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Applying the Vagueness of Language: Poetic Strategies and Campmeeting Piety in the Mid-Nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Steven D. Cooley
Steven D. Cooley
Affiliation:
Mr. Cooley is visiting assistant professor of history at the University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio.
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Extract

Methodist studies of the last four decades have insisted that Methodism be seen as a distinctive intellectual tradition with its own integrity. These studies have corrected the excesses of an earlier experiential interpretation. Although some may still characterize Wesley's Christianity as “almost totally devoid of intellectual content,” the subjects of Wesley, of Methodism, and of the American Holiness Movement can now no longer be reduced to merely an unreflective warm-hearted piety. Current studies have especially highlighted several distinct Wesleyan theological developments. These include the displacement of election and predestination by a religious assurance from the witness of the spirit, the tension between salvation by holy living and salvation by faith alone, an emphasis on vital Christian experience in theological reflection, and especially the development of a Protestant understanding of Christian perfection or holiness. As Henry Rack states, Wesley “softened the hard edges of Calvinism” with an Arminian accent and moved the center of Protestantism so that justification became “the door into the pilgrimage of holiness” rather than the Lutheran cradle or the Calvinist promise. Wesley's prominence in Jaroslav Pelikan's history of Christian doctrine indicates the growing acceptance of this Methodist intellectual history.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 63 , Issue 4 , December 1994 , pp. 570 - 586
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1994

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