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Radical Grace
Justice for the Poor and Marginalized
Charles Wesley’s Views for
the Twenty-First Century
S T Kimbrough, Jr.
WITH A FOREWORD BY STANLEY HAUERWAS
RADICAL GRACE
Justice for the Poor and Marginalized—Charles Wesley’s Views for the Twenty-First Century
Copyright © 2013 S T Kimbrough, Jr. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
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isbn 13: 978-1-62032-143-0
eisbn 13: 978-1-62189-546-6
Cataloging-in-Publication data:
Kimbrough, S. T., 1936–
Radical grace : justice for the poor and marginalized—Charles Wesley’s views for the twenty-first century / S T Kimbrough, Jr. ; foreword by Stanley Hauerwas.
xvi + 134 p.; 23 cm—Includes bibliographical references and index(es).
isbn 978-1-62032-143-0
1. Wesley, Charles, 1707–1788. 2. Church work with the poor—Methodist Church—History. 3. Hymns, English—History and criticism. 4. I. Hauerwas, Stanley, 1940–. II. Title.
BX8495.W4 K566 2013
Manufactured in the USA.
Unless otherwise noted, the translations of the Psalms in chapter 6 are from Psalms for Praise and Worship, ed. John Holbert, S T Kimbrough Jr., and Carlton R. Young. Nashville: Abingdon, 1992. Psalms for Praise and Worship (cited as NRSV/PPW below) contains adapted and edited quotations from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, used by permission.
The following congregational musical settings of Charles Wesley hymn texts are copyrighted © 2001 The Charles Wesley Society, Archives and History Center, Drew University, 36 Madison Ave., Madison, NJ, 07940: “The golden rule she has pursued,” “The poor as Jesus’ bosom friends,” “Which of the Christians now,” “Would you require what cannot be,” “Help us to help each other,” “You pastors hired who undertake,” “Your duty let the Apostle show,” and “Happy the multitude.” All rights reserved. Used by permission.
The following congregational musical setting of the Charles Wesley hymn text “Your duty let the Apostle show” by Timothy E. Kimbrough is copyrighted © 1993 General Board of Global Ministries, GBGMusik, 475 Riverside Drive, New York, NY, 10115. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Foreword: Poetry and the Poor
Lessons Learned from Charles Wesley and S T Kimbrough, Jr.
Methodism, in the beginning a movement among “the not well off,” became the exemplification of bourgeois Christianity. Methodism is the faith of the middle class. That characterization may fail to do justice to British Methodism. In England, where the class structure is well determined and acknowledged, Methodist discipline helped many rise from poverty to become well established, but their class origins continued to determine how they understood themselves. As a result Methodism in England became identified with the Labor Party on its knees. At least that was the case when the Labor Party was the party of people like Tony Benn.
The middle-class character of Methodism in America did not result in a politics exemplified by the Labor Party. Methodism in America, at least Methodism at the beginning of the turn of the last century, was identified with a people who took pride in having worked hard to become respectable. They did not necessarily think of themselves as middle class. Rather they thought they were neither very rich nor very poor. They simply had “just enough.” The “enough” that they had, however, they were pretty sure they deserved. They were generous people willing to share some of their “enough” with those who did not have “enough.” But they did worry about giving what they had to those who seemed to have no desire to escape being poor.
I am, of course, characterizing what has become known as mainstream Methodism. Methodism produced break-off movements such as the Free Methodists, the Nazarenes, and the Salvation Army. These movements were constituted by working-class people, whose jobs or finances would not be sufficient for them to be understood as middle class. Accordingly, they found themselves still identified with the working poor.
My description of mainstream Methodism in America may seem not to take account of the involvement of Methodists as individuals and as a church in the Social Gospel movement. It is certainly the case that Methodists were among the early leaders in organizations created by advocates of the Social Gospel. But the Social Gospel was primarily a movement of the middle class. Thus, advocates of the Social Gospel, in the name of dealing with structural poverty, sought to develop social policies that could be enacted by government to end poverty. The significance of such a strategy is not to be discounted, but it is nonetheless a strategy of a bourgeois church and social order. The Christian duty is now thought to be getting governments to do what Christians no longer were sure the church or individual Christians were willing to do.
I begin with these observations about Methodism because I hope they will help us appreciate the significance of S T Kimbrough’s account of Charles Wesley’s commitment to the poor. Of course, Kimbrough has said what needs to be said in his concluding remarks about the implications of Charles Wesley’s model for the church’s obligation to the poor for the twenty-first century. I have little to add to his highlighting the importance of enduring concern, the importance of acquiring the virtues, the living out of divine grace, as well as the importance of memory for understanding why and how the poor must be the center of the life of the church. My task, however, is to suggest why Kimbrough’s suggestions about the implications of Charles Wesley’s understanding of the duty of Christians to preach the Gospel to the poor entails a theological position that was largely lost when Methodists became a church of the middle class.
The imagination of a middle-class church concerning the poor is restrained by the presumption that the task of the church is to make the poor well-off enough to be middle class. Therefore the church and Christians think of the poor primarily as people who need to have something done to or for them. In the process, “the poor” become an abstraction. We do not need to know those we identify as poor, we do not need to listen to the poor, we, that is the church, just need to do something for the poor. We simply cannot imagine that we might need to be with the poor. But because we cannot imagine what it might mean to be with the poor, we cannot imagine what it might mean to be with Christ.
What Kimbrough helps us see is this: Charles Wesley saw quite clearly that how the poor are understood is a christological issue. For Charles Wesley, the poor could not be turned into an abstraction because Christ cannot be turned into an abstraction. That is why his poetry celebrating the lives of particular people who refused to abandon the poor is so important. They witness to the One that was at once poor and who cared for the poor.
We do well to pay particular attention to Charles Wesley’s poem:
Savior, how few there are
Who thy condition share,
Few, who cordially embrace,
Love, and prize thy poverty,
Want on earth a resting place,
Needy and resigned like thee!
What strikes one