A tireless but troubled architect of Christian thought

The Life of John Wesley

A Brand From the Burning

Roy Hattersley

Doubleday: 454 pp., $27.95

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The so-called mainline Protestant denominations in modern America -- Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, United Church of Christ, Methodists -- often are considered together, distinct not so much from one another as from other religious groups, such as Roman Catholics, Southern Baptists and other fundamentalists. Time has obscured the memory of their origins and of the passions that attended their births.

For the Methodists, Roy Hattersley, former British politician and author of 14 previous books, has revived in thorough and vivid detail the story of their founding in the 18th century by the charismatic preacher and tireless organizer John Wesley.

Hattersley paints a portrait that may well jar readers in these blander times. His Wesley is an autocrat. Saved as a child from his burning house in Lincolnshire, England, Wesley -- and his family -- believed he was thereby marked by God for greatness, calling him “brand from the burning.” As an adult he was self-absorbed, to use the modern term, about his own salvation and careless about the effects of his beliefs on others -- so careless that throughout his long preaching life he modified and changed his beliefs, often to the bewilderment and dismay of his followers.

“Methodism was made up as it went along,” Hattersley writes, “very largely inside John Wesley’s troubled mind.”

And it was a very troubled mind, in ways that today’s readers may well find hard to comprehend, as he grappled with questions of theology. What is necessary for salvation? Are some chosen by God as the elect from the beginning of time so that nothing they can do or feel or believe will make any difference in the afterworld? Can good works on Earth assuage the presumed divine wrath? Or is salvation possible by faith and faith alone?

Wesley chose the latter -- sola fide, by faith alone. He clung to that proposition all his life and held fast to the conviction that he, certainly, was “born again” and secure.

But what of others? He seemed never quite sure, and he shifted ground, and Methodist doctrine, throughout his life.

“He considered his future,” Hattersley writes of Wesley as a young man, “in terms of his determination to take the most certain route to heaven. His loyalty was to God and his own soul. Nothing else was worthy of his unswerving allegiance.”

The author quotes him as writing that “Wherever I can be most truly myself, there I am assured I can most promote holiness in others.” More than once, Hattersley calls that attitude arrogance.

Wesley protested that he did not intend to found another church. Like his Anglican clergyman father, he merely wanted to return the slack and sleepy established Church of England to pure Christian roots. (The name Methodism came from Wesley’s insistence on a rigorous daily routine and strict codes of conduct.) But his ever-growing mission would lead inevitably, after his death in 1791, to the establishment of a separate denomination in both England and America.

Both countries were ripe for religious change. It was the time of the Great Awakening, with evangelist George Whitefield hunting for souls in both countries, with Jonathan Edwards preaching in America and with John Wesley and his brother Charles, remembered for the many hymns he wrote, sojourning in Georgia before returning home to commence their immense labors. John Wesley rode by horse throughout England and Wales, preaching usually several times a day and shockingly, by then contemporary standards, in the open air, in fields and commons, to crowds that swelled to the several thousand. He was distinctive with his unruly long hair at a time when wigs were common. His voice could be heard for 140 yards.

His listeners were the common people so long neglected by the church, which served chiefly the “quality.” Though no revolutionary -- he detested democracy, upheld the monarchy and was appalled by the American Revolution -- he gave voice to the aspirations and self-regard of working- and middle-class men and women on both sides of the Atlantic. He emphasized care of the less fortunate.

Adored by his strong-willed mother, Wesley was, Hattersley makes more than clear, hopelessly adolescent and inadequate with women. Strongly attracted to them, he was nevertheless haunted by the old Christian specter of priestly celibacy. His marriage was late and unfortunate. For his sacrificing of her to his constant preaching duties, his wife came to hate him.

Wesley’s work came first. For that, he was, in Hattersley’s words, “one of the architects of modern England.” And of the United States. His blend of social uplift and straight-living piety became a familiar element in American society.