Reflections on Free Methodism

What do these things have in common? Fairs, movies, dancing, eating ice cream, ice skating, eating oysters, wearing lace, wearing a wedding band, playing basketball on Sundays, playing cards, drinking wine, listening to secular music, wearing neckties, and not wearing neckties. If you said, “Things that Free Methodists have, at some point in their short history, considered sinful,” then you would be right.

I am currently taking a course in the history of the holiness movement and, of course, as a life-long Free Methodist my mind always perks up when I come across some little tidbit about my own beloved church. One such blurb appeared in David Bebbington’s recently published The Dominance of Evangelicalism:

“As the National Camp Meeting Association of America grew in influence, it established state and local bodies to carry on its work. Gradually they developed a life of their own and tendencies toward separatism began to emerge especially in the Midwest and Southwest. Already there existed a vigorously independent Free Methodist Church, founded in 1860, which maintained a firm adherence to the doctrine of a clean heart. Like the would-be separatists in the National Association, the Free Methodists kept up a steady critique of the worldliness of existing denominations. A Free Methodist group holding revival services in Algonquin, Illinois, was disgusted that members of a congregation in the town held a frivolous church fair. ‘The next morning,’ according to the revivalists, ‘they filled a basket with fragments and sent them to us, but we wrote them a kindly note and returned the same, as we did not care to eat the refuse of the sacrifice offered to Dagon’” (205).

I must admit that as I read this account of my church by David Bebbington (a non-Free Methodist), my heart sank. Evidently, this refusal to break bread with a fellow Christian congregation in the community represented my spiritual ancestors’ notion of “heart purity” and “perfect love.”

To return to the list at the top of this article, I note that we have slowly, gradually dropped most of these shibboleths from our identity. In 1860, the average Free Methodist would have considered each and every one of them evil. Fast forward a century to 1960 and the list (by my unscientific studies) would have been reduced somewhat. By this time wearing lace, eating ice cream and oysters, and attending fairs were no longer issues. Now jump to 2008 and most Free Methodists will go to bat against alcohol, and a few of us might still put up a fight over dancing or secular music. But other than that, the list at the top of this page makes us laugh under our breath and maybe roll our eyes. I note a simple historical fact: gradually, these pet sins have, one by one, been scratched off our list. Is this fact something to be lamented or welcomed?

I attend Asbury Seminary and across the street from my apartment is a tennis court owned by the school. On a little white sign at the gate to the court, the sign reads, “No tennis playing on Sundays.” No one follows this rule because the sign looks like it is about thirty years old. In fact, since I’ve been here in Wilmore, the seminary has decided to open the campus gymnasium on Sunday afternoons from 1-5pm for anyone who wants to worship God through exercise. What a contrast to the policy of the 1970s at Asbury College which required all students to stay in their rooms for the duration of Sunday afternoon in order to “rest”! Times are changing, our church is changing, and we do not know who we are.

B. T. Roberts and his friends were not fools. They did not merely think to themselves, “What arbitrary laws can we make up to give ourselves a sense of identity as a people?” No, these were women and men with fire running through their bones. They were passionate about two things: holiness unto the Lord and preaching the gospel to the poor. And upon examination of the historical context of these early zealots we find that their “pet sins” were not so unreasonable after all. The reason behind many of these prohibitions such as wearing fancy clothes, eating expensive dinners, and hobnobbing with the well off was simple: they were so fanatical about living in solidarity with the poor and providing their material resources to meet their needs that it would be sinful for them to waste their precious money on Red Lobster and Versace (forgive the anachronism).

So here is my thesis: we, as a denomination, have two options ahead of us. We can chose to return to ministry among the poor and, hence, have a foundation for simple living (i.e. stop eating oysters). Or we can choose to no longer be a sect and embrace our role as yet another middle class, generic evangelical institution (in which context most of our shibboleths make absolutely no sense at all). In other words, if we aren’t going to be a church that is filled with alcoholics, our stance against alcohol will only be demonic legalism. Such a ban makes no sense outside of its context. In my opinion, the statement in our Book of Discipline that “Because Christ admonishes us to love God with all our being and our neighbor as ourselves, we advocate abstaining from the use of alcoholic beverages” is absurd unless we are a church filled with alcoholics and former alcoholics. But, as it is, our teetotalism has become an empty shibboleth as we conveniently forget that John Wesley drank wine (not to mention Jesus and his first embarrassing miracle).

Who are we? Are we a sect or are we a denomination? Where do we go from here? Do we really want to become a movement among the poor again and embrace our history? Or are we comfortable where we are? And if our mission is to reach middle and upper class whites (which is a viable and important mission), then let’s please agree to drop these hallow legalistic rules which only cheapen our faith.