Can a 1700’s Theologian Speak to 2020’s Problems?

Here’s a case for John Wesley’s ‘Agrarian Salvation’ and ecological eschatology.

Introduction

The formation of religious faith is difficult in a culture full of the antagonistic forces of post-modernism, globalization, industrial economics, and, generally, Post-Christendom. A concept like theology seems archaic in the midst of our current sociological inheritance. 

Full of the civilized trappings of Westernism, traditional religiosity has become outmoded and obsolete to the enlightened among us. 

I, too, have inherited this culture.

I, too, have been left a bit jaded. 

Being religious is hard in 2020.

But if you are alive today, you’ve also inherited the religious artifacts that have maintained from historical influence and survived as a part of the cultural narrative. Though modern interaction with religion still thrives in the midst of this inheritance, our sociological context not only has made religion obscure and seemingly unnecessary, it has left a void of religious influence, especially by a singular faith tradition. 

At least this is my experience. 

And I’ve had further complications to my religious ambiguity. 

The grandson of a Baptist minister, I’m also the son of parents who rebelled against that embedded tradition in my genealogy. To fill the void, my nuclear family went on expedition after expedition, dabbling in everything from new-age ideas to Eastern traditions, Catholicism to Evangelicalism, and everything in between. Full of surface-level breadth, these vast experiences affirmed my detachment from any singular allegiance to a faith tradition.

However, outside of my overstimulated exposure and my sociological inheritance, the lack of fidelity to a religious tradition provided another opportunity. 

Part One — Does Theology Matter? 

Short answer — kind of. 

Long answer — it depends on how you understand theology. 

Words about God.
Study of the Divine.
Religious philosophy.
Enter your own personal definition here: ______________. 

Unfortunately, theology is diverse with definitions. 

I do not attest that theology is its own field, but rather, it is a sub-set of philosophy. Theology works for the same goals — to develop a perspective on the world that necessitates certain behaviors. 

Philosophy implies ethics. 

So does theology. 

Theology does bring its own filter to the table — that a certain amount of mystery exists that must be accepted in the pursuit to understand. 

Nonetheless, behaviors will be influenced by beliefs and our existential journey for meaning leads to the manifestation of those ethical behaviors. 

What will inform those beliefs and, therefore, those behaviors for a meaningful life? As in every cultural group, narratives provide the structure with which to define ideal ethics. Whether through mythological storytelling, philosophical treatises, or scientific explanations — humans have been crafting a view of the world that will then shape how they live. Theology, like any philosophical lens, has the same potential. Which also means theology, or any philosophical lens, is not the end goal. 

If theology is the attempt to better understand the meta-narratives of beliefs to give the praxis for how we ought to behave, albeit, with a particular stance towards transcendence, it has the ability to act as a map for traveling towards that human destination of meaning. Whatever your perspective, it becomes the framework that implicates the life you attempt to live. 

Notorious church history damage and corruption aside, Christian tradition is attempting to offer such a map-like framework of ideals, beliefs, and understandings; used properly (which, let’s be honest, it often isn’t), theology within this tradition has the potential to nurture ethics to its best possible outcome. 

Does theology matter? 

It could matter. 

But it depends on how the story, the beliefs, and the ontological and epistemological propositions influence how we live. 

Part Two — What About Christianity? 

What we’re really talking about when it comes to philosophy is a worldview. How you see and understand the world that actualizes the trajectory for your life. 

You do not have to look far to see that there are as many worldviews as there are human beings. 

You also don’t have to look far to see that just having a worldview doesn’t make you a good human. 

The healthiest manifestations of the world have come from worldviews and the unhealthiest version of existence have also come from worldviews. Sometimes, these varying outcomes spawn from different people who claim the same worldview. 

The Christian tradition is no exception.

In fact, for every beneficial outcome of a theological perspective, you are left with several downright evil outcomes. Religion being dangerous is a deserved critique.

Yet, not having a worldview is not an option. 

Also, not an option is having the fully-realized, absolute, completely correct in-all-forms worldview. Existence is complicated. Understanding the world is complicated. You can try to navigate the map as best as possible, but you won’t ever cover the whole thing.

Therefore, in the various contexts we find ourselves in, we would do well to listen to the voices that have traversed the landscape before us; for we can learn much in regards to what to do (and what not to do) by paying attention to the unfolding human journey.

Not only are the mistakes plentiful through history, but there are also many voices that can speak to our current lived experience. If we listen well, we may even offer voices to future human beings to help them do better than we ever could. Historical myopia, however, is not a great option. 

Within our sociological context, various helpful voices have been offered to me. 

In the 21st century, full of humanist enlightenment, scientific rationalism, and industrial mechanisms that flirt with human achievement, it is easy to harness ignorance and arrogance to the voices from ages past. Yet, with such distant voids of philosophical and theological inheritance, we are also provided the opportunity of scouring the historical landscape for voices that speak meaningfully to world ahead of us. And, as having a worldview is inescapable, we might do well to mine the cultural and philosophical depths for voices that can nurture our present worldviews and implicate a framework to shape our ethics and, therefore, our behavior. 

My exposure to vast traditions has left me privileged and the influential voices have been many. However, it’s difficult to live in 21st century America and not be exposed to specific strands of Christianity. Amongst my scouring of the cultural and philosophical landscape, one particular tradition with a notable voice who was relatively accessible to my context and upbringing was that of John Wesley.

John Wesley? Really?

Wesleyanism has given contemporary theology a verbose influence — from Wesley’s articulation of prevenient and sanctifying grace to his formation of the “Acts of Christian Practice” and the “Means of Grace” or his three general rules, John Wesley certainly left a theological, ecclesiological, and ethical mark on contemporary culture.

However, the theological stance that he may be best known for and that has made him a potential beacon in our sociological era is his articulation of salvation. Beyond his emphasis on what he framed as the “Via Salutis”, it was the eschatological emphasis of salvation that epitomizes his life, work, teaching, and mission — that salvation radiated out to the ecological whole of all reality. 

If my cultural mining was to connect with any tradition, it was going to be one that was speaking to the very sociological issues I found myself in, even if such a voice predated my experience by approximately three hundred years.

Part four — An Agrarian Salvation

Let us place this theological stance in the form of a worldview. My paraphrase of Wesley’s framework would be as follows:

• Every single component of the earth is not only valuable as a form of life, but it is also all necessary for shared survival. 

• Therefore, how we interact with each and every component of the earth will have present and future effects on our health, vitality, and ability to live continually. 

If this sounds familiar, then you are a step ahead of me. 

This was the metaphysical foundation of Wesley’s theology — which manifested very real ethical implications that we might want to pay attention to in our world today. 

So let’s talk theology for a minute, shall we?

Wesley’s holistic view of salvation formed the foundation of everything he taught. 

“ Salvation,” according to Wesley, “is not what is frequently understood by that word, the going to heaven, eternal happiness…It is not a blessing which lies on the other side of death… It is a present thing…(God)…wants to give you both inward and outward health.”[1] 

In an era of religious abstraction and romanticism, Wesley was confronting the common soteriology of his day. As the focus was becoming more individualistic while also separating spirituality from materiality, Wesley adamantly focused on the holistic life of faith. 

Wesley was responding to the modern church’s loss of relevancy in society, but also to other social, political, and economic factors that would implicate him taking this holistic salvation even further — to the inclusion of all of creation. 

If salvation and a restored creation was the ultimate telos of the world, then it must also deal with all of the present world:

Wesley’s 1785 sermon on “The New Creation” refused to limit God’s ultimate redemptive purposes to sentient beings, insisting that the very elements of our present universe will be present in the new creation, though they will be dramatically improved over current conditions.[2]

This theological stance helps make sense of Wesley’s ethical imperatives for Christian living and the connection between faith and ordinary life that the masses were not getting from dominant church structures. 

Why would Wesley consider eating a spiritual discipline[3] or boycott bull-baiting[4]? 

For the same reason that he emphasized service to the poor and preaching at coal mines and non-violent resistance and economic equality. As author William Guerrant Jr. states, 

In his sermons ‘The New Creation’ and ‘The General Deliverance,’ Wesley demonstrated his belief that God’s ultimate purpose includes saving all of creation, not just humanity, and that humans should model their behavior in anticipation of the final new creation.[5] 

Were Bible study, the sacraments, and other common spiritual disciplines, such as prayer, important? 

Certainly. 

But so was, 
literally, 
everything else. 

Being a religious mutt engrained in our macro-system that originated in John Wesley’s world, I am not only compelled by this theological stance, but have found it to be a harbinger of the cultural conflicts that we find ourselves in today.

The Historical Arc of Christian Tradition

There was something even more profound about this theological stance to a searching existentialist in a post-modern, Post-Christian, industrial civilization — it is that Wesley acknowledged the lack of originality in his theology. 

Wesley did not posit that he conjured his ecological eschatology resulting from his holistic view of salvation on his own, but was simply reviving an ancient, orthodox perspective that the church had abandoned. Concerning the majority of Wesley’s work, Howard Snyder remarks, 

Wesley did not attempt to formulate a new doctrine of the church, but to remedy its decadence.[6] 

Wesley’s appreciation and intuition of the streams of Christianity are commonly documented. From earlier reformers to Eastern Orthodoxy and his lived experience with both Catholicism and Anglicanism, Wesley’s theology coalesced into a rooted perspective that was diverse, vibrant, and historically restorative. To be influenced by Wesley, then, is to be influenced by the living tradition he sought to recover and to meaningfully contextualize in a changing world.

This urgency to recover the perspective of ecological salvation and eschatology has become paramount in our contemporary situation. To find a present-day theologian, such as Ellen Davis, articulating that the entire Hebrew Bible is instructing a proper relation to all the earth[7] is not uncommon. 

The writings of Wendell Berry seem to expand on the trajectory of Wesley showcasing that creation care is reflective of the Orthodox tradition and, specifically in his article “Christianity and the Survival of Creation”, confronting modern Christianity’s estranged relationship with its own tradition.[8] 

Further, there are entire theological perspectives centered around reframing Christianity as an attempt to restore paradise. Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire exists to confront the loss of this salvific and eschatological perspective that was essential to Christian tradition for over ten centuries. [9] 

Yet, John Wesley had been urging the renewal of this theological perspective three hundred years prior, when modernism and industrialization were first emerging in the contemporary situation. These authors and the plentiful stream of similar perspectives may even be said to be products of Wesley’s theological stance that he brought into the mainstream during his ministry. 

Perhaps Wesley was just ahead of his time.

Part Five — The 18th Century Vs. the 21st Century

But why was Wesley ahead of his time? What was present in Wesley’s sociological context to inspire a perspective that remains relevant three hundred years later? 

He was ahead of his time because his time was the beginning of what we find ourselves in now. 

He just had the eyes to properly see it. 

Though they were in their infancy, Wesley was responding to ecclesiological, philosophical, and economic phenomena that have now culminated in the historical moment of our twenty-first century. 

There is a reason Wesley’s voice resonates with me today, because his voice offers much application to the similar landscape I have been attempting to traverse.

Ecclesiology — The Nature of the Church

The first context Wesley was responding to was the decline in importance of the Western church and its ineffective interaction with society and their pressing needs in the midst of tumultuous circumstances during the rise of modernism. 

This age of nationalism had acquiesced the removal of authority in the church and replaced it with the state. As church historian Martin Marty concludes of this European phenomenon, 

 …some of the new rulers used the church, but the nation and claims for it challenged and often replaced church authority, and Christian dominance diminished in intellectual specialty after specialty such as medicine, law, and sciences.[10] 

Of equal importance, as Marty goes on to say, was that the role of the church began an insular movement away from society. Undoubtedly a result of the church’s loss of influence, the church was becoming disconnected from the culture and its people, hidden in their isolated parishes. It was to this that Wesley responded, 

“The world is my parish.”[11] 

Thus, Wesleyanism was born both in an attempt to confront the church and to revitalize its influence for a new day, in a new way; void of the trappings of nationalism and intentionally engaging with the problems that ordinary humans were wrestling with. 

In fact, much of Wesleyan theology can be seen as an attempt to meet society’s needs and reframe the demise of church polity — emboldened by the cosmic redemption Wesley re-prioritized.

Religion & Science — Wesley with Modernism, the Enlightenment, & Rationalism.

The second context of Wesley’s development of an ecological salvation and eschatology emerges as a by-product of the church’s descent from society — its failure to authoritatively engage modernism, the Enlightenment, and the Scientific Revolution. 

Stuck in the seemingly primitive consciousness of pre-modern thought gave the church the appearance of having no value as science and reason could now address the superstitious explanations previously offered by the church. In this context, Wesley is described as entering the cultural conversation to connect with new thinking. 

According to Rebekah Miles, Wesley, “…championed reason and challenged those who disparaged it.”[12] 

The now-famous ‘Wesleyan Quadrilateral’ emphasizes that John Wesley viewed reason as a main method of decision making. Furthermore, Wesley claimed that reason was the processing tool for any data you utilize. Science, critical thinking, and empiricism were not only fair game, but they were also necessary.

Side note: another part of Wesley’s Quadrilateral for making decisions claimed that experience was also necessary. Of important note here is that any of the decisions to be made required experience because experience is the key to any data set. Wesley also noted that experience was highly contextual. Was Wesley a post-modern modernist?

Wesley chided religious irrationalism and set to show that the rise of modernism was not a threat to theology, but a compliment to its development. Wesley even went so far as to write entire discourses on natural philosophy to solidify that his religious claims concerning Christianity could rationally stand according to the demands of society. Inheriting a world of Newton, Galileo, Copernicus, Descartes, and a dawning society of apparent secularists that indicted the Christian worldview[13], Wesley was adamant about showing Christianity was not dismissible according to modernism, but rather was strengthened by it. 

Wesley was known for his heart being strangely warmed, 
but he went to great pains to defend 
that it was not at the expense of his head. 

Intellect was a benefit to his theological stance.

Further, Wesley attempted to parallel the force of humanism’s emergence to claim that the Biblical tradition was able to defend these same ideas, but with more reasonableness and, therefore, more meaning. The progress offered by modernism could be found within Christian theology if, in fact, salvation was cosmic and inclusive for all creatures. The foci of humanism’s arrival, for Wesley, was congruent with the theology and ethics of Christianity.

Industrialism, Materiality, & Ecology

Pairing reason with his theological proposition allowed Wesley to respond to a third social context that was rooted in economics, but also coincided with political and cultural developments. Today, we recognize this as industrialism and its effects on society’s health directly countered the foundation of Wesley’s theological stance, catalyzing him to act against it — something he believed the church was failing to do. 

Religious geniuses like John Wesley,” says Marty, “read well the minds of new generations and their own hearts, proclaiming ways for the soul to be reached and filled with love for Jesus — and then, for the world.[14] 

Wesley is portrayed as one who wanted to tangibly affect the social needs of ordinary people and, while this took shape in a diverse variety of forms, the context of industrialization offered the heaviest response.

This may be why Wesley viewed eating as a spiritual discipline[15] and emphasized both the importance of healthy food[16] and a lack of participation in industrial food systems that were beginning to upstart in the eighteenth century.[17] Wesley’s social principles that ranged from the individual to the masses, including all creatures and the earth, was responding to a social deficit in health that opposed his soteriology and eschatology. The rise of industrialization spurned Wesley to challenge both the church and society to a more holistic view of materiality, economy, agriculture, and consumption of creation. 

Though Wesley might not have utilized the category, he was offering a perspective that has traditionally been called Agrarianism — a way of thinking and ordering life in community that is based on the health of the land and of living creatures, including humans. [18] 

This may explain why Wesley’s teachings resonate so clearly with the likes of Wendell Berry. 

Indeed, Wesley’s cosmic salvation of all creation and God’s metaphysical trajectory for the cosmos was of Agrarian DNA.

Conclusion — Should We Listen to an 18th Century Theologian?

John Wesley, with these responses, (his social alternative to industrialism, his reasoned philosophical treatise, and his challenge to the church becoming insignificant) showed that his tradition was relevant, competent, and effective in the face of ecclesiological decline, rational and scientific demands, and a society with real, physical needs. 

A post-modern, globalized, hyper-industrialized inheritor of Western civilization is able to find that Wesley’s worldview is still offering a guiding response to our similar sociological context today. Hence, this religious mutt in search of humanist and existential meaning for a world in crisis has found a voice and a vision for a better world in the theology and its resulting ethics of John Wesley.

While some components of Wesley’s language, reasoning, and theological frameworks need to be transposed to our contemporary context, he stood in a culture that germinated our current situation and offered a rooted perspective to aid the course of history. 

For us today, then, it may be true that Agrarian salvation and ecological eschatology could be the very influence that we need. 

Can we broaden our cultural telos to include the earth and all that is in it?

Can we collect our human perspective to not only value, but rely on the community of creatures that makes up a place for our interdependent survival?

Can we deemphasize any conglomeration that is at the expense of economic, communal, or individual health — including fellow creatures — and view everything as being a part of our care in the places that we are? 

You are going to have a worldview, so it might as well be one that is pragmatic for our common flourishing. 

And while there are lots of options, this Agrarian Salvation offers a story and a perspective that just might move the historical narrative a bit further in the direction Wesley attempted and that our global situation yearns to realize. 

More importantly, the ethic that manifests as a result just might be worth the risk in a Post-Christian, humanist, post-modern, secular, Westernized, industrial, globalized society in which religion has also failed. 

But whatever worldview you adopt, may a similar ethic result. 

And may that eschatological vision begin taking shape now. 

Endnotes

[1] Guerrant Jr., William C.. Organic Wesley: A Christian Perspective on Food, Farming, and Faith (Kindle Locations 425–428). Asbury Seedbed Publishing. Kindle Edition.

[2] Madox, Randy, “Anticipating the New Creation: Wesleyan Foundations for Holistic Mission”, Asbury Journal 62 (2007), 49–66.

[3] Guerrant Jr., 418

[4] Ibid, 808.

[5] Ibid, 1210–1212.

[6] Snyder, Howard A. The Radical Wesley: And Patterns For Church Renewal. Franklin, TN: Seedbed Publishing, 2016, 7.

[7] Davis, Ellen F., and Wendell Berry. Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: an Agrarian Reading of the Bible. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

[8] Davenport, Guy, and Norman Wirzba. The Art of the Commonplace: the Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry. New York: Counterpoint, 2003, 305–320.

[9] Brock, Rita Nakashima., and Rebecca Ann. Parker. Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire. Boston: Beacon Press, 2009.

[10] Marty, Martin. The Christian World: A Global History (Modern Library Chronicles Series Book 29). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 1894.

[11] “Wesley Center Online,” The Wesley Center Online, accessed February 26, 2020, http://wesley.nnu.edu/john-wesley

[12] Miles, Rebekah, “The Instrument and Role of Reason”, Wesley and the Quadrilateral (Nashville, Abington Press, 1997), 81. 

[13] Madox, 49–66

[14] Marty, 1918.

[15] Guerrant Jr., 418.

[16] Ibid, 657.

[17] Ibid, 870.

[18] Davis, 1.