows out of the practice of visitation.

The result of this visiting, finally, is an appropriate action aimed at aiding the poor. Thus Wesley writes again, "On the following days, I visited many of our poor, to see with my own eyes what their wants were, and how they might be effectually relieved" (Journal, Feb. 13, 1785, IV:296; see also Feb. 8, 1787,

IV:358). This is another theme that we will have to explore in more detail.

Before exploring those themes, however, it is important to be clear about what Wesley has in mind when he speaks, as he so often does, of visiting the sick or visiting the poor. Wesley defines the scope of visiting the sick as follows: "I would include all such as are in a state of affliction, whether of mind or body; and that, whether they are good or bad, whether they fear God or not" ("On Visiting the Sick," VII:118).

It is important to note this scope, since it makes clear that more is involved here than simply visiting one's friends or parishioners when they happen to be in the hospital. What recommends a person as a candidate for visitation is simply and solely her or his need. Wesley's practice, and that he urged upon all who thought of themselves as Methodists, was to find the afflicted and visit them. This is a deceptively innocuous looking

A Preferential Option for the Poor bit of advice, until one asks, "But how do I find the poor, the oppressed, the afflicted?" Then it becomes clear that what is at stake here is a breaking down of the walls that make so much human affliction invisible to us. Whether these are the walls ofa prison, behind which we hide the "criminal"; the walls of a hospital, behind which we hide the mentally ill; the stained-glass walls with which we hide ourselves from those who are of a different (or of no) faith. These must be penetrated if we are to visit the sick in Wesley's sense. Wesley was not unaware of the difficulty of this or of the radicalism it involved. To a gentlewoman who had become a member of one of his societies,

Wesley writes a series of letters that pound relentlessly on this theme:

Go and see the poor and sick in their own poor little hovels. Take up your cross, woman! Remember the faith! Jesus went before you, and will go with you. Put off the gentlewoman: You bear a higher character. (Letter toa Member of the Society, June 9, 1775,

X11:300) And in a subsequent letter: "I want you to converse more, abundantly more, with the poorest of the people. .

. Creep in among these, in spite of dirt, and a hundred disgusting circumstances; and thus put off the gentlewoman" (Letter to a Member of the Society, Feb. 7. 1210, wd liouL) And so it continues, through several more letters (XII:301-5) in which Wesley never lets up in exploding every excuse for avoiding this truly "converting ordinance."

It has been necessary to examine closely Wesley's views about visiting the sick since it is so easy to miss its critical importance, not only for an understanding of Wesley's thought and practice, but also for any clear understanding of what can prevent a preferential option for the poor from degenerating into sentimental or abstract rhetoric. By seizing on something so apparently simple as visiting the sick, Wesley has provided the Methodists with a practical grounding for what can become a radical praxis. In visiting the marginalized, we invite them to transform us, to transform our hearts, to transform our

Good News to the Poor understanding, to transform us inta instruments of the divine mercy and justice.

THE WELFARE OF THE POOR

As we have seen, this transformation can be accomplished only on the supposition that one is already acquainted with the dimensions of this need and is mobilized into service. That is the immediate result of visiting the poor. In his Forms of Prayer,

Wesley includes the petition: "Make me zealous to embrace all occasions that may administer to their happiness, by assisting the needy, protecting the oppressed, instructing the ignorant..." (XI:210). The manner in which this prayer was answered is the theme of this section.

What we may term a first level response is that of seeking to meet those needs oneself. This was the practice of Wesley's first group of Methodists at Oxford. Thus he reported in a letter to his father: "The poor at the Castle have still the gospel preached to them, and some of their temporal wants supplied, our little fund rather increasing than diminishing" (June 11, 1731,

XII:7). As we shall see, Wesley eventually turns this practice into the basis of a radical practice of Christian stewardship (see chap. 5).

A second level of response is what Wesley called "begging for the poor." This sometimes took the form of making a collection for the poor among the crowds that came to hear Wesley speak.

Thus when the rain forces a crowd indoors Wesley remarks, "I took the opportunity of making a collection for the poor; many of whom can very hardly support life in the present scarcity"

(Journal, June 19, 1757, 11:413; see also May 7, 1757, I1:443; Jan. 7, 1759, 11:467; and passim). Similarly Wesley might take a collection for the French prisoners of war, whose needs he knew because he visited them (Journal, Oct. 15, 1759, 11:516; Oct. 24,

1760, I11:23).

But more is involved here than the familiar church collection.

Indeed, what is normally meant by this plays a relatively small role in Wesley's work. Wesley's practice, and that of early

A Preferential Option for the Poor Methodism in general, was to receive offerings or to make collections for the poor. Even in such an ordinary thing as "taking up a collection" a vast difference separates the Methodism of today from the Methodism of Wesley.' It is the difference between an influential institution and a community of and for the poor.

But more than this is involved in begging for the poor, as the following passage from the Journal makes clear:

At this season [Christmas] we usually distribute coals and bread among the poor of the society [of London]. But I now considered, they wanted clothes, as well as food. So on this, and the four following days, I walked through the town, and begged two hundred pounds, in order to clothe them that needed it most. But it was hard work, as most of the streets were filled with melting snow, which often lay ankle deep; so that my feet were steeped in snow-water nearly from morning till evening. (Journal, Jan. 4,

1785, IV:295)

This was written in 1785, when Wesley was eighty-two years old!

The same activity is reported in subsequent years (see Journal, 1V:328, 358). But Wesley did not regard this as being in any way exceptional.

In his sermon "On Visiting the Sick," he admonishes his hearers/readers: "You might properly say in your own Case, 'To beg Iam ashamed;' but never be ashamed to beg for the poor; yea, in this case, be an importunate beggar"

("On Visiting the Sick," VII:121). This is the same sermon in which he makes clear the fact that this is an activity to be undertaken for the poor, "whether they are good or bad, whether they fear God or not" (Ibid., VII:118). In later years, with the great numbers of poor in the large urban societies, the outreach to the poor who were not of the society became more difficult to keep focused. So Wesley instituted a new sort of society: "the Strangers' Society, instituted wholly for the relief, not of our society, but for poor, sick, friendless strangers"

(Journal, Mar. 14, 1790, 1V:481). When, after Wesley's death, the Methodists became so preoccupied with themselves that they turned their backs on the poor and homeless, a young

Methodist named William Booth broke away to launch the Salvation Army in order to keep alive this dimension of Wesley's vision.

Good News to the Poor It is worth noting again the close connection between visiting the poor and begging for them. The following passage indicates the connection:

Observing the deep poverty of many of our brethren, | determined to do what I could for their relief. I spoke severally to some that were in good circumstances, and received about forty pounds. Next I inquired who were in the most pressing want, and visited them in their houses. (Journal, Sept. 26, 1783,

IV:261) All my leisure hours this week I employed in visiting the remaining poor, and in begging for them. Having collected about fifty pounds more, I was enabled to relieve most of those that were in pressing distress. (Journal, Sept. 28, 1783, 1V:261)

The point is that Wesley does not countenance an anonymous charity that leaves in place the barriers that separate us from the poor we design to aid.

ORGANIZATION FOR THE POOR

The elimination of these barriers makes room for more imaginative responses to the plight of the marginalized. Thus

Wesley and the early Methodists organized institutions for and of the poor in order to provide more lasting relief than begging for the poor could afford.

Anillustration of this is the attempt to employ the poor so that they could meet their own needs. Wesley describes the design of this enterprise:

Our aim was, with as little expense as possible, to keep them at once from want and from idleness; in order to which, we took twelve of the poorest, and a teacher, into the society-room, where they were employed for four months, till spring came on, in carding and spinning of cotton: And the design answered: They were employed and maintained with very little more than the produce of their own labour. (Journal, Nov. 25, 1740, 1:292)

A Preferential Option for the Poor Although the development of sewing collectives to employ the poor was an important step, its benefits were limited to those who might be thus organized. Thus Wesley hit upon the idea of a "lending stock," which would enable the poor to acquire for themselves the tools and materials to develop their own businesses. Wesley provides the following account:

I made a public collection towards a lending-stock for the poor.

Our rule is, to lend only twenty-shillings at once, which is repaid weekly within three months. I began this about a year and a half ago [1746]: Thirty pounds sixteen shillings were then collected; and of this, no less than two hundred and fifty-five persons have been relieved in eighteen months. (Journal, Jan. 17, 1748, 11:81; see also II:17-18, and A Plain Account of the People Called Methodists,

VIII:267)

A further activity, and one very dear to Wesley's heart, was the attempt to provide free health care for the poor. Wesley was incensed at the iniquity of doctors who charged exorbitant fees for medicines that seldom worked (see the next chapter), and was himself fascinated with the study of folk and_ herbal remedies. He published several editions of his Primitive Physick, a book on inexpensive family medicine, which was his principal best-seller. But he also set up a clinic so that he could see the poor personally and prescribe appropriate remedies (often including "electrification," based on the experiments of the only

American rebel of whom he thought well, Benjamin Franklin).

Concerning the provision of this service, Wesley notes, "I did not regard whether they were of the society or not" (see A Plain

Account of the People Called Methodists, VI11:263-65).' In_ his Journal he notes:

I mentioned to the society my design of giving physic to the poor.

About thirty came the next day, and in three weeks about three hundred. This we continued for several years, till, the number of patients still increasing, the expense was greater than we could bear. Meantime, through the blessing of God, many who had been ill for months or years, were restored to perfect health. (Dec. 4,

1746, I1:39)°

Good News to the Poor The development of collectives, of a lendingstock, and of free health clinics represents activities of one sort that could be undertaken with the poor in mind. But an essential ingredient in all this was the maintenance of effective solidarity with the poor. Thus when Wesley started a "poor house for destitute widows and children," he had it set up so that he and the other

Methodist preachers would also live with them, thereby maintaining solidarity.

For I myself, as well as the other Preachers who are in town, diet with the poor, on the same food, at the same table; and we rejoice herein, as a comfortable earnest of our eating bread together in our Father's kingdom. (A Plain Account of the People Called

Methodists, VI11:265) Again, the breaking down of the barriers between the givers and the receivers of aid, between those who have and those who have not, is an essential expression of the solidarity that liberates the privileged from their blindness and the marginalized from their invisibility.

Many of these projects eventually foundered. They did so because Wesley could not bear the burden alone and could not find enough other Methodists who were either willing or able to carry them forward. He laments: "The whole weight lay on me.

If I left it to others, it surely came to nothing. They wanted either understanding, or industry, or love, or patience, to bring anything to perfection" (Undated Letter to "Mr.

XIII:148). The history of Methodism is not one of triumph but of failure, of failure to carry through the vision of Christian solidarity with the poor.

THE CRITERION OF THE POOR

Wesley's development of programs for the poor was an important aspect of solidarity with the poor. But it was also important to keep the poor in mind when engaging in other activities, in order to orient even ecclesial activities toward the benefit of the poor. In this way social action would not become

A Preferential Option for the Poor dissociated from the life of the community of faith. If ecclesial life went on alongside of, but uninformed by, the concern for the poor, then this "business as usual" approach to church life would leave the concern for the poor, like the poor themselves, marginalized. But for Wesley, concern for the poor could not be something peripheral. Thus it became a critical test for the appropriateness of other activities of the Christian community.

We have already seen that for Wesley the significance of the Methodist revival had to do with its concentration on the poor.

Upon this emphasis depended the eschatological significance of Methodism: "Never in any age or nation, since the Apostles, have those words been so eminently fulfilled, 'The poor have the Gospel preached unto them,' as it is at this day" ("The Signs of the Times," V1:308). Even the work of evangelization must meet the test: How does it benefit the poor?"

In addition to being an indefatigable preacher, Wesley was also one of the most prolific writers and editor/publishers of his age. Here, too, the criterion of the benefit of the poor prevailed. Again Wesley railed against publishers who put out unnecessarily long and expensive volumes only, it would seem, to enrich themselves. Wesley remarks with satisfaction that one of his editorial labors resulted in "retrenching at least one-third of what was published in those five volumes, more to the satisfaction of the bookseller than of the judicious reader"

(Preface to The History of the Earl of Moreland, X1V:295). Thus he sought to make available inexpensive versions of his own work, as well as that of others, so that the poor could afford to read. Concerning his Dictionary, Wesley writes:

I must avow, that this Dictionary is not published to get money; but to assist persons of common sense, and no learning, to understand the best English authors; and that with as little expense of either time or money as the nature of the thing will allow. (Preface to The Complete English Dictionary, XIV:233)

Not even here have we left behind the significance of visiting, for, as Wesley notes:

Good News to the Poor ee ee ne 8 SS Those only who frequently and familiarly converse with men that are wholly uneducated can con¢éeive how many expressions are mere Greek to them which are quite natural to those who have any share of learning. (Preface to Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, X1V:248) Later, the societies were asked to subscribe to the Christian

Library (Wesley's multivolume compendium of the writings of Christians through the centuries on the life of faith) so that those who could not afford to buy could borrow the books. It remained only to encourage those who already knew how to read to teach the poor who did not (see, for example,

XIII:119). From this arose the germ of the Sunday school, aimed at teaching literacy to those who were employed during the week.' Again, the test of the needs of the poor was the criterion for the work and program of the community.

Although Wesley was a firm believer in the importance of education, and indeed founded a school for the children of poor preachers (and determined the curriculum, and where necessary wrote it—including the grammars), he was more concerned about the concrete needs of the poor than about education per se. Thus he wrote to George Whitefield, who was planning to transform an orphanage into a college: "Can anything on earth be a greater charity, than to bring up orphans? What is a College or an Academy compared to this?"

After protesting his commitment to education, he continues, "But still, I cannot place the giving it to five hundred students, on a level with saving the bodies, if not the souls too, of five hundred orphans" (Letter of Feb. 21, 1770, XII:159).

When it became necessary to raise money for the building of preaching houses and the support of the preachers, even here the test of the poor was applied. Under great pressure to raise money for this purpose, still Wesley wrote to his preachers: "We must beware of distressing the poor. Our substantial brethren are well able to bear the burden" (Letter to Joseph Benson, July

31, 1776, XII:424). Can one imagine one of our modern television evangelists of the gospel of wealth asking that the poor not send money?

A Preferential Option for the Poor Thus Wesley was appalled by the construction of churches that appealed to the taste of the wealthy. After describing "Dr.

Taylor's new meeting-house," the Crystal Cathedral of its day, "with sixteen sash-windows below, as many above, and eight skylights in the dome," Wesley wonders: "How can it be thought that the old, coarse Gospel should find admission here?"

(Journal, Nov.

23, 1757, 11:431). But the reason for the contradiction is made clearer when Wesley gives instructions for the building and financing of Methodist preaching houses:

Let all preaching-houses be built plain and decent; but not more expensive than is absolutely unavoidable: Otherwise the necessity of raising money will make rich men necessary to us. But if so, we must be dependent upon them, yea, and governed by them. And then farewell to the Methodist discipline, if not doctrine too. ("The Large Minutes," VIII:332) Despite the fact that these instructions were included in the document from which the United Methodist Book of Discipline derives, it must be admitted that the Methodists have been no more willing to be instructed by Wesley on the manner of building churches than they have in the essentials of Christian stewardship. The result, just as Wesley foresaw, has been the loss of both Methodist discipline and doctrine.

In a similar vein Wesley noted with horror the method of choosing elders in the Church of Scotland:

And what are these [elders]? Men of great sense and deep experience? Neither one, nor the other. But they are the richest men in the parish. And are the richest, of course, the best and the wisest men? Does the Bible teach this? I fear not. What manner of Governors then will these be? Why, they are generally just as capable of governing a parish, as of commanding an army.

(Journal, May 30, 1759, 11:482) Perhaps it was after reflection on this example that Wesley advised one of his preachers concerning the selection of leaders for the classes: "Put the most insignificant person in each class to be the Leader of it" (Letter to Mr. John Cricket, Feb. 10,

1783, XIV:361). Thus did Wesley seek to be consistent with the

Good News to the Poor demystification of wealth and privilege even in the details of Methodist discipline. The natural consequence both of Wesley's distrust of the wealthy and of his turn toward the poor was an empowerment of the poor, a fostering of their own leadership abilities. Again the question was not who may be the most influential, not even who will be the most effective, but who is the least of these.

The turn toward the poor, then, which is made possible by a critique of wealth and is nourished by the practice of visiting the poor, leads not only to "works of mercy" whereby their concrete needs may be addressed, but also to the principle that the welfare of the poor should be the litmus test of all activity. From Wesley's practice, we may learn that solidarity with the poor is not one program among others, however important, but is the norm of all activity of the people called Methodists, of those who seek to embody scriptural Christianity.

POLICY FOR THE POOR

While Wesley's solidarity with the poor cannot be seriously brought into question if his own writings and actions are allowed to speak for themselves, he has often been faulted for not taking sufficiently into account the structural aspects of poverty and for proposing remedies for the plight of the poor that ignored these structural realities. Wesley's political vision was indeed truncated by royalist Anglican assumptions. It is also the case that Wesley lived and worked in the eighteenth century, when the powers and responsibilities of government were defined quite differently than they are now. Despite all of this, it simply is not the case that Wesley has nothing to say about the relation of poverty to government policy. Indeed it is precisely by way of his very solidarity with the poor and consequent awareness of their plight that the way is opened for Wesley to propose for government economic policy the same criterion he had found himself applying to the work of launching the Methodist movement.

The critical document is Wesley's Thoughts on the Present

A Preferential Option for the Poor Scarcity of Provisions (1773). His starting point is, revealingly, as follows: "First, Why are thousands of people starving, perishing for want, in every part of the nation? The fact I know; I have seen it with my eyes, in every corner of the land" (X1:53).

Perhaps his readers have not the same experiential base as Wesley and so will either not believe the fact or will not be motivated to earnestly desire a solution. Wesley will then give the reader some of the harvest of his own experience:

I have known those who could only afford to eat a little coarse food once every other day. I have known one in London (and one that a few years before had all the conveniences of life) picking up froma dunghill stinking sprats, and carrying them home for herself and her children. I have known another gathering the bones which the dogs had left in the streets, and making broth of them, to prolong a wretched life! I have heard a third artlessly declare, "Indeed I was very faint, and so weak I could hardly walk, until my dog, finding nothing at home, went out, and brought in a good sort of bone, which I took out of his mouth, and made a pure dinner!" Such is the case at this day of multitudes of people, in a land flowing, as it were, with milk and honey! abounding with all the necessaries, the conveniencies, the superfluities of life! (X1:53-54)

What must be found, then, is a response to this problem, the problem of the poor. All that follows has its origin and its aim here.

The immediate answer is that "they have no meat, because they have no work." As we have seen, Wesley will not accept the comfortable idea that the poor suffer because they are lazy. But why is unemployment so high?

Because the persons that used to employ them cannot afford to do it any longer. .

. They cannot, as they have no vent for their goods; food being so dear, that the generality of people are hardly able to buy anything else. (X1:54) Thus far it is clear that Wesley not only has some experiential base for his concern but also a fair grasp of economic principles.

Wesley proceeds to indicate why various commodities are expensive, so expensive that the majority of people can afford

Good News to the Poor little besides food (if they can buy that), and so there is no demand for other goods, which leads to unemployment, which leads to starvation, and so on. He suggests that half of the annual corn crop is funneled into distilleries. To those who reply that this distilling should not be limited because it produces needed revenue for the king, he answers:

Is this an equivalent for the lives of his subjects? Would His Majesty sell an hundred thousand of his subjects yearly to Algiers for four hundred thousand pounds? Surely no. Will he then sell them for that sum, to be butchered by their own countrymen? "But otherwise the swine for the Navy cannot be fed." Not unless they are fed with human flesh! Not unless they are fatted with human blood! O, tell it not in Constantinople, that the English raise the royal revenue by selling the flesh and blood of their countrymen!

(X1:55) Wesley's opposition to the distilling business is well known.

What is often forgotten is that this opposition had little to do with individualistic moralism; it grew out of concern for the effects of this business upon the poor-.* It is notable that Wesley the patriot gives way to Wesley the radical when the welfare of the poor is at stake.

In a similar vein, Wesley protests the emergence of big farm monopolies that throw tenant farmers (sharecroppers, campesinos) off the land (X1:56). This action is not only an evil in itself, he maintains, but it also means that the produce of these small farmers (poultry and pork) becomes rarer and thus costlier.

What is the land used for? Why, to raise fancy horses, either for export or to draw the fashionable chariots of the rich (X1:55-56)—in a word, for luxury. But it does not stop there, for the wealthy consume and waste so much in other ways that they drive up prices while their neighbors starve.

The third cause for the scarcity of goods, as Wesley sees it, is the level of taxation used to support wasteful government spending (XI:57). His conclusion then is: "Thousands of people throughout the land are perishing for want of food. This is owing to various causes; but above all, to distilling, taxes, and luxury" (X1:57).

But what then? Having diagnosed the problem, does Wesley

A Preferential Option for the Poor then retire from the fray in the name of staying out of politics?

He does not. He proposes concrete measures: prohibit distilling (not affecting beer and wine); tax exported horses and the gentry's carriages; reduce the size of farms so that small farmers will not be thrown off the land (a policy still at the heart of many movements for agrarian reform in Latin

America today); and turn to "repressing luxury; whether by laws, by example, or by both." And, finally, pay off the national debt and terminate needless expenses which benefit only the gentry (see XI:58-59).

Although many profess to find in Wesley no precedent for such "meddling" in government policy, his own practice contradicts this. In addition to his essay on The Present Scarcity of Provisions, which deals with national policy, we find Wesley also commending the urban policy of the Mayor of Cork:

—an upright, sensible man, who is diligently employed, from morning to night, in doing all the good he can. He has already prevailed upon the Corporation to make it a fixed rule, that the two hundred a year, which was spent in two entertainments, should for the future be employed in relieving indigent freemen, with their wives and children. He has carefully regulated the House of Industry, and has instituted a Humane Society for the relief of persons seemingly drowned; and he is unwearied in removing abuses of every kind. When will our English Mayors copy after the Mayor of Cork? (Journal, May 12, 1787, 1V:374)

The criterion of Wesley's own work is the benefit of the poor.

Through the sort of analysis he provides in his essay on The Present Scarcity of Provisions, he recommends this as the criterion of government policy as well. But what if the nation does not act in ways that bring relief and justice to the poor? Wesley himself has scant hope that it will: "It seems as if God must shortly arise and maintain his own cause. But, if so, let us fall into the hands of God, and not into the hands of men" (X1:59). Wesley expects that his country is so far gone in wickedness that it will not act to defend the poor, so that God must act. Act how? Wesley is thinking here like an Old Testament prophet. He means: God will have to overthrow the wicked in order to relieve the poor.

CHAPTER FOUR

ee ee Se SS

PROTEST AGAINST INJUSTICE

e have seen that Wesley's demystification of wealth and power opens the way to a preferential option for the poor. While such an option may be merely sentimental or ideologically abstract, this is prevented in Wesley's case by the constant practice of visitation, which embeds this option in lived experience and gives it both concreteness and urgency. This then leads to actions based on concrete commitment. But Wesley's commitment to the poor is not simply one among other commitments. Instead it becomes normative for all action. Thus for Wesley the mission of proclamation, the work of writing, and the organization of the community are all tested against the norm of a commitment to the poor.

When such a commitment is pursued in such a thoroughgoing way, then the plight of the poor is or may be experienced as a product, not of blind fate, but of concrete forms of injustice.

This is especially the case where the prophetic tradition plays a role in the formation of one who has experience with the suffering of the poor. Thus solidarity with the poor includes not only a positive concern for their welfare but a protest against concrete forms of injustice as well.

What is at stake here is the way in which a demystification of wealth and power engenders a prophetic protest against the oppression of the poor. Thus wealth and power are seen not only to be dangerous to faith but, on the basis of a normative vp

Good News to the Poor commitment to the poor, also as forces arrayed against the welfare of the poor. Where there is no concrete commitment to the poor, injustice remains invisible. This is why those who are mesmerized by the pseudo-gospel of wealth simply cannot see the dynamics by which wealth and power operate at the expense of the poor. Although they have eyes to see, they cannot see. But solidarity with the poor opens the eyes and makes possible the protest against injustice.

In this chapter, we will explore the ways in which this protest against injustice was expressed in the thought and work of John

Wesley. Although Wesley's opposition to slavery is well known, other aspects of this protest are also of importance in clarifying its scope. We will begin with a consideration of Wesley's protest against some of the concrete forms of injustice in his own society before considering his protest against the iniquities of war, imperialism, and slavery. We will then consider some of the ways this protest leads to what may be termed a politics of transformation.

AGAINST EXPLOITATION

Because of the concreteness of Wesley's thought and action, it is instructive to examine his attitude toward those groups or professions that he perceived to be particularly destructive in their relation to the poor. Here it will be clear that Wesley was not prepared to exempt even the most powerful and respected groups from his critique.

Merchants In his long treatise on The Doctrine of Original Sin (1757), Wesley remarks:

I must acknowledge, I once believed the body of English merchants to be men of the strictest honesty and honour. But I have lately had more experience. Whoever wrongs the widow and fatherless, knows not what honour or honesty means. And how

Protest Against Injustice very few are there that would scruple this! I could relate many flagrant instances. (1X:228) It is important to notice what it is that has changed Wesley's mind. He has "had more experience." That is, his orientation to the poor, his practice of visiting the poor, has enabled him to see with their eyes. And this produces outrage and protest.

This outrage does not stop short of bringing into question the otherwise normal practice of trade.

Is it not generally, though not always, "Cheat that cheat can: Sell as dear as you can, and buy as cheap?" And what are they who steer by this rule better than a company of Newgate-birds? Shake them all together; for there is nota grain of honesty among them. ([X:233)

What Wesley condemns here is the most general and obvious rule of the marketplace: Buy cheap; sell dear. This is, in his view, criminal behavior, nothing less than thievery. What produces his harsh and radical judgment? Experience with the effect of this practice on the poor.

Distillers Wesley's opposition to the distilling industry is well known, if poorly understood. It was no part of Wesley's purpose, for example, to oppose the consumption of beer or wine, both of which he enjoyed and recommended in moderation.' Nor was his opposition to "hard liquor" based on narrow moralistic considerations. Rather, he was again motivated by his engagement with the poor. It is this that inflames his rhetoric against those who make themselves wealthy by making and selling

"spirituous liquors" for other than medicinal purposes.

But all who sell them in the common way, to any that will buy, are poisoners general. They murder His Majesty's subjects by wholesale, neither does their eye pity or spare. They drive them to hell like sheep. And what is their gain? Is it not the blood of these men? Who then would envy their large estates and sumptuous palaces? A curse 'sin the midst of them: The curse of God cleaves to the stones, the timber, the furniture of them! The curse of God

Good News to the Poor is in their gardens, their walks, their groves; a fire that burns to the nethermost hell! Blood, blood is there» The foundation, the floor, the walls, the roof, are stained with blood! And canst thou hope, O thou man of blood, though thou art "clothed in scarlet and fine linen, and farest sumptuously every day;" canst thou hope to deliver down thy fields of blood to the third generation? Not so; for there is a God in heaven: Therefore, thy name shall soon be rooted out. ("The Use of Money," VI:129) Quite apart from being a splendid piece of rhetoric, this passage shows the way in which a suspicion of wealth here is mobilized into denunciation by a perception of it as gained through the exploitation of the poor. This perception expresses itself in the familiar cadences of prophetic rhetoric, which announces the curse of God on the-unjust.

Doctors In his sermon "On the Use of Money," Wesley warns Methodists against participating in the iniquitous trade in spirituous liquors, and immediately warns them in similar terms against making their living as "Surgeons, Apothecaries, or Physicians" (VI:129). Indeed, Wesley's denunciations of the practitioners of the medical profession are, if anything, more frequent, if less inflammatory, than his attacks on distillers.

What motivates this protest? Wesley asks whether doctors are not guilty: who play with the lives or health of men, to enlarge their own gain? who purposely lengthen the pain or disease, which they are able to remove speedily? who protract the cure of their patient's body, in order to plunder his substance? Can any man be clear before God, who does not shorten every disorder "as much as he can" and remove all sickness and pain "as soon as he can?" ("On the Use of Money," VI:129) Wesley does not suppose this to be the case with only the occasional physician, but he believes it to be deeply ingrained in the profession as such, as he makes quite clear by his thumbnail

Protest Against Injustice sketch of the history of medicine in the preface to Primitive

Physic, his own book of self-help medicine:

Physicians now [in ancient times] began to be had in admiration, as persons who were something more than human. And _ profit attended their employ, as well as honour; so that they now had two weighty reasons for keeping the bulk of mankind ata distance, that they might not pry into the mysteries of the profession. (Preface to Primitive Physic, X1V:310) Those who understood only how to restore the sick to health they branded with the name of empirics.

. And thus both their honour and gain were secured; a vast majority of mankind being utterly cut off from helping either themselves or their neighbours, or once daring to attempt it. (Ibid., XIV:311)

The root of abuses in the medical profession, then, is the profit motive (see also his letter to Mr. "John Smith," Mar. 25, 1747,

XII:89). These abuses are compounded in Wesley's view by the collusion between physicians and pharmacists. So he opposes the practice of making compound medicines, which make people depend so heavily on pharmacies.

Experience shows that one thing will cure most disorders, at least as well as twenty put together. Then why do you add the other nineteen? Only to swell the apothecary's bill; nay, possibly, on purpose to prolong the distemper, that the doctor and he may divide the spoils. (Preface to Primitive Physic, X1IV:313)

Wesley credits this collusion between doctors and pharmacists with a conspiracy to discredit inexpensive remedies, including one of his own favorites, the use of electricity: "Who can wonder that many gentlemen of the Faculty [of medicine], as well as their good friends, the Apothecaries, decry a medicine so shockingly cheap and easy, as much as they do quicksilver and tar-water2"

(Journal, Jan. 20, 1753, 11:279). And Wesley supposes that there will be little chance of the transformation of the practice of medicine into a helping profession.

Not till the gentlemen of the faculty have more regard to the interest of their neighbours than their own: at least, not until there are no Apothecaries in the land, or till Physicians are independent pbs

Good News to the Poor of them. (Preface to The Desideratum: Or, Electricity Made Plain and Useful, X1V:243) .

All this in a century when the practice of medicine and the pharmaceutical industry were not yet Big Business!

Lawyers Wesley's most animated condemnation of the professions comes when he turns his attention to the practice of law.

Concerning the English system of justice, he writes: "Such perjury, and such a method of law, we may defy the whole world to produce" (A Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion,

VIII:201). He notes, concerning the audience for one of his sermons: "I saw but one trifler among all, which, I understood, was an Attorney. Poor man! If men live what I preach, the hope of his gain is lost" (Journal, Mar. 26, 1764, III:163). Later he allows: "I breakfasted at the Devizes, with Mr. B

, a black swan, an honest Lawyer!" (Journal, Oct. 2, 1764, I1I:198). What is the basis for Wesley's dismissal of an entire profession?

In A Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion, Wesley gives a long list of the sorts of standard legal practices of which he thoroughly disapproves. A portion of that list will indicate what he has in mind:

Of those who are called exceeding honest Attorneys, who is there that makes any scruple,— (1.) To promote and encourage needless suits, if not unjust ones too:

(2.) To defend a bad cause, knowing it so to be,— By making a demur, and then withdrawing it;

By pleading some false plea, to the plaintiffs declaration; By putting in an evasive answer to his bill;

By protracting the suit, if possible, till the plaintiff is ruined:

(3.) To carry a cause not amounting to ten shillings into Westminster-Hall, by laying it in his declaration as above forty:

(4.) To delay his own client's suit knowingly and wilfully, in order to gain more thereby. .

(12.) To fill up his bill with attendances, fees, and term-fees, though his client is no whit forwarder in his cause?

Protest Against Injustice This is he that is called an honest Attorney! How much honester is a pickpocket! (VIII: 165-66) The full list makes clear that Wesley had an intimate acquaintance with the practices of the legal profession. There are other examples of this protest against these practices (see

Original Sin, 1X:221). As anyone acquainted with the law then or now knows, these are, as Wesley says, not extraordinary, but common practices.

Indeed, one wonders what all the fuss is about. Why this outrage about the disadvantages, if they are such, of AngloSaxon law? The answer is that Wesley is viewing the law from the standpoint of the poor and oppressed. It is this standpoint that transforms a list of professional peccadillos into a prophetic protest against oppression. Thus he asks in his treatise The Doctrine of Original Sin:

Do they never knowingly defend a bad cause, and so make themselves accomplices in wrong and oppression? Do they never deliver the poor into the hand of his oppressor, and see that such as are in necessity have not right? Are they not often the means of withholding bread from the hungry, and raiment from the naked, even when it is their own, when they have a clear right thereto, by the law both of God and man? Is not this effectually done in many cases by protracting the suit from year to year? (1X:229)

In A Farther Appeal, the question is even sharper:

Suppose a great man to oppress the needy; suppose the rich grinds the face of the poor; what remedy against such oppression can he find in this Christian country? If the one is rich and the other poor, doth not justice stand afar off? And is not the poor under the utmost improbability (if not impossibility) of obtaining it? Perhaps the hazard is greater among us, than either among Jews, Turks, or Heathens. (VIII:164-65) And Wesley's conclusion is an indictment that still has the ring of truth: "Without money, you can have no more law; poverty alone utterly shuts out justice" (VILI:165).

Wesley's protest against the legal profession is, then, a protest i)

Good News to the Poor in the name of the poor, a protest grounded in solidarity with the poor. Legal practices that seem' quite normal, or at worst only somewhat shady, take on a rather different aspect when seen from the vantage point of those who are victimized by the system. Then the system of English law, upon which patriotic

Englishmen (Wesley included) prided themselves, comes to be seen as the systematic oppression of the poor. Particular experiences with victims of such a system (such as the one that led Wesley to exclaim, "Where is the mercy of thus grinding the face of the poor? thus sucking the blood of a poor, beggared prisoner?" [Journal, July 3, 1761, III:66]), are magnified by the practice of regularly visiting the poor and the imprisoned. This, then, opens the eyes to the iniquity of the system, so that the very necessity of recourse to lawyers appears as unjust.

A man has wronged me of a hundred pounds. I appeal to a Judge for the recovery of it. How astonishing is it that this Judge himself cannot give me what is my right, and what evidently appears so to be, unless I first give, perhaps, one half of the sum to men I never saw before in my life! (A Farther Appeal, VII1:167)

Wesley's experience with the poor and his commitment to them makes it possible for him to see things in a new light, a light that would have seemed strange to those who either remained mesmerized by wealth and privilege or who lacked the new vision provided by constant contact with the poor. When the commitment to the poor takes on the status of a normative claim, then what appears to others as the common and self-evident practice of merchants, doctors, and lawyers appears instead as the practice of injustice and oppression. It is then not enough to seek relief for the poor in the form of free health clinics, for example. It is necessary to cry out publicly against injustice.

AGAINST OPPRESSION

We have seen that Wesley's protest against injustice grows out of his firsthand experience with the poor. This experience

Protest Against Injustice produces solidarity and so makes it possible to see the world of wealth and privilege with new eyes, to see it as a structure of injustice that must be denounced. But this experience with and commitment to the poor also provides a kind of hermeneutic, a principle of interpretation, for understanding situations far removed from one's own personal experience. On this basis it is possible to develop a sensitivity to injustice, which reaches out beyond the borders of immediate acquaintance to take in a more global horizon. Thus a new dimension appears to Wesley's protest against injustice, which reaches well beyond the shores of the British Isles. We will consider here Wesley's protest against war, colonialism, and slavery.

War In his discussion of the doctrine of original sin, Wesley provides a catalogue of the various self-inflicted calamities from which humanity suffers. These expressions of original sin infect all, he maintains, even the "Christian countries."

After mentioning many of these (including the English system of law), he writes:

There is a still more horrid reproach to the Christian name, yea, to the name of man, to all reason and humanity. There is war in the world! war between men! war between Christians!

.. Now, who can reconcile war, I will not say to religion, but to any degree of reason or common sense? (The Doctrine of Original Sin, 1X:221) Now we know that it is possible, especially if one is a patriot, as Wesley undoubtedly was, to see war not as something wholly contrary to religion or reason. What, then, produces in Wesley so negative an assessment? The clue may be found in his description of a typical battle:

Let us calmly and impartially consider the thing itself. Here are forty thousand men gathered together on this plain. What are they going to do? See, there are thirty or forty thousand more at a little distance. And these are going to shoot them through the head or body, to stab them, or split their skulls, and send most of their souls

Good News to the Poor into everlasting fire, as fast as they possibly can. Why so? What harm have they done to them? O none at all! They do not so much as know them. Buta man, whois King of France, has a quarrel with another man, who is King of England. So these Frenchmen are going to kill as many of these Englishmen as they can, to prove the King of France is in the right. (The Doctrine of Original Sin, 1X:222)

Instead of seeing war from the elevated point of view of national pride or patriotic duty or even national self-interest, Wesley sees it from "below," from the vantage point of those who do the dying and the killing, from the vantage point of the poor.

Although Wesley did protest the use of press gangs to seize men for the Navy as a violation of all law and liberty (Journal, July 21,

1739, 1:212; see also the second letter to Bishop Lavington, IX:40), he did not by any means launch a pacifist movement.

There is some evidence that Wesley felt uneasy about this half-way position. He could find no reply to the argument that no follower of Jesus could possibly agree to participate in a war (see A Letter to .

. Quakers, X:187). But his clear perception that war was inglorious was never effectively mobilized into any sort of anti-war movement. That may have meant too final a break with his beloved Anglican heritage. But he did see the absurdity of war and did not offer for it the sort of rationalizations and justifications so often invoked by those who are mesmerized by the spell of power and privilege.'

Colonialism Certainly, the numbers of those who were to be mesmerized by dreams of empire and glory were destined to grow in England in the course of the next century, as the people who had heard Wesley shouldered what some would later call "the white man's burden." But Wesley knew too well what things looked like from another perspective to be thus taken in. Far from filling him with pride, the reports of British conquest provoked outrage.

The Great Mogul, Emperor of Hindostan, one of the mightiest Potentates on earth, is become a poor, little, impotent slave to a

Protest Against Injustice Company of Merchants! His large, flourishing empire is broken in pieces and covered with fraud, oppression, and misery! And we may call the myriads that have been murdered happy, in comparison of those that still groan under the iron yoke. Wilt thou not visit for these things, O Lord? Shall the fool still say in his heart,

"There is no God?" (Journal, Feb. 23, 1776, IV:68) Far from feeling pride, Wesley anticipates the wrath of a just

God to come upon his own nation for the evils of colonialism!"

The capacity for compassion, nurtured by the practice of solidarity with the poor, makes it possible for Wesley to bemoan the plight of the people of India: "How many hundred thousands of the poor, quiet people, have been destroyed, and their carcases left as the dung of the earth," he laments in his sermon on "The Imperfection of Human Knowledge"

(V1:345). And in his Journal he indicts his countrymen:

What consummate villains, what devils incarnate, were the managers there! What utter strangers to justice, mercy, and truth; to every sentiment of humanity! I believe no heathen history contains a parallel.

I remember none in all the annals of antiquity: Not even the divine Cato, or the virtuous

Brutus, plundered the provinces committed to their charge with such merciless cruelty as the English have plundered the desolated provinces of Indostan. (Journal, Nov. 13, 1776, IV:89)

So strongly does Wesley feel the monstrousness of these crimes that he can compare Christians and Heathens and find, not for the first time, that Christianity (so-called) comes out wanting.

Look into that large country, Indostan. There are Christians and Heathens too. Which have more justice, mercy, and truth? the Christians or the Heathens? Which are most corrupt, infernal, devilish, in their tempers and practice? the English or the Indians?

Which have desolated whole countries, and clogged the rivers with dead bodies? ...O earth, earth, earth! how dost thou groan under the villanies of thy Christian inhabitants! ("The Mystery of Iniquity," V1:265) Wesley needs no atheist to tell him of the monstrosities of Christendom, even in its supposedly more enlightened form of

Good News to the Poor Protestantism. He sees all too clearly the collapse of Christianity before the Constantinian temptation of wealth, power, and influence. He sees all too clearly the result of all this on the marginalized, the very people to whom the gospel should have been good news. How far is all this from the modern-day apostles of wealth, who shut their eyes to the evils of contemporary colonialism and capitalism in the name of a Christian crusade against "godless communism"?

Slavery It is no fluke, then, but the result of a very precise process of praxis and reflection that Wesley comes to his position on the evils of slavery. Wesley's first contact with slavery appears to be his trip to Charleston, South Carolina, in July of 1736. In his

Journal, Wesley does not seem to have been driven by this experience to reflect explicitly on the institution of slavery. But he is sensitive to the plight of the "Negroes": "O God, where are thy tender mercies? Are they not over all thy works? When shall the Sun of Righteousness arise on these outcasts of men"

(Journal, July 31, 1736, 1:40). Interestingly, Wesley does not refer to the black people, as "slaves" at all, but rather simply as "Negroes'—that is, as persons not essentially determined by their situation of slavery. For Wesley, the issue appears to be the development of a means for their evangelization (see Journal,

April 27, 1737, 1:49). This does not seem to be a particularly radical step until we recall that it was vehemently opposed by many slaveholders as bringing into question the very foundation of chattel slavery.

Wesley first mentions the imstztution of slavery in one of the many small book reviews with which he frequently edified the reader of his Journal:

In returning, I read a very different book, published by an honest Quaker, on that execrable sum of all villanies, commonly called the Slave Trade. I read of nothing like it in the heathen world, whether ancient or modern: And it infinitely exceeds, in every instance of barbarity, whatever Christian slaves suffer in Mahometan countries. (Feb. 12, 1772, I1I:453)4

Protest Against Injustice Just two years later he published his own pamphlet on the subject, Thoughts Upon Slavery (X1:59-79). This small book,' which Wesley caused to be published in several editions, contains a history of the slave trade and a description of the conditions of slaves in the slave ships and on the plantations, as well as a passionate denunciation of slavery and an appeal for its abolition. While this text deserves a close reading, we will only note some of its salient features.

After a definition of slavery and a sketch of its history from ancient times to its reintroduction by Portugal in the sixteenth century, Wesley turns to give a description of Africa. Here he draws upon his wide reading of what today would be called cultural anthropology to provide a picture of strong civilizations with peaceable, prosperous, and decent populations. But this happy picture is soon marred by the arrival of—Christians!

"The Christians, landing upon their coasts, seized as many as they found, men, women, and children, and transported them to America" (XI:65). But soon a way was found to increase the number of captured slaves "by prevailing upon them to make war upon each other, and to sell their prisoners" (X1:65). This, as Wesley notes, only compounded the villainy, since "till then they seldom had any wars; but were in general quiet and peaceable" (X1:65). Nor does the villainy end here, for Wesley reports that of perhaps one hundred thousand slaves captured every year, a third die en route to America: "O Earth, O Sea, cover not their blood!" (X1I:67).

Wesley then provides wrenching accounts of conditions on slave ships, of the humiliations of the auction block, and of the dehumanizing realities of life on the plantation—all from the slaves' point of view. He asks: "Did the Creator intend that the noblest creatures in the visible world should live such a life as this?" (XI:68).

He then surveys the "laws" that apply to slaves and that, so far from affording them any protection or redress, utterly deprive them of any hope of either. But the main objection is made in the name of justice.

Where is the justice of inflicting the severest evils on those that have done us no wrong? of depriving those that never injured us in

Good News to the Poor word or deed, of every comfort of life? of tearing them from their native country, and depriving them of liberty itself, to which an Angolan has the same natural right as an Englishman, and on which he sets as high a value? Yea, where is the justice of taking away the lives of innocent, inoffensive men; murdering thousands of them in their own land, by the hands of their own countrymen, many thousands, year after year, on shipboard, and then casting them like dung into the sea; and tens of thousands in that cruel slavery to which they are so unjustly reduced? (XI:70)

Here Wesley has applied his understanding of human rights to demonstrate the injustice of slavery. Whatever other faults his political theory may have had, it was not without its virtues, especially as regards this principle.

But Wesley goes even further, in response to the objection that slavery is legal:

The grand plea is, "They are authorized by law." But can law, human law, change the nature of things? Can it turn darkness into light, or evil into good? By no means. Notwithstanding ten thousand laws, right is right, and wrong is wrong still. There must still remain an essential difference between justice and injustice, cruelty and mercy. (XI:70) Here Wesley, who on so many occasions must appeal to the appropriateness of obeying the law, breaks out into a clear statement of the relativity of all laws, the necessity of obeying the dictates of mercy and justice before any law. He is compelled to this view, first, by the Bible and, second, by the hermeneutic of solidarity, which enables him to see injustice where others see only economic and imperial benefit.

But if slavery is unjust and its legality not worth considering, there are still those who argue that it is an economic necessity.

Otherwise it would be impossible to settle and cultivate the islands of the Caribbean.

I answer, First it were far better that all those islands should remain uncultivated for ever; yea, it were more desirable that they were altogether sunk in the depth of the sea, than that they should be cultivated at so high a price as the violation of justice, mercy, and truth. (X1:73)

Protest Against Injustice But slavery is necessary for trade and so for the wealth and power of the nation.

Wealth is not necessary to the glory of any nation; but wisdom, virtue, justice, mercy, generosity, public spirit, love of our country.

These are necessary to the real glory of a nation; but abundance of wealth is not. (XI:73) Better is honest poverty, than all the riches bought by the tears, and sweat, and blood, of our fellow-creatures. (X1:74)

Thus Wesley's demystification of wealth stands him in good stead when it comes to resisting the appeals of those who believe riches to be, because the principal gift of God, the legitimation of personal, ecclesial, or national policy. Those who remain mesmerized by wealth and power would find Wesley's response here to be mere Greek. They are defenseless before the Constantinian temptation. When, during the American Revolution, the slave trade ceased, Wesley contemplated the idle ships of Liverpool and rejoiced: "So the men of Africa, as well as Europe, may enjoy their native liberty" (Journal, April 11, be7 7,

1V:96). And when people attacked the policy of the king for having destroyed English trade and cited the loss of the slave trade, Wesley responded:

I would to God it may never be found more! that we may never more steal and sell our brethren like beasts; never murder them by thousands and tens of thousands!

. Never was anything such a reproach to England since it was a nation, as the having any hand in this execrable traffic. (A Serious Address to the People of England,

X1:145) Thus when Wesley turns to call for the abolition of slavery, he emphasizes the role that the acquisition of wealth has in the system in order to assess blame. To the merchants, he writes:

It is you that induce the African villain to sell his countrymen; and in order thereto, to steal, rob, murder men, women, and children without number, by enabling the English villain to pay him for so doing, whom you overpay for his execrable labour. It is your money that is the spring of all, that empowers him to go on: So that

Good News to the Poor whatever he or the African does in this matter is all your act and deed. (Thoughts Upon Slavery, X1:77) And to the plantation owners, he says:

Now, it is your money that pays the merchant, and through him the captain and the African butchers. You therefore are guilty, yea, principally guilty, of all these frauds, robberies, and murders.

You are the spring that puts all the rest in motion; they would not stir a step without you; therefore, the blood of all these wretches who die before their time, whether in their country or elsewhere, lies upon your head. (Thoughts Upon Slavery, X1:78)

Wesley's earlier demystification of wealth and power enables him to expose the profit motive as the foundation of the slave trade and thus to follow the money trail in the assigning of responsibility.

Wesley's condemnation of the slave trade, then, grows naturally out of his understanding of human rights, his demystification of wealth, and his solidarity with the poor and oppressed. In combination, these produce his protest against this form of injustice.

It is important to see how Wesley's view of human rights works out in a situation made concrete by the demystification of wealth and solidarity with the poor. It is all too easy for talk of rights to be used as a cover for injustice; the "rights" of the powerful may be so stressed as to vitiate any call for change. If the protection of "life, liberty, and property" is understood abstractly, then the "rights" of slaveholders are on a par with those of slaves. Indeed, they who have greater "property" may have correspondingly more rights, unless the privilege of wealth and power is demystified. More is at stake here than the question of slavery, as the ongoing debate about the justice of a redistribution of wealth or the selective view of human rights exemplified by presumably freedom loving apostles of wealth and power make clear. As we know only too well, talk of liberty all too easily becomes a cloak for reactionary policies and regimes. Thus the mere presence of an interest in human rights means little unless this is freed from the tendency to stabilize the status quo through a critique of wealth and power, and made

Protest Against Injustice concrete through a preferential option for the poor.® Since these two conditions are present in Wesley's thought, his application of human rights principles to the question of slavery results in an appeal for abolition.

We have already encountered Wesley's view that enslavement is unjust because it is a deprivation of liberty, "to which an Angolan has the same natural right as an Englishman" (Thoughts

Upon Slavery, X1:70). This principle is subsequently applied by Wesley to those who protest that they own slaves through no fault of their own, having merely inherited them, and that these slaves had been born into this condition, which, therefore, should be regarded as natural to them: "Liberty is the right of every human creature, as soon as he breathes the vital air; and no human law can deprive him of that right which he derives from the law of nature" (XI:79). No matter what the legal situation of the slaveholder may be, no person has "a right to use another as a slave" (XI:79). Here, then, the conflict between justice and law becomes concrete, depriving the slaveholder of the legal, but fictional, right to his "property."

There is, then, nothing left but that the slaveholder must relinquish his unjust claim to the slave:

If, therefore, you have any regard to justice, (to say nothing of mercy, nor of the revealed law of God), render unto all their due.

Give liberty to whom liberty is due, that is, to every child of man, to every partaker of human nature. (XI:79) What should not escape attention here is the fact that Wesley's allusion to Romans 13 ("render unto all their due") is freed of the reactionary sense given to it by those who employ it only to maintain the status quo. Such a reactionary usage is not impossible for Wesley, when he is thinking abstractly (see

"Thoughts Concerning the Origin of Power," X1:47-48). But where his thought becomes concrete through the mediation ofa lively solidarity with the oppressed, as in the case of slavery, then

Romans 13 becomes a call for the transformation of that status uo.

: On the basis of the foregoing analysis of the injustice of the slave trade, Wesley found it appropriate to preach against

Good News to the Poor slavery, and he even organized a vigil for the liberation of the slaves.

We set Friday apart as a day of fasting and prayer, that God would remember those poor outcasts of men; and (what seems impossible with men, considering the wealth and power of their oppressors) make a way for them to escape, and break their chains in sunder.

(Journal, Mar. 3, 1788, 1V:408) When we recall Wesley's principle that usually God is pleased to work good to humanity through the actions of their neighbors, this prayer that God would help the slaves escape and break their chains is far from a harmless proposition.

FROM PROTEST TO TRANSFORMATION

Wesley's call for the transformation of the status quo does not limit itself to personal appeals to slaveholders or to sermons and prayers. He was prepared to move into the sphere of political transformation as well. The result is a multi-layered approach to the question of the realization of justice.

Coalition In other contexts he was prepared to form alliances with causes whose aims he regarded as worthy, as in his preaching sermons to raise money for the support of a hospital (Journal, Feb. 5, 1784, IV:266) or for the Humane Society—an organization for the promotion of techniques of artificial respiration to save victims of drowning (Journal, Nov. 23, 1777,

IV:112). Here, too, in the case of slavery, Wesley joined himself with the abolitionist movement. Thus Wesley writes to Mr.

Thomas Funnell in 1787 in these terms:

Whatever assistance I can give those generous men who join to oppose that execrable trade, I certainly shall give. I have printed a large edition of the "Thoughts on Slavery," and dispersed them to every part of England. But there will be vehement opposition

Protest Against Injustice made, both by slave-merchants and slave-holders; and they are mighty men: But our comfort is, He that dwelleth on high is mightier. (Nov. 24, 1787, XII:507) The minutes of the Abolition Committee record the receipt of encouragement from Wesley (see Jackson's note, XIII:153-54).

Legislation Wesley was not optimistic that Parliament could be persuaded to give the question of abolition the attention it deserved. In his

Thoughts Upon Slavery, he remarked: "So many things, which seem of greater importance, lie before them, that they are not likely to attend to this" (X1:75). This was in 1774, when incipient rebellion was abroad in the colonies, and England was coping with the severe economic crisis that had occasioned Wesley's

Thoughts on the Present Scarcity of Provisions. But when, several years later, Parliament was induced to consider this question at the insistence of Lord Wilberforce, Wesley wrote to Wilberforce in what was to prove to be his last letter.

Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But, "if God be for you, who can be against you?" Are all of them together stronger than

God? O "be not weary in well doing!" Go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it. (Feb. 26, 1791,

XIII:153)

Three quarters of a century were to pass before that "vilest" form of slavery was to pass away, and still we are trying to overcome its legacy of injustice.

Wesley was not one of those who supposed that government cannot legislate against moral evil. Whatever we may think of some of the legislative causes he favored, such as the laws against sabbath-breaking or public use of profane language, the wastefulness of the rich (what he called luxury), or, finally, the abolition of slavery, it is clear that those who would limit the power of the State so as to absolve government of the responsibility for the enforcement of justice and right can find

Good News to the Poor scant comfort in the thought and practice of Wesley. He believed that government must do this if it is to avoid the calamity of divine judgment upon the nation. That such a divine judgment was in Wesley's view more than a rhetorical flourish is clear from his comments on "The Late Earthquake at Lisbon."

And what shall we say of the late accounts from Portugal? That some thousand houses, and many thousand persons, are no more! that a fair city is now in ruinous heaps! Is there indeed a God that judges the world? And is he now making inquisition for blood? If so, it is not surprising, he should begin there, where so much blood has been poured on the ground like water! where so many brave men have been murdered, in the most base and cowardly as well as barbarous manner, almost every day, as well as every night, while none regarded or laid it to heart. "Let them hunt and destroy the precious life, so we may secure our stores of gold and precious stones." [There follows Wesley's own explanatory note] ...

Merchants who have lived in Portugal inform us, that the King had a large building filled with diamonds; and more gold stored up, coined and uncoined, than all the other princes of Europe together. (XI:1-2) Whatever we may think of Wesley's theodicy, it is clear that for him there was ample justification for an attempt to make one's own society more just, if only to avoid the fate of Lisbon.

To be sure, his own priority was to change the lives of persons.

But this was no excuse for being shy with respect to the plain duty of the leaders of a nation to correct the most blatant forms of injustice, lest God "visit" the nation with destruction. In supporting the work of Wilberforce to enact a legislative prohibition of the slave trade, Wesley was merely carrying forward the same instinct that had earlier led him to propose legislative remedies for the "present scarcity of provisions."

Where justice is concerned, Wesley has no hesitation to include in his response a call for governmental intervention. Such an intervention is, after all, in the "national self-interest," if one supposes that there is indeed a God in the world. Thus in the face of the rebellion in the American colonies, Wesley could write (in 1776):

Protest Against Injustice As we are punished with the sword, it is not improbable but one principal sin of our nation is, the blood that we have shed in Asia,

Africa, and America. Here I would beg your serious attention, while I observe, that however extensively pursued, and of long continuance, the African slave trade may be, it is nevertheless iniquitous from first to last. It is the price of blood! It is a trade of blood, and has stained our land with blood! (A Seasonable Address to the Inhabitants of Great Britain, X1:125)

And Wesley sees that this slave trade does not stand alone, but is closely tied to the policy of colonialism in India.

And is the East-India trader a jot better? I fear not. They seem very nearly allied. For though here is no leading into captivity, as in the former; yet the refined iniquity practised there, of fomenting war amongst the natives, and seizing the chief of the plunder, has been as conspicuous to the serious and attentive. What millions have fallen by these means, as well as by artificial famine! O earth, cover not thou their blood! It will speak to heaven and to the inhabitants of the earth to the latest posterity. (Ibid., XI:125-26)

Here Wesley is by no means dealing with isolated phenomena.

The slave trade monopoly acquired from Portugal in 1703 was the basis of British power as a trading nation in the eighteenth century. The occupation of India was launched to destroy the textile industry of India in order to obtain a similar monopoly.

This monopoly was the basis of the ascendancy of the British Empire. Therefore, in linking these Wesley was attacking the very heart of mercantile capitalism and the institutions that were to serve as the basis of the subsequent industrial capitalism in Britain.' Wesley denounces this trade in blood, and he does not stop short of calling his government to account.

O ye Governors of this great nation, would to God that ye had seen this, and timely done your utmost to separate those tares from the wheat of fair and honest trade! What peace therefore can we expect, while these evils continue? "There can be no peace, saith the Lord." While "the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground." (A Seasonable Address, X1:126)

That God is a God of justice entails that those who seek the true welfare of their nation will root out injustice whatever the cost.

Good News to the Poor Only in this way can they hope to avoid the divine punishment of civil war. Clearly, for Wesley, an atheistic or deistic politics

(one that imagines that there is no God of justice) is as unacceptable as personal unbelief.

Liberation We have seen that Wesley's solidarity with the poor results in a protest against social evil. But does this protest go far enough?

In our own day the question of the right of the oppressed to shake off their bonds has occasionally taken the form of the question of their right to rise up in rebellion against unjust structures. This question is sometimes raised in the form of a "theology of revolution." Indeed, liberation theology is sometimes made to be the equivalent of a rationalization for armed struggle. But this identification is generally the tactic of the enemies of liberation theology. In truth, most of the proponents of liberation theology favor nonviolence, and this not as a matter of expediency but as a matter of principle.*

If their criticism of revolutionary violence is sometimes muted, this is usually due to their refusal to be lured into the trap of supposing that only those who demand change are violent. They are far too keenly aware of the institutional violence employed against the poor to be seduced into an abstract evenhandedness that makes it seem that there is nothing to choose between those who take up the cause of the poor and those who systematically deprive the poor of their most basic rights. The question of a right to rebel against injustice is not the same as that of the rationalization of revolutionary violence. With this distinction in mind, let us see how Wesley, given the conditions of his time and his forms of thought, approached this question.

Of course, a prima facie case is often made that Wesley simply could not be sympathetic to any rebellion against injustice. After all, was he not an unrepentant monarchist? Did he not oppose the American Revolution? Did he not, at least occasionally, employ the reactionary rhetoric that encouraged the poor to be content with their situation? Thus both those who espouse and those who oppose the right to rebel against unjust structures

Protest Against Injustice find in Wesley an example of a pietism uncongenial to any possibility of radical change in the structures of injustice. But is

Wesley's position as unidimensional as all this? Is there, in fact, no evidence that he could side with those who rebelled against injustice?

It is instructive to take the case of slavery as an opening to this question. Indeed, it is little noted that Wesley's opposition to the American Revolution was, in part at least, governed by his awareness of the plight of slaves there. This made him abundantly suspicious of the claims of the colonists that theirs was the cause of liberty. Therefore, when the apologists for the rebellion claimed that they were seeking to liberate themselves from conditions of slavery in relation to the government in England, Wesley replied with massive sarcasm: "You and I, and the English in general, go where we will, and enjoy the fruit of our labours: This is liberty. The Negro does not: This is slavery"

(A Calm Address to Our American Colones, X1:81). The fact that those who were most vocal in defense of the American cause of "liberty" were themselves slaveholders made their rhetoric mere empty cant as far as Wesley was concerned. A rebellion of the rich and powerful could not be expected to gain the sympathy of one whose commitments were to the poor (see the discussion of Wesley and politics in the Appendix, pages 199-222).

However, if the poor and oppressed assert their right to rebel, that is a different matter. Wesley recites the description by "Sir Hans Sloan" of the punishments inflicted on slaves.

One of these is especially severe: "They fasten them down to the ground with crooked sticks on every limb, and then applying fire, by degrees, to the feet and hands, they burn them gradually upward to the head" (Thoughts Upon Slavery,

X1:68). But for what crime? For rebellion. Does Wesley believe this to be a crime for which one could only protest the severity of the punishment? He does not. His own comment on this

"crime of rebellion" is: "That is, asserting their native liberty, which they have as much right to as to the air they breathe"

(ibid., X1:68). Thus the difference between the rebellion of the colonist and the rebellion of the slave is the difference between an unjust and a just cause, between an illusory and a real claim to liberty from slavery.

Good News to the Poor Nor does this instance stand alone in Wesley's writings. As we have seen, he protested the unjust treatment the poor received at the hands of merchants and landlords. Occasionally, this protest provoked more than groans on the part of the poor.

What was Wesley's reaction when this occurred? Did he warn them against defying the wealthy? Did he tell them to resign themselves to their lot in life? He did not. In his Journal, he refers to one such incident in the town of Sligo.

The mob had been in motion all the day. But their business was only with the forestallers of the market, who had bought up all the corn far and near, to starve the poor, and load a Dutch ship, which lay at the quay; but the mob brought it all out into the market, and sold it for the owners at the common price. And this they did with all the calmness and composure imaginable, and without striking or hurting anyone. (May 27, 1758, I1:446)

Wesley had ample reason to fear the mob, since one was so often incited against the Methodists.? This occasioned many of Wesley's appeals to authority against mob rule. But here there is no such condemnation. Rather, Wesley seems to admire their action. The key phrase to explain this unexpected reaction is his description of the action of those who bore the brunt of the mob's gentle, but determined, ire: "to starve the poor." That is,

Wesley's approbation of the mob is stimulated by their just response to injustice, directed against the poor. Does Wesley complain about the trampling of the rights of the merchants to make a profit? He does not!

Many years later (in 1773) Wesley has occasion to investigate an insurrection in Ireland. Here things had not been as nonviolent as in Sligo. Having heard about this insurrection

(probably in the London press), Wesley's indefatigable curiosity leads him to investigate the situation when he is in the neighborhood. In consequence, we get the following report and commentary.

When I came to Belfast, I learned the real cause of the late insurrections in this neighbourhood. Lord Donegal, the proprietor of almost the whole country, came hither to give his tenants new leases. But when they came, they found two merchants of the

Protest Against Injustice town had taken their farms over their heads; so that multitudes of them, with their wives and children, were turned out to the wide world. It is no wonder that, as their lives were now bitter to them, they should fly out as they did. It is rather a wonder that they did not go much farther. And if they had, who would have been most at fault? Those who were without home, without money, without food for themselves and families? Or those who drove them to this extremity? (Journal, June 15, 1773, I11:499)

Here the economic oppression of the poor by wealthy merchants and landlords produces in Wesley what can only be termed a sympathy for insurrection. He does not here rebuke the poor for rising up against their oppressors, nor does he take refuge in an abstract denunciation of violence, as much as he abhorred violence in any form. Rather he makes clear that those who are guilty of the violence of an insurrection are those who, by oppressing the poor, drive them to this extreme. Whatever may be the case with Marxist theory, the protagonists of liberation theology contend for no more than this."

Conclusion We have seen that Wesley's demystification of wealth and his resulting solidarity with the poor enable him to see practices that to others appear innocuous as forces that oppress the poor and must, therefore, be denounced as unjust. This denunciation of injustice takes the form of an attack on the powerful who exploit the poor in Wesley's own society as well as an exposure of the oppressive structures of colonialism and slavery. Wesley has also shown a willingness to join in coalition with those who, on other than strictly Methodist principles, also oppose injustice. Indeed, his experience with the poor leads him to apply his view of human rights in such a way as to open the door to a solidarity with the oppressed that accepts their right to rebel against their oppression.

To be sure, Wesley does not anticipate all the work that would be necessary to develop a theology of liberation applicable to the altered circumstances in which we, and the world's poor, now

Good News to the Poor live. A reading of Wesley does not absolve us from the theological and ethical tasks that confront any attempt at faithful witness today. But Wesley does provide us with a provocation to take up this task in our own day with something of the same energy and urgency that he exhibited in his. As he was always prepared to admit, Wesley made many errors of judgment in his own work. So will we. His thought is not perfect, but it is a serviceable instrument in the struggle to witness to the inbreaking of the divine reign of justice. That is all we can ask, either of him or of ourselves.

CHA

LER: FIVE

STEWARDSHIP: THE

REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH

I: the nature of the case, the protest against injustice is a negative enterprise. In this chapter we turn to Wesley's positive understanding of economic and, therefore, social responsibility. The question here is whether Wesley envisions a manner of establishing economic justice that goes beyond the work of assisting the poor in their affliction or denouncing those groups and structures that occasion, and benefit from, that affliction.

To put the matter a bit differently, if the life of faith entails a critique of existing economic arrangements so as both to prevent faith from falling into the traps of prosperity and to enable the faithful to commit themselves to the welfare of the poor, then what are the positive values inherent in faith that may produce a different—indeed fundamentally different—set of economic relationships and values? Does faith itself entail a counter economics that provides a real alternative to the given structure so productive of human affliction and spiritual jeopardy? Is there an evangelical economics? Can economics be made the theme of a specifically theological discourse?

What we are looking for is not Wesley's advice about capitalism and socialism as opposing secular systems of economic life, but for Wesley's attempt as a practical theologian to develop an understanding and practice of economics based on the same theological principles that govern his reflection on the Christian life generally.

Good News to the Poor Oe oN eS SS Certainly Wesley was no believer in the sort of separation between the religious and the secular that would leave the latter free of the transforming effects of grace. He supposed that a revival of scriptural Christianity would indeed transform the life of the nation, and ultimately of the earth. But it could have such a result only if conversion and holiness really did necessarily transform "secular" relations and institutions as well.

Thus he writes in one of his sermons:

Ifa man pursues his business, that he may raise himself to a state of figure and riches in the world, he is no longer serving God in his employment. ... For vain and earthly designs are no more allowable in our employments, than in our alms and devotions.

("Sermon on the Mount, Discourse VIII," V:361) That is, a Christian cannot engage in economic activity on the basis of economic motives!'! The God-centeredness of faith must invade this sphere and lay claim to it just as it does the sphere of our religious life. Wesley is clearly no advocate of a two kingdoms theory.

What is at stake in Wesley's view of stewardship is nothing less than the theological critique of one of the most basic presuppositions of modern Western society, that of "private" property. As developed and applied by Wesley, the idea of stewardship puts property in a theological context and so challenges some of the most fundamental presuppositions of consumer capitalism. This position may come as something of a surprise to those who suppose that Protestantism is the bulwark of capitalism or that evangelical Christianity, even in its specifically Wesleyan form, can somehow be made the apologist for "economic democracy." Accordingly, it will be necessary to explain Wesley's view with some care.

STEWARDSHIP VERSUS OWNERSHIP

In his Journal, Wesley reports an encounter with one who was apparently a precursor of the "gospel" of wealth:

Stewardship: The Redistribution of Wealth I had a conversation with an ingenious man who proved to a demonstration, that it was the duty of every man that could, to be

"clothed in purple and fine linen," and to "fare sumptuously every day;" and that he would do abundantly more good hereby than he could do by "feeding the hungry and clothing the naked." O the depth of human understanding! What may not a man believe if he will? (Jan. 21, 1767, I11:271) We could easily enough supply the man's arguments, since they are the staple of contemporary political propaganda: It is good for the economy. It employs people. It gives them something to strive for, and so on. Yet, Wesley finds it frankly incredible that persons of sense could persuade themselves of this sort of superstition. (But then, as Wesley was fond of saying, a person who will not believe the Bible will believe anything.)

From Wesley's point of view the fallacies in this position are numerous, but the chief among them has to do with the way it leaves God out of the picture. It begins by imagining that we could approach economics as if there were no God. Wesley would be just as ready to leave economics to the free interchange of the marketplace as he would be to turn over the care of souls to psychologists.

From Wesley's point of view, God is the Creator of heaven and earth and is, moreover, the source of that bounty of the earth that is the basis of human prosperity. Since economics deals with the relationships governing the acquisition and use of that same bounty, it is indeed the fool who in economic theory or practice says that there is no God. This practical atheism pretends to own what it in fact receives from the hand of a merciful creator. But there is only one Owner, just as there is only one Creator. In his sermon "On Worldly Folly," Wesley responds to the rich man who has "much goods" and wonders what he is to do with his possessions:

Thou no longer talkest of thy goods, or thy fruits, knowing they are not thine, but God's. The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof: He is the Proprietor of heaven and earth. He cannot divest himself of his glory; he must be the Lord, the possessor, of all that is. Only he hath left a portion of his goods in thy hands, for such uses as he has specified. ("On Worldly Folly," VII:308-9)

Good News to the Poor What, then, becomes of the claim to property? Wesley finds the very idea astonishing. To the same figure of the parable, when he objects that he can do as he pleases with his own property, his own fruits, Wesley replies: "My fruits! They are as much thine as the clouds that fly over thy head! As much as the winds that blow around thee" (Ibid., VII:306). Again, he says in a different sermon: "Nay, may I not do what I will with my own?

Here lies the ground of your mistake. It is not your own. It cannot be, unless you are Lord of heaven and earth" ("The Danger of Increasing Riches," VII:362).

Nor is Wesley at all averse to using this same polemic against a real, as opposed to a fictional, rich man. Therefore, Wesley writes to one of his many correspondents:

As to yourself, you are not the proprietor of any thing; no, not of one shilling in the world. You are only a steward of what another entrusts you with, to be laid out, not according to your will, but his.

(Journal, Oct. 28, 1754, I1:319) That God is the Creator and Lord means that God alone can truly be said to be the owner or proprietor of created things. To render unto God what belongs to God, as Wesley at least briefly saw, means rendering to God "all we are, and all we have" ("The Danger of Increasing Riches," VII:361).'

Taking the view that God alone can properly be said to own anything means that our own relationship to the things of the world is an indirect one. We have them only as we receive them from God. It is commonly said that this is true for ourselves as well, that we owe our lives to God, or that our souls belong to God. But it quickly becomes obvious that this is not taken seriously when, having claimed that we belong to God, we nevertheless insist on our property rights to something less important, but more palpable, like our money or our house.

Wesley wants to maintain both the one and the other. We belong to God and so does our "property."

On this basis, Wesley could either say that we are "debtors" to God in the sense that we ought to be thankful, or he could use the image that is more common in the Gospels, that of stewards.

Stewardship: The Redistribution of Wealth He chooses the second since it makes clear that God has given us instructions about how to use what we have received.

This is a crucial choice, for saying that we are debtors very easily results in setting up a relationship of exchange, in which God gives us gifts (houses, land, a bank account, and so on) and we give God—thanks! This is a pretty good exchange, since the thanks cost us nothing (except, perhaps, attending church service as the appropriate occasion to give thanks). We are then free to do as we please with what is now ours—all the more so if we pay the "guilt tax" of a tithe to the church. But, of course, such a view pretends that God has given no particular instructions about the use of these goods. It amounts to a sort of economic Deism. God gives us the gifts and then quietly retires from the scene. Wesley was not a Deist. Whatever may be the case with a debtor, Wesley writes:

It is not so with a steward; he is notat liberty to use what is lodged in his hands as he pleases, but as his Master pleases. He has no right to dispose of anything which is in his hands, but according to the will of his Lord. For he is not the proprietor of any of these things, but barely entrusted with them by another; and entrusted on express condition,—that he shall dispose of all as his Master orders. Now, this is exactly the case of every man, with relation to God. We are not at liberty to use what he has lodged in our hands as we please, but as he pleases who alone is the possessor of heaven and earth, and the Lord of every creature. We have no right to dispose of anything we have, but according to his will, seeing we are not proprietors of any of these things. .

. And he entrusts us with them on this express condition,—that we use them only as our

Master's goods, and according to the particular directions which he has given us in his word. ("The Good Steward," V1:137)

Wesley's view with respect to goods is entirely congruent with the basic structure of his theology as a whole. Just as he was nota

Deist, so also he was nota Lutheran—that is, he did not suppose that grace was given in such a way that there were no expectations with respect to the behavior of the recipient. Not "faith alone," but "faith working by love," was his slogan. God's gift of grace comes with God's demand of obedience, that we use that grace in such a way as to grow more and more into the

Good News to the Poor likeness of God. It is just so with the gifts of the earth's bounty.

We receive them with the expectation, nay, the command that we employ them in a particular way. Wesley was well aware of the dangers of a cheap grace. He was also on guard against a cheap providence.

The image of the steward is not, then, a harmless homiletical device. It is a critical blow to the economic atheism and economic deism that legitimate the existing economic arrangements and protect them against the demands of the gospel.

THE CLAIM OF THE POOR

What, then, is the demand of the gospel with respect to worldly goods? What are the Proprietor's instructions? Here we must distinguish between Wesley's basic view and his somewhat accomodationist attempt to promote this view among his societies. One finds the latter in the sermon "On the Use of Money," with its threefold rule to "gain all you can, save all you can, and give all you can." We will return to this sermon later, when we consider why Wesley failed to persuade Methodists to undertake the evangelical economics he called for.

Again, what are the Proprietor's intentions or instructions? In reply to the objection that one can afford to use his or her money for some extravagance, Wesley writes:

Perhaps you say you can now afford the expense. This is the quintessence of nonsense. Who gave you this addition to your fortune; or (to speak properly) lent it to you? To speak more properly still, who lodged it for a time in your hands as his stewards; informing you at the same time for what purposes he entrusted you with it? And can you afford to waste your Lord's goods? .

. Away with this vile, diabolical cant!

. This affording to rob God is the very cant of hell. Do not you know that God entrusted you with that money (all above what buys necessaries for your families) to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to help the stranger, the widow, the fatherless; and, indeed, as far as it will go, to relieve the wants of all mankind? ("The Danger of Increasing

Riches," VII:360)

Stewardship: The Redistribution of Wealth The very basis of a consumer ethos, the basic structure of our societies, Wesley describes as "the very cant of hell."

But beyond this we have here the indication of the positive command of the Proprietor: "Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, help the stranger, the widow, the fatherless

. relieve the wants of all mankind." This is a tall order, but it is, in Wesley's view, the only justification for having goods in the first place. In this way, Wesley is able to give limited place to the notion that material prosperity is the gift of divine providence, while at the same time pointing out the way to escape the snare of riches, so destructive of the life and the community of faith

(see chap. 2).

Wesley is aware that the importance of escaping the snare of riches, the temptation to "lay up treasures on earth," is not widely recognized. Indeed, the community of faith seems entirely oblivious to this teaching. He writes:

They have read or heard these words an hundred times, and yet never suspect that they are themselves condemned thereby, any more than by those which forbid parents to offer up their sons or daughters to Moloch. O that God would speak to those miserable self-deceivers with his own voice, his mighty voice; that they may at last awake out of the snare of the devil, and the scales may fall from their eyes! ("Sermon on the Mount, Discourse VIII," V:366)

But far more is at stake here than a means of escaping the snare of riches. The demystification of wealth and power opens the way toa solidarity with the poor, which takes their welfare to be the litmus test of ecclesial and even governmental activity.

Thus it should not be surprising that Wesley applies his principle of solidarity with the poor as the general test of all economic activity.

You may consider yourself as one in whose hands the Proprietor of heaven and earth, and all things therein, has lodged a part of his goods, to be disposed of according to his direction. And his direction is, that you should look upon yourself as one of a certain number of indigent persons, who are to be provided for out of that portion of his goods wherewith you are entrusted." ("The More

Excellent Way," VII:36)

Good News to the Poor The very basis, then, of our economic relations is this community of the poor. It is as one of these that we are to conduct ourselves, distributing to each according to need. Of course, this solidarity presupposes the practice of that visitation whereby we become concretely aware of the needs of the poor and have our hearts and minds transformed thereby. It is then that we may, in other than the sentimental terms of Marie

Antoinette, consider ourselves "as one of a certain number of indigent persons."

Itis on the basis of this solidarity that it becomes clear what we are to do.

What shalt thou do? Why, are not those at the door whom God hath appointed to receive what thou canst spare? What shalt thou do? Why, disperse abroad, and give to the poor. Feed the hungry.

Clothe the naked. Be a father to the fatherless, and a husband to the widow. ("On Worldly Folly," VII:306)

Again, he writes:

What shall I do? .

. Do good. Do all the good thou canst. Let thy plenty supply thy neighbour's wants; and thou wilt never want something to do. Canst thou find none that need the necessaries of life, that are pinched with cold or hunger; none that have not raiment to put on, or a place where to lay their head; none that are wasted with pining sickness; none that are languishing in prison?

If you duly considered our Lord's words, "The poor have you always with you," you would no more ask, "What shall I do2" (Ibid.,

VII:307) The questions "Are there not those at the door?" and "Canst thou find none. .. ?" make clear the important connection between effective stewardship and the practice of concrete solidarity through visitation. It is not likely that we will even be aware of these needs so long as we wrap ourselves in the protective cocoon of studied ignorance of the plight of the poor.

But the existence of the marginalized, whether as hungry, sick, or imprisoned, provides us with the concrete norm of our action. Thus Wesley understands the saying "the poor you have with you always" in its true, evangelical sense. The norm of our

Stewardship: The Redistribution of Wealth fidelity to Christ is the attitude and action we take toward the poor. Thus Wesley represents the interrogation of final judgment as follows:

In what manner didst thou employ that comprehensive talent, money? .

. not squandering it away in vain expenses,—the same as throwing it into the sea? not hoarding it up to leave behind thee,—the same as burying it in the earth? but first supplying thy own reasonable wants, together with those of thy family; then restoring the remainder to me, through the poor, whom I had appointed to receive it; looking upon thyself as only one of that number of poor, whose wants were to be supplied out of that part of my substance which I had placed in thy hands for this purpose. .. ? Wast thou accordingly a general benefactor to mankind? feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, comforting the sick, assisting the stranger, relieving the afflicted? ("The Good

Steward," VI:146; see also "The Great Assize," V:171-85) Wesley then takes with full seriousness the judgment of the parable of Matthew 25:31-46, which gives orientation to his determination of the character of true stewardship.

We may now see how utterly different from common understandings of stewardship is Wesley's development of this idea, for in our day the term is used almost exclusively to raise money for the church. When our churches have stewardship campaigns, they focus on the importance of subscribing to the ecclesial budget. If it is said in the taking of a collection or an offering that this is returning to God a portion of what we have received, then the meaning of the offering is that we give to God by giving to the church. And this is precisely what Wesley does not mean by stewardship. For Wesley, stewardship means giving to the poor—period. We give to God not by giving to the church, but by giving to the poor. Stewardship is not a prolongation of the Temple tax; it is the practice of solidarity with the poor.'

So accustomed have we become to the distortion of the notion of stewardship that it may help to hear Wesley on this topic again. In the last quotation above, he had God saying,

"Restoring to me, through the poor. ..

. " In other sermons, he makes a similar point:

Good News to the Poor Give to the poor with a single eye, with an upright heart, and write, "So much given to God...

... Be a steward, a faithful and wise steward, of God and of the poor. ("Sermon on the Mount, Discourse VIII," V:376, 377)

THE MEANING OF WEALTH

It is the view of Wesley that what we have is due to the poor, that the proprietor of all gives instruction to "feed the hungry." In order to see even more clearly what is at stake here, it is important to understand what we may call Wesley's theory of "surplus value." We have already encountered phrases like "whatever you can spare" and "give all you can."

But what precise meaning does Wesley attribute to these limitations?

We should note that two things are at stake here: the surplus that brings us into the situation of spiritual danger represented by "riches," and the surplus that we are instructed to disperse abroad to the poor. As it happens, these coincide in Wesley's thought, as is already tolerably clear from Wesley's references to what we can or cannot afford to squander. Wesley is careful to define wealth on several occasions because he is aware of the attempted dodge, "but I'm not wealthy like so-and-so is wealthy." In his 1790 sermon "On the Danger of Increasing

Riches," Wesley writes:

A person of note, hearing a sermon preached upon this subject several years since, between surprise and indignation broke out aloud, "Why does he talk about riches here? There is no rich man at Whitehaven, but Sir James L r." And it is true, there was none but he that had forty thousand pounds a year, and some millions in ready money. But a man may be rich that has not a hundred a year, nor even one thousand pounds in cash.

Whosoever has food to eat, and raiment to put on, with something over, is rich. Whoever has the necessaries and conveniences of life for himself and his family, and a little to spare for them that have not, is properly a rich man. (VII:355-56, italics added)

Wesley is consistent in using this definition:

Stewardship: The Redistribution of Wealth By riches I mean, not thousands of pounds, but any more than will procure the conveniences of life. Thus I account him a rich man who has food and raiment for himself and his family, without running into debt, and something over. ("The Wisdom of God's

Counsels," V1:331) And he says in the earlier sermon, to which the first quote in this paragraph may have been a reference, that "whoever has sufficient food to eat, and raiment to put on, and a place where to lay his head, and something over, is rich" ("The Danger of Riches," VII:3). Riches, wealth, or surplus, then, amounts to whatever we have beyond what is necessary to live on (see also

"Sermon on the Mount, Discourse VIII," V:367-68).

Now to a society awash in the values of mercantile capitalism, let alone consumer capitalism, this definition of wealth or surplus seems extreme. But it can only seem extreme if we are not acquainted with, or are blinded to the point of view of, the poor. As we have already seen, this point of view is normative for Wesley. From the point of view of the poor, anything more than adequate food, decent clothes, and shelter is wealth. If we consider ourselves "as one of a certain number of indigent persons," as Wesley said, then we will have a truer view of what is excess or surplus. Thus Wesley's advice depends for its intelligibility on the practice of solidarity:

Be a steward ..

. of God and the poor; differing from them in these two circumstances only,—that your wants are first supplied, out of the portion of your Lord's goods which remains in your hands; and, that you have the blessedness of giving. ("Sermon on the Mount, Discourse VIII," V:377) Only on the basis of a practice of solidarity is it possible to give concrete meaning to this instruction.

But on the basis of such a practice it becomes clear what it 1s that we owe to the poor. And what we owe is not some portion of this surplus, say a tithe, but all.* Thus Wesley, in commenting on the saying of Jesus, "except your righteousness exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees," inquires which of his hearers gives a fifth of their income (the Pharasaic proportion) to "God and the poor" ("Sermon on the Mount, Discourse V," V:324). And in his

Good News to the Poor sermon on "The Danger of Increasing Riches," he commended the example of Zaccheus to the rich in that he gave half to the poor and vowed to restore fourfold to any he had wronged

(VII:358). But in general the view was that by distributing all the surplus over what was necessary for health and holiness the Christian would effectually give all. Thus Wesley could inquire of the rich: "Are you not increasing in goods, laying up treasures on earth; instead of restoring to God in the poor, not so much, or so much, but all that you can spare?" ("On God's

Vineyard," VII:212; see also "The Danger of Increasing Riches," VII:361).

PROPERTY AS THEFT

On the basis of his view of surplus wealth, Wesley completely undermines the conventional notion of private property.

Indeed, for Wesley, the accumulation of property must be viewed concretely as theft! This comes to the fore when Wesley talks about any sort of needless expense, especially for clothes.

This example of needless expense seems to have been suggested to him by the strictures of the Anglican Homily "Against Excess of Apparel,"® which notes:

... that in abundance and plentie of all things, we yet complaine of want and penurie, while one man spendeth that which might serve a multitude, and no man distributeth of the abundance which [he] hath received, all men excessively waste that which should serve to supply the necessities of others. (p. 105)

He that in abundance and plenty of apparrel hideth his face from him that is naked, despitheth his owne flesh. (p. 106)

It particularly warns against the tendency of wealthy women "to devise new fashions to feede thy pride with, to spend so much upon thy carkasse, that thou and thy husband are compelled to robbe the poore" (p. 108). In Wesley's own time this teaching was especially emphasized by the Quakers and Moravians, whose example he frequently commended. Wesley instructs the Quakers, who seemed to have forgotten the meaning of their own policy regarding plainness of dress:

Stewardship: The Redistribution of Wealth Surely you cannot be ignorant, that the sinfulness of fine apparel lies chiefly in the expensiveness: /n that it is robbing God and the poor; it is defrauding the fatherless and widow; it is wasting the food of the hungry, and withholding his raiment from the naked to consume it on our own lusts. (A Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion, VIII:186, italics added) And he addresses his own societies in a similar manner:

Many of your brethren, beloved of God, have not food to eat; they have not raiment to put on; they have not a place where to lay their head. And why are they thus distressed? Because you impiously, unjustly, and cruelly detain from them what your Master and theirs lodges in your hands on purpose to supply their wants. ("The Causes of the Inefficacy of Christianity," VI1:286)

Wesley does not hesitate to use strong language here. In his sermon "On Dress," for example, he is especially severe.

The more you lay out on your own apparel, the less you have left to clothe the naked, to feed the hungry, to lodge the strangers, to relieve those that are sick and in prison, and to lessen the numberless afflictions to which we are exposed in this vale of tears.

... Every shilling which you save from your own apparel, you may expend in clothing the naked, and relieving the various necessities of the poor, whom ye "have always with you."

Therefore, every shilling which you needlessly spend on your apparel is, in effect, stolen from God and the poor!...

. When you are laying out that money in costly apparel which you could have otherwise spared for the poor, you thereby deprive them of what God, the proprietor of all, had lodged in your hands for their use. If so, what you put upon yourself, you are, in effect tearing from the back of the naked; as the costly and delicate food which you eat, you are snatching from the mouth of the hungry.

(VII:20, italics added; see also "Advice to Methodists on Dress,"

XI:470-71; and A Farther Appeal, VII:190) The conclusion that needless expense, that the accumulation or expenditure of wealth, is theft has syllogistic force, given

Wesley's view of stewardship. Unfortunately, we may be put off by the emphasis here on dress, thinking that it isa mere legalistic

Good News to the Poor conceit. But it is not that at all. Wesley is not here propounding yet another in a set of detailed instructions concerning

Methodist discipline. He is, rather, illustrating one of the basic principles of an evangelical economics that takes solidarity with the poor as its criterion. Of whatever sort of "consumerism," it follows that "everything about thee which cost more than Christian duty required thee to lay out 1s the blood of the poor" ("On Dress," VII:21, italics added).

From all of this it follows that when we engage in what are presumably "normal" economic practices, we make ourselves responsible for the suffering that we might otherwise have alleviated.° This, then, supplies Wesley with another reason for supposing that one who is rich (remember what that means according to Wesley's definition) is in such imminent danger of hell.

May not this be another reason why rich men shall so hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven? A vast majority of them are under a curse, under the peculiar curse of God; inasmuch as, in the general tenor of their lives, they are not only robbing God, continually embezzling and wasting their Lord's goods, and, by that very means, corrupting their own souls, but also robbing the poor, the hungry, the naked; wronging the widow and the fatherless: and making themselves accountable for all the want, affliction, and distress which they may but do not remove. Yea, doth not the blood of all those who perish for want of what they either lay up, or lay out needlessly, cry out against them from the earth? ("Sermon on the Mount, Discourse VIII," V:375, italics added)

The blood of the poor, then, is on the heads of any who treat material things as if they were private property! The habits of accumulation and expenditure, which go hand in hand with the system of private property and our ethos of consumer capitalism, make us directly culpable of the deaths of those who perish for want of that which we hoard and waste.

Wesley's view is clearly a radical departure from the common sense of our churches. When do we ever hear that accommodation to the mores of a consumer society makes of us nothing less than thieves and murderers? We imagine that a Christian economics entails little more than being careful not to break the

Stewardship: The Redistribution of Wealth law. But to take seriously the prohibition of "laying up treasure on earth"? That is quite different! Wesley's complaint of two hundred years ago still rings true:

There are many who neither rob nor steal; and some who will not defraud their neighbour; nay, who will not gain either by his ignorance or necessity. But this is quite another point. Even these do not scruple the thing, but the manner of it. They do not scruple the "laying up treasures upon earth;" but the laying them up by dishonesty. They do not start at disobeying Christ, but at a branch of heathen morality. So that even these honest men do no more obey this command than a highwayman or a house-breaker. Nay, they never designed to obey it. From their youth up, it never entered into their thoughts. They were bred up by their Christian parents, masters, and friends, without any instruction at all concerning it; unless it were this,—to break it as soon and as much as they could, and to continue breaking it to their lives' end. ("Sermon on the Mount, Discourse VIII,"

V:366) It was, as we shall see, Wesley's hope that Methodism might alter this. But that hope remains unrealized.

The understanding of property as theft and of consumption as culpability for the blood of the poor follows with logical rigor from Wesley's view of stewardship. It cannot be dismissed as trifling legalism without also dismissing his basic theological commitments (see chap. 7). Although it is often said that Wesley was not a systematic thinker, it should be clear that the essential ingredients of his evangelical economics have a tight logical form, that here at least he does have a system.

THE PENTECOSTAL COMMUNITY

On the basis of this coherent view, Wesley was able to recognize the importance of the description of the early

Christian community in Acts 9:41-47 and 4:32-37. In the following citation from Wesley's sermon on "The Mystery of Iniquity," we may both refresh our memories about that description and see what Wesley makes of it.

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