At the close of the eighteenth century, the mantel of Methodist theology passed to the next generations of leadership in a movement that was becoming a church in both British and American contexts. Having identified a distinctive and well-defined headwater in the practical theology of John and Charles Wesley, Methodist theology diverged into several streams within different historical and contextual settings. As may be expected, questions relating to the continuity and discontinuity of Methodist theology within Wesleyan theology loom large in these developments. In the changing and challenging terrain of the following two centuries, Methodists struggled to maintain the conjunctive nature of original and normative Wesleyan theology. The formal theologies that emerged further reflect changing attitudes to questions about authority and the foundations of Christian theology. Beyond the immediate divergence observed in the British and American traditions, several further distinctive streams of Methodist theology emerged: holiness, liberal, neo-Wesleyan, and contextual theologies. Methodists in all these streams sang their faith, giving popular voice to their theological vision and practice.
2.1 British successors to the Wesleys
Although the practical theology of the Wesleys reveals an internal coherence of thought, neither brother was a systematic theologian in the formal sense. John William Fletcher (1729–1785) was the first to assume this role with the publication of his five-volume Checks to Antinomianism1820, first published 1770–1775), a systematic Arminian apologetic against Calvinist predestinarianism. Adam Clarke (1762–1832) emerged as the great biblical scholar of nineteenth-century Methodism; his eight-volume commentary on The Holy Bible (1817) remaining as a primary theological resource for many years. This commentary has stood as an enduring signpost to the primacy of scripture in Methodist theology.
Richard Watson (1781–1833) may be properly designated the principal British Methodist systematic theologian of the nineteenth century. His Theological Institutes (1823) served as the principal theological text for several generations of Methodist clergy on both sides of the Atlantic. These three men self-consciously sought to preserve continuity with the practical theology of the Wesleys, albeit in a more scholastic or academic mode. As Methodism moved further into the new century, however, it tended to align increasingly with the dissenting traditions in Britain and jettisoned its original Anglican moorings. Some of the emerging theological voices of the new church sought to develop their theology as distinct from Anglicanism, and new revivalist movements such as the Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians filled their ranks with Reformed dissenters (see Beck 2018 and Langford 1998a).
2.2 Americanized theology
The different cultural setting of Methodism in America cannot be overemphasized. Initially, American Methodist theology retained a sense of connection with its origins: ‘John Wesley constituted the background; the sovereignty of God and human sinfulness, the content; and personal salvation finally realized in sanctification, the goal’ (Langford 1998a: 80–81). But in their efforts to compete with Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and Baptists, who were shaped by John Calvin’s Institutes and the confessionally-based philosophical theology of Jonathan Edwards, Methodists eventually diverted from the Wesleys’ practical theological methods in the development of their own scholastic compendiums of theology. John Miley (1813–1895), for example, attempted to ‘update’ Wesley for ‘modernity’; his two-volume Systematic Theology (1892) remaining a standard Methodist text for decades. Eventually, the citation of the Wesleyan sources in works such as this receded over time and a chasm began to form between Wesleyan and Methodist theology.
These formal theological developments stand in stark contrast to the experience of rank-and-file Methodists, particularly those seeking to live out their faith on the frontier. Methodist camp meetings reinforced heart-religion, emphasizing the monumental spiritual changes wrought by the Spirit in the lives of individuals. The ecumenical nature of these events also led to a more broadly defined evangelicalism within Methodism. Under the influence of Second Great Awakening revivalists such as Charles Finney (1792–1875), conversion per se became an increasingly central theme. The lyrical theology of Frances Jane ‘Fanny’ Crosby (1820–1915) epitomized these developments and contributed to the increasing chasm between academic and popular theological discourse. Her ‘gospel songs’ emphasized the reality of personal salvation through Jesus Christ; the intimate relationship between the redeemed sinner and the Saviour; the helplessness and complete dependence of the recipient of salvation; the experience of rest and security available to those who trust in Jesus; the summons to strive for Christlikeness of character; a highly individualized view of salvation; and an emphasis on heaven. These theological concerns pervade Crosby’s most famous hymn:
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
born of his Spirit, washed in his blood. (1873)
2.3 The holiness theology stream
Phoebe Palmer (1807−1874), mother of the holiness movement in the United States and the Higher Life movement in Britain, was a product of this Second Great Awakening. In contrast to emergent conversion-centred theologies, Palmer’s own spiritual quest led her to place a renewed emphasis on holiness in Methodist theology. Her ‘Tuesday Meetings’ for the promotion of holiness in New York City in the 1830s promoted a lived theology centred in experience, rooted in the doctrine of holiness, and emphasizing the work of the Holy Spirit. Bible studies figured prominently in this movement, particularly the examination of the saints in scripture. Palmer’s endorsement of spontaneity, and her insistence on the possibility of instantaneous transformation in the religious life, fit easily into the revivalist temperament of the period. She insistently raised the question, is there not a shorter way to the holy life? Her answer was yes. For more than three decades, she promoted her so-called ‘parlor holiness’, developing a unique ‘altar theology’.
Palmer published her vision of this ‘shorter way’ in a widely circulated book, The Way of Holiness (1843). Her view of ‘entire sanctification’, a ‘second definite work of grace’, rested on three propositions:
- the Holy Spirit delivers believers from original sin as a consequence of their personal consecration and faith
- these capacities are inherent powers in Christians as a result of prevenient grace or conversion
- believers can experience entire sanctification any time they want.
This holiness movement gave birth to several Methodist-related denominations including the Church of the Nazarene, the Free Methodist Church, the Wesleyan Church, and the Salvation Army. Despite Palmer’s recovery of holiness as a critical Methodist theological tenet, many viewed her interpretation of holiness as an aberration of authentic Wesleyan teaching.
2.4 The liberal theology stream
Developments following the American Civil War presented challenges to Methodist theologians as the church stood on the threshold of a new century. Changing attitudes about the Bible, new philosophical perspectives, unresolved problems related to racism and social injustice, and the waning of revivalist evangelism in an age of respectability demanded a robust response from the church. In response to this changing terrain, formal Methodist theology took a decided turn in the direction of philosophical theology and away from its earlier biblical moorings. Within the life of the church, some of the seismic shifts in Western culture also shaped the response of Christians to these concerns. In the late nineteenth century, Methodist theology reflected three significant shifts: movements from otherworldliness to this-worldliness, from passivity to activity in the world, and in ethical practice from symptomatic relief to systemic reform.
Methodist theologians in both England and North America were interacting more with currents in their respective cultures. As such, a stream of liberal or modernist Methodist theologians emerged whose work attended closely to the various ‘modern’ challenges submitted to classical Christianity. Their work assumed an apologetic posture in relation to their ‘cultured despisers’. An appeal to experience drew the particular attention of Methodist liberals as the area of ‘experience’ was a significant element of their theological inheritance and, as such, provided a potent response to the challenges of the day. Rather than driving a wedge between religion and science, the theologians of this stream entered into dialogue with the scientific community and brought their insights to bear upon matters of faith. While some attempted to retrieve their Wesleyan heritage in substantive ways, the vast majority ignored the Wesleys, questioned their theological veracity, and viewed their methods as products of an outmoded age.
2.4.1 Boston personalism
A form of classic theological liberalism known as ‘Boston Personalism’ emerged at Boston University School of Theology under the influence of Border Parker Bowne (1847–1910). Bowne’s efforts to defend the Christian faith ‘led to an appreciation of the positive value of biblical criticism, a more optimistic evaluation of human nature, and an intellectual interpretation that could contend with the significant intellectual issues of the time’ (Langford 1998a: 120). This philosophical theology revolved around the concept of ‘personhood’ as the key to reality. Albert Cornelius Knudson (1873–1953), the great systematic theologian of this tradition, characterized evolving Methodist liberalism in six terse points: the centrality of Christian experience, the immanence of God, the true humanity of Jesus, critical study of the Bible, atonement as moral influence, and a positive sense that the kingdom of God is being realized in history (see Knudson 1950).
For half of a century, this school of thought dominated American Methodist academic theology, particularly shaping the leadership of the church. One of the most significant second-generation personalists, Georgia Harkness (1891–1974), was appointed the first female professor in a major theological seminary, Garrett Biblical Institute (now Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary). Described as an ‘evangelical liberal’, she embraced the principal concerns of classical liberalism: continuity amid diversity; the importance of human experience; an optimistic view of life; truth wherever it might be found; social justice and change; and centring all things in God. Her attempts ‘to draw themes together, to keep many dimensions in relationship to one another, to make a full-orbed presentation of what she called redemptive evangelical doctrine’ reflect her penchant for conjunctive thinking and practice (Langford 1998a: 199). One of her most popular theological texts, Understanding Christian Faith (1947), demonstrates her ability, like John Wesley, to speak ‘plain words for plain people’. Moreover, Boston Personalism reached beyond the bounds of Methodism, serving as a foundation for the civil rights platform of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. Four particular personalistic themes resound in his writings: the inherent worth of all persons, a personal God of love and reason, the moral law of the cosmos, and the social nature of human existence (see Burrow 2006).
2.4.2 The social gospel
The Personalist recovery of a dynamic vision of the ‘kingdom of God’ and its realization in history resonated with the pioneers of the Social Gospel movement who sought to reclaim the centrality of the God’s kingdom in Christian theology and practice. Methodist ‘social gospelers’ sought to apply the principles of Jesus’ ministry to the transformation of society, to establish a new social order by eliminating the social evils of poverty and racism. In 1907, Frank Mason North (1850–1935) organized the Methodist Federation for Social Action to direct the church’s attention to the human suffering among working class families. In hymns like ‘Where Cross the Crowded Ways of Life’ (1903), North promoted a new vision of ‘kingdom life’ for the Methodist community:
O Master, from the mountainside
make haste to heal these hearts of pain;
among these restless throngs abide;
O tread the city's streets again.
Till all the world shall learn your love
and follow where your feet have trod,
till, glorious from your heaven above,
shall come the city of our God!
In 1908, the Methodist Episcopal Church produced a ‘Social Creed’ that gave official sanction to these ideas and furthermore reclaimed the inherent relationship between personal piety and social action in the Wesleyan tradition (see Brown 1942). It elevated human experience, freedom, and responsibility and demonstrated the implications of theology for social ethics, bringing increasing awareness to a social and global consciousness.
2.4.3 Process theology and open and relational theology
By the mid-twentieth century, personalist metaphysics had been eclipsed by new philosophical trends. ‘Process philosophy’ represented a new philosophical theism built on the metaphysic of Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947), a noted English mathematician. Fundamentally, he argued that reality consists of processes rather than material objects. The concept of ‘creativity’ stands at the very centre of his philosophical system. Process thinkers privilege becoming over being, events over substance, and ‘organisms’ over matter. Moreover, they developed a ‘naturalistic theism’ that provided a foundation for mutuality between theology and science (see TheologyandNaturalism). While broadly ecumenical in its appeal, several Methodists played a significant role in the application of process thought to Christian theology. John B. Cobb, Jr. (b. 1925), a premier ‘process theologian’ who locates himself within the liberal tradition, established a Methodist epicentre of process influence at Claremont School of Theology in California.
‘Process theology’, according to Cobb, ‘may refer to all forms of theology that emphasize event, occurrence, or becoming over substance’ (1976: 19). He stresses the relational character of God and the way in which God is affected by the world through relation to it. Three particular themes reflect the philosophical underpinnings of this view: (1) Process and change characterize the universe; (2) God contains the universe but is not identical with it (‘panentheism’); (3) God relates to all through ‘persuasion’ and not by exerting unilateral control (‘coercion’).
For Schubert Ogden (b. 1928), another prominent Methodist process theologian, the central issue is the nature of God. He reconceives all the traditional attributes of God under the aegis of ‘creative becoming’ and binds his conception of redemption to ‘the unity of history and nature and the intrinsic value of every creature’ (1979: 112). In Trinity in Process, among other works, Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki (b. 1933) explores a relational theology of God along the lines of process theology.
Thomas Jay Oord (b. 1965) coined the term ‘open and relational theology’ in his articulation of a theological vision that has challenged traditional ways of conceiving God, and while not strictly process-oriented, he reflects some of the same concerns (see Oord 2021). With other ‘open theists’ he shares two critical convictions: (1) God experiences time moment by moment (open); (2) God and creation relate in such a way that all give and receive (relational).
Oord’s theology affirms that love is the ultimate ethic, all creatures possess some measure of freedom, all creation matters, life has purpose, science points to important truths, and transformation is possible. He affirms all the conclusions of science while embracing the view of a God who acts in this world. Statements that reflect the considerations of these theological approaches, such as ‘we are relational beings in a relational world loved by a relational God’ reflect optimism in God and creation moving into an open future.
2.5 The neo-Wesleyan theology stream
The neo-Wesleyan stream of Methodist theology consists of two distinct but interrelated currents. In the middle of the twentieth century, a ‘neo-Reformation’ movement within the Protestant tradition renewed interest in the theology of the magisterial reformers. It did not take long for Methodists who resonated with these developments to rediscover the theological relevance of John Wesley, their own founding figure. ‘neo-Wesleyan theology’ emerged, in part, as a rediscovery and re-evaluation of Wesleyan theology – an ‘ad fontes current’ within Methodism. Simultaneously, and following the lead of Karl Barth in Europe and Reinhold Niebuhr in the United States, ‘neo-orthodox’ theologians levelled serious critiques against what they considered to be the naïve and wrong-headed optimism of liberal theology. Within Methodism, this movement can be described as a ‘counter-liberal current’ within the larger neo-Wesleyan stream.
2.5.1 An ad fontes current
There were glimpses of a rediscovery of John Wesley as early as 1935, but the real watershed in terms of renewed interest in the theology of the founder came with the 1964 publication of John Wesley by Albert C. Outler, an anthology appearing in the Library of Protestant Thought series. His depiction of Wesley as a serious theologian, albeit of a different order, helped fuel a renaissance in Wesley studies, later to include Charles Wesley.
Outler’s contributions toward a new and elevated view of John Wesley as a theologian cannot be overestimated. His reappraisal led to an initial defence of Wesley’s ‘folk theology’ as a legitimate, albeit less elevated, form of theology. He insisted subsequently on the authentic and creative character of Wesley’s model of practical theology vis-à-vis ‘first order’ theology. His primary discoveries emphasized elements of Wesley’s theology long neglected, completely misunderstood, or never fully uncovered. In Theology in the Wesleyan Spirit (1975), he located Wesley more squarely in his Anglican context and brought new insight to the three pillars of Wesleyan theology: repentance, justification, and holiness. His introduction to John Wesley and his exhaustive analysis of Wesley’s sermons (Wesley 1984–present: [vols. 1–4]) demonstrate the wide range of influences upon Wesley’s doctrine, looking to patristic sources primarily for his understanding of Christian perfection.
Robert E. Cushman (1913–1993) contributed to this rediscovery as well. In Faith Seeking Understanding (1981), he explicates six basic propositions aligned with Wesley’s vision. In this platform, faith is about God finding us, not us finding God; life in crisis seeking reconciliation; a moral, not an intellectual, problem; the experience of alienation and reconciliation; ‘awareness’ of need, not the vindication of God’s truth; and the way in which Jesus overcomes estrangement from God and others (Cushman 1981: 54-69).
In his book, The New Creation (1998), Theodore ‘Ted’ Runyon (1930–2017) deviated from the typical model of exploring John Wesley’s theology as the order of salvation; he began his analysis with the imago Dei and described Wesley’s vision of how God recreates this image of creative love in people. Several contemporary scholars continue to advance this work of Wesleyan theological studies. In Responsible Grace (1994), the current general editor of the Wesley Works Project, Randy L. Maddox (b. 1953), locates John Wesley’s soteriology in the larger framework shaped by Eastern Orthodox therapeutic understandings that emphasize sanctification as an ongoing form of spiritual maturation. Kenneth J. Collins (b. 1952) summarizes Wesley’s theology as a vision of the Christian life revolving around the axial theme of ‘holy love and free, co-operant grace’ in The Theology of John Wesley (2007). Paul W. Chilcote (b. 1954) explores the conjunctive nature of the theology of both Wesley brothers in Recapturing the Wesleys’ Vision (2004) and explicates the principal themes of Charles Wesley’s ‘lyrical theology’ in A Faith That Sings (2016), examining the distinctive elements of his theology through the lens of his hymns.
2.5.2 A counter-liberal current
Edwin Lewis (1881–1959), who had been schooled as a Boston Personalist, experienced a radical conversion during his work on the Abingdon Bible Commentary (1929), claiming that this exercise enabled him to rediscover the Bible for himself. Growing increasingly suspicious of his inherited liberal theology, he published A Christian Manifesto in 1934. In this text, he decried modernism and called upon Methodists to reaffirm the reality of God, the authority of the Word of God, the fact of sin, the divinity of Christ, the cross as the supreme event in the divine-human story, and the gospel as God’s provision for the salvation of the whole world. Deeply influenced by Lewis at Drew University, Carl Michalson (1915–1965) prepared Worldly Theology, an existentialist manifesto for Methodists addressing the role of faith in crises, published posthumously in 1967.
The confluence of the two currents within this stream can be discerned in the work of two particular theologians. Thomas C. Oden (1931–2016) subsumed his passion for Wesley under the aegis of a larger ‘paleo-orthodoxy’ project, which represented an effort to advocate classical Christianity in the face of postmodern challenges. The British Methodist theologian Geoffrey Wainwright (1939–2020) reflected similar tendencies in his attempt to wed the ancient liturgical heritage of the church with Wesley’s primitive Methodism. He produced a systematic theology entitled Doxology (1980), building upon a ‘pictorial method’ to demonstrate the inseparability of worship and theology and to identify the worshipping community as the proper matrix of theology. Three ‘pictorial statements’ present his main theses: (1) a medieval tomb sculpture depicting Christ on the cross with outstretched hands holding the sun and the moon; (2) a Charles Wesley hymn representing God’s great self-emptying (kenosis); (3) a dialectic narrative of God presently experienced and God’s consummation yet to come.
While Stanley M. Hauerwas (b. 1940) reflects the counter-liberal current within contemporary Methodism, he also ‘represents practical divinity in a thoroughgoing way’ (Langford 1998a: 223). Theology and ethics are distinct but inseparable, as are theory and practice. Practice shapes understanding, which in turn shapes practice. Theological conviction must be embodied; faith must find expression through action. Long associated with ‘narrative theology’ and ‘post-liberal theology’, he works within the tradition of ‘virtue ethics’. Hauerwas, like the Wesleys, puts ‘character’ and its formation at the very centre of his theological agenda, explicated most richly in his highly acclaimed book, The Community of Character (1981).
2.6 The contextual theologies stream
The fourth stream of Methodist theology, due to its contextual definition, subdivides into a number of branches. Even before the emergence of the revisionist trends of postmodern theology, many had argued for the inescapable contextuality of all theological discourse. This reaction against the Enlightenment claim for universally demonstrable and applicable truth-claims stipulates that all truth is inextricably bound to unique and diverse cultural and historical contexts. Postcolonialism and ecumenical dialogue led to an increasingly positive valuation of contextuality in theology, particularly as previously muted voices joined the chorus. These developments necessitated a complete ‘rethinking of the essential nature of theology, looking for ways to relate it more integrally to the praxis of specific communities of faith’ (Maddox 1999: 50). In this arena, Methodist theologians have made substantial contributions to the Black and Womanist, liberation and feminist, and various indigenous branches of this widening stream.
2.6.1 Black and Womanist theology
Black theology in America found its earliest expression in the hymns of Charles A. Tindley (1851–1933), one of Methodism’s greatest lyrical theologians. While honest about the centrality of suffering in the story of his people – their crucible – the theology of his hymns also strikes a note of hope about a social gospel that can transform the world – their resurrection. The context of oppression and discrimination out of which Tindley wrote shaped his sung theology in ways unique to the Black experience. Three particular themes dominate: the pilgrim way of suffering – the experience of the Black community (personal holiness); the goal of heaven – a counter-vision to the injustice of this life (apocalyptic hope); and the salvation of Jesus – a celebration of the joy and liberation of salvation through an ‘elder brother’ (moral transformation of evil by love). He encapsulated his theology in the following signature hymn:
When the storms of life are raging,
Stand by me.
Thou who rulest wind and water,
Stand by me. (Tindley 1905)
James H. Cone (1938–2019), a professor of systematic theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York and from the African Methodist Episcopal Church, questioned the white supremacist perspective of theology in an initial and watershed volume on Black Theology and Black Power (1969). The following year, he systematized his themes in a second volume, A Black Theology of Liberation (1970), identifying the enslavement of Black people as the central problem that American theologians must address. Cone describes this volume as ‘a rational study of the being of God in the world in light of the existential situation of an oppressed community, relating the forces of liberation to the essence of the gospel, which is Jesus Christ’ (Cone 1970: 17). Employing a hermeneutic that begins with the reality of oppression and a methodology that views these concerns through the scriptural lens of ‘the Exodus, the prophets, and Jesus’, he insists that the God of the Bible battles oppressors and actively seeks freedom for those in bondage by engaging actively in the human situation. While ‘blackness’ functions as a symbol for all oppressed people, he stresses the importance of the Black community as the matrix of authentic theology, that place in which people discover their worth and find meaning together.
Anthony G. Reddie (b. 1964), founding editor of the international journal Black Theology, is a British Methodist of Caribbean descent. In works such as Black Theology (2012) and Black Theology, Slavery and Contemporary Christianity (2016), he articulates a participative approach to theology in community that interfaces Black theology and decolonial, transformative education.
Jacquelyn Grant (b. 1948) is a Methodist founder of Womanist theology, a movement which gives voice to the concerns and theological perspectives of Black women. As a doctoral student, Grant studied under James Cone. Her book White Women’s Christ and Black Women’s Jesus (1989) explores christological themes from the perspective of Black women who are both ‘the oppressed of the oppressed’ and ‘the particular within the particular’.
2.6.2 Liberation and feminist theology
In an effort to decolonize theology and speak to the concerns of oppression in Latin America, a number of Methodists addressed these tasks directly, none more effectively than Argentinian José Míguez Bonino (1924–2012). One of the founders of Latin American ‘liberation theology’, he attempted a thorough-going application of the gospel to his cultural setting in a book of that title in 1986. Míguez Bonino levelled acute criticisms against forms of Methodist theology that ‘yielded to a radical individualism and has adopted the values of reigning cultural, economic, and political powers’ (Langford 1998a: 239). Esther and Mortimer Arias succinctly define the core of his theology, ‘His theme is the Kingdom and his leitmotif is love, incarnate love, mediated in history through human solidarity and commitment to the oppressed’ (Arias and Arias 1980: 131). His agenda upended traditional theological hermeneutics, starting with the plight of the poor and oppressed who engage in a communal praxis of the biblical witness.
Bonino paved the way for a number of other liberation theologians who applied his ‘praxis method’ in their own contexts. Theodore W. Jennings, Jr. (1942–2020) levelled a critique against ‘first world’ values, economic systems, and institutionalized injustice. In his Introduction to Theology (1976), he provides an initial presentation of his deconstructionist agenda. He identifies latent liberationist themes in the creeds, liturgy, and critically assessed scripture, affording a vision of a just God deeply engaged with the poor and oppressed. Methodist women’s voices give expression to liberation as well. Three words dominate The Power to Speak: Feminism, Language, God (2002) by Rebecca S. Chopp (b. 1952): proclamation, emancipation, and transformation. The most significant feminist theologian of Methodism, she locates the praxis of solidarity with suffering persons at the heart of the Christian vision in The Praxis of Suffering (2007).
Joerg Rieger (b. 1963), a German-born liberationist, understands theology to be a transformative agent in the world. With much of his work focusing on global economic injustice and the dehumanizing effects of ‘empire’, he advocates ‘deep solidarity’ with those harmed by unjust systems. He develops these ideas in books like Remember the Poor (1998) and Christ and Empire (2007). In No Religion but Social Religion (2018) he and a team of Methodist scholars interface these themes with the Wesleyan theological inheritance.
Simei Monteiro (b. 1943) gives lyrical expression to these themes of emancipation in songs that capture the spirit of her native Guarani culture. The metaphor of pilgrimage or journey pervades her hymns, amplifying the themes of familia, communidad, and justicia:
If walking is our vocation, surely we’ll walk with each other.
Our faith will be great and glorious and it will move even mountains.
We’ll open frontiers of challenge removing all human barriers
because we now follow Christ in hope and joyful solidarity. (Montiero 1995)
2.6.3 Indigenous theology
Methodists helped pioneer the ‘modern missionary movement’ that emerged at the beginning of the nineteenth century. While many missionaries communicated a gospel captive to their own culture, it was only inevitable that their converts would shape this message and its practice into forms consonant with their own lives and contexts. In the twentieth century, greater attentiveness to the contextuality of all theology led to the rise of a number of Methodist Indigenous theologies across the globe, particularly in Africa and Asia. E. Bolaji Idowu (1913–1995) led the Methodist Church Nigeria from 1972–1984. He immediately initiated a program of church reform, emphasizing the need for autonomy and indigenization. In fact, this reflected longstanding concerns he had already articulated in a book entitled Towards an Indigenous Church (1965). One of the early exponents of ‘ethnotheology’, he engaged in efforts to rediscover and correct misconceptions about the religious ideas of his own Yoruba people. In Olódùmarè: God in Yoruba Belief (1995), he examines the conceptions of God, morality, and ultimate meaning through this lens, making preliminary claims about the contributions of the African religious heritage to the Christian faith.
Kwesi Abotsia Dickson (1929–2005) employed similar methodological approaches in relation to the recovery of his Akan heritage in Ghana. Like Idowu, his study of African religion and culture preceded his engagement with Christian theological concerns. In his most significant theological work, Theology in Africa (1984), he sought to explicate the inseparability of culture and religion. While providing a very thorough introduction to the subject, Dickson’s work does not go much beyond a status quaestionis, setting out the agenda. A genuine indigenization of theology can be found in the work of Mercy Amba Oduyoye (b. 1934), a self-described African liberation and African women’s theologian. In particular, she addresses the questions of how African religion and culture influence the experience of African women and how economic systems oppress them. In 1986, she published Hearing and Knowing, her first theological reflections on Christianity in Africa. This work is a precursor to her edited volume, Beads and Strands (2004), in which she focuses on African wisdom related to community and neighbourliness.
Patrick Matsikenyiri (1937–2021), the foremost contributor to sacred song in African Methodism, sings and dances theology in community. Born in Zimbabwe and having lived through the struggle for independence from colonial rule, African music carried him and the Methodist community through some of the most difficult days of this journey. Matsikenyiri forged an indissoluble link between the political and contextual realities of life and spiritual liberation. He subscribed to a ‘lived lyrical theology’, undergirded by the famous Shona proverb: ‘If you can talk, you can sing. If you can walk, you can dance.’ Even his texts that cry out for justice resound with a keynote of joy. In virtually all his compositions, the rhythmic melodies and dancing schemes communicate a contagious spirit of rejoicing. His most famous song, ‘Jesu tawa pano’ (‘Jesus, We Are Here’), originally composed as a gathering song for Holy Communion, excites the community into ‘jubilant praise’. The sung words and the danced rhythms of this song communicate a theology of joy experienced and lived in community.
One of the significant non-Western Methodist theologians of the mid-twentieth century was Daniel T. ‘D. T.’ Niles (1908–1970) of Sri Lanka. His theology represented a broad amalgamation of his Hindu heritage in Tamil culture, Charles Wesley’s hymns, the spirituality of E. Stanley Jones’ Ashram movement, and his multiple activities in the ecumenical movement. His most significant contributions are to be found in his efforts, tentative and exploratory as they were, to interface traditional Western theology with his Asian culture. He placed particular emphasis on the concept of the Trinity because of its affinity with the Asian idea of ‘wholeness’. Having described evangelism as one hungry person showing another hungry person where to find bread, his book Eternal Life Now (1947) presents his ideas through this missional lens.
Before his election to the United Methodist episcopacy, Emerito P. Nacpil (b. 1932) served as professor of theology and president of Union Theological Seminary in Manila and director of the Association of Theological Schools in Southeast Asia. He emphasizes the need for Christianity to be expressed in a multiplicity of cultural forms. Participation in culture, and not necessarily its critique, must characterize living communities of faith today. The following values govern his efforts to express an indigenous Asian theology: awareness of the diversity of cultures; recognition of real human needs; development of healthy and resilient communities; and engagement in constructive change on the basis of ethical imperatives.
Choan-Seng Song (b. 1929), one of the most widely published Chinese theologians, orients his theology around the shibboleth of Western Christian individualism and the way in which it alienates Asian peoples from their native cultures. Borrowing much of his methodology from liberation theology, in works such as Third-Eye Theology (1979), Theology from the Womb of Asia (1986), and The Believing Heart (1999), he introduces the theme of ‘story theology’, steeped in Asian motifs. Although having spent most of his professional career as a theologian in the United States, the South Korean scholar Andrew S. Park seeks to integrate the Asian concept of han – a critical tenet in his ‘theology of the wounded’ – and the Christian doctrine of sin in The Wounded Heart of God (1993).
All these Methodist contextual theologies acknowledge the inseparability of lived Christian faith and concrete socio-historical contexts. They are incarnational in the sense of recognizing God’s activity in all that God has created in its diversity and specificity. They are sacramental in the sense of perceiving God’s presence in the ordinary aspects of real life, including the struggle for meaning and justice. They are dialogical in the sense of celebrating the identity of ‘the local’ as a concrete form of Christian expression engaged in mutually enriching and challenging conversation with other contextual embodiments of the faith.
