Spring 1999 - Quarterly Review

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us to imagine our faith freshly, to write new songs while singing theold, to write new poems while relishing the old.Theologians and leaders of other traditions have long made sportof teasing the Methodists: "They have no theology, those singingMethodists." But 1 say that this is the kairos for poetry in ourchurch as it was in Charles Wesley's day, in this sense: we needcommon, shared metaphors that will help us name our faithtogether. We do not need more ideology in the church. We needmore poetry.Eighteenth-century English society shared some features of ourown "postmodern" societies. Tracts and pamphlets laced withhyperbole rolled off the local presses of many towns and villages.John Wesley was continually engaged in controversies and madeliberal use of exclamation points to hold and sway readers'attention. He regularly admonished his followers in stronglanguage, indicative of often heated tensions within the Methodistcommunity.All the more important, then, was the richness and depth of CharlesWesley's poetry. Here he framed the images and conveyed the inherentlogic of Christian faith as Methodists understood it. Here he built anarbor of words in which he hoped Methodist people could standtogether in love.All praise to our redeeming Lord, who joins us by his grace,And bids us, each to each restored, together seek his face.He bids us build each other up; and, gathered into one,To our high calling's glorious hope we hand in hand go on.The gift which he on one bestows, we all delight to prove,The grace through every vessel flows in purest streams of love.E 'en now we think and speak the same, and cordially agree,Concentered all, through Jesus'name, in perfect harmony. 15He wrote this in 1747. Who will write for us?16 QUARTERLY REVIEW / SPRING <strong>1999</strong>
Notes1. "Large Minutes" of the Methodist conferences, John Wesley, Works, vol. 8(Jackson Edition), 299.2. David Harvey, The Condition ofPostmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins ofCultural Change (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1990) 284, 286.3. Georg Simmel, "The Metropolis and Mental Life," in The Sociology ofGeorgSimmel, ed. and tr. by Kurt II. Wolff (New York: Free Press, 1950) 409-24.4. Harvey, Postmodernity, 54, 58, 61, 85.5. Ibid., 44, 47, 117.6. Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, andSteven M. Tipton, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in Americanlife (New York: Harper and Row, 1985) 152-62.7. George Cheney, Rhetoric in An Organizational Society: Managing MultipleIdentities (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1991) 16-23.8. For further historical study of Methodist rhetoric, see Russell E. Richey, EarlyAmerican Methodism (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991).9. 'The design of our meeting" in the first Methodist conference in 1744, Wesley,Works, 8:275.10. The Book of Discipline 1996 (Nashville: The United Methodist Publishing House,1996), para. 4.11. Sec the General Rules, Discipline 1996, para. 62.12. This is Timothy Smith's critique, quoted in Ted A. Campbell, 'The 'WesleyanQuadrilateral*: The Story of a Modern Methodist Myth," in Thomas A. Langford, ed.,Doctrine and Theology in the United Methodist Church (Nashville: KingswoodBooks, 1991), 154-61.13. I am indebted to Professor Theodore Jennings for this insight.14. James L. Kinneavy, "Kairos: A Neglected Concept in Classical Rhetoric," in JeanDietz Moss, Rhetoric and Praxis: The Contribution of Classical Rhetoric to PracticalReasoning (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of American Press, 1986)79-105.15. The United Methodist Hymnal (Nashville: The United Methodist PublishingHouse, 1989), 554.MINDING WHAT WE SAY: RHETORIC IN CHRISTIAN CONFERENCE 17
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deduction from philosophical a prio
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tradition. But theology confined to
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methodology is made up by a body of
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Douglas W. RuffleHoliness and Happi
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holiness and happiness, shall cover
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letter that he would send financial
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emphasis on a "lifestyle" evangeliz
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Wesley saw the need to bring "real"
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Kenneth G. DavisStill Gringo after
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considered her casual demeanor to b
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like to give attention to the lumin
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into the light of these luminarias.
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ecause I cannot be other than what
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one might choose to look at the som
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Jesus was not, however, a crowd-ple
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coming of the kingdom (9:35), they
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about Jesus has been forever known
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Although the message comes from the
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would strike at the very fabric of
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these little ones." The parallel an
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(16:18-19) was vying for recognitio
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July 18,1999—Eighth Sunday after
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Matthew's "little apocalypse" descr
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Spring 1999 - Quarterly Review

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