From Monument to Movement

I remember vividly watching the 1998 film adaptation of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables and seeing the young idealistic student Marius Pontmercy standing atop a box in the middle of a crowded street. He proclaimed the dawn of a new era for France and encouraged young and old alike to join him in the revolution. As I watched, something within me envied this young man. He had a cause and he believed in it; he had found something worth living and dying for.

As a young idealist myself, I long to be part of a movement that is radical, edgy, and nonconformist – one that challenges the status quo and invites its members to a place of radical (and dangerous) action. And, much to my delight, as I have studied the history of the Free Methodist Church I have found that this is exactly what we once were.

According to Donald Dayton, B. T. Roberts “pushed his followers to a radical discipleship that affirmed simple lifestyle, polemicized against the ‘modern, easy way of people getting converted, without repentance, without renouncing the world,’ and insisted that such renunciation of the world include such social sins as ‘slavery, driving hard bargains, and oppressing the hireling in his wages.’” The tone of the early Free Methodist movement carried seeds of dissent from the increasingly bourgeois church of the late nineteenth century leading its followers to a radical simplicity of lifestyle for the sake of the poor.

The dual concern for complete holiness and social justice lies at the heart of Free Methodist DNA. Our founders were convinced that these two were completely inseparable. For holiness means nothing more and nothing less than perfect love and this perfect love will drive us to “follow in the footsteps of Jesus... by seeing that the gospel is preached to the poor” (B. T. Roberts). Unfortunately, the 20th century convinced us that we must choose between doctrinal purity and what is now called the social gospel movement – creating a split which still haunts us to this day.

This young idealist in his late twenties wishes to see the Free Methodist Church denounce the unholy divorce of personal and social holiness as demonic and return to our roots – to a place of radical self-denial and sacrificial love which motivates not only our prayers, but our pocketbooks as well. We must reject a hyper-spiritualized gospel which tells us that God only cares about souls and not about physical needs as well. We must embrace holistic ministry which meets people where they are and presents them with the fully-orbed, robust gospel of Jesus Christ in all of its personal, social, and political glory.

In many ways, the Free Methodist Church has become that very denomination against which we rebelled. We have become a “respectable church” rather than a church on the margins and on the fringes of society. We have traded in the plain dress and unadorned church buildings of the early Free Methodists for middle-to-upper class luxuries and padded pews.

I suggest we take our cue from the founders of the church of the Nazarene (close relatives of ours) who wrote the following: “We can get along without rich people, but not without preaching the gospel to the poor... Let the church of the Nazarene be true to its commission; not great and elegant buildings; but to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, and wipe away the tears of the sorrowing; and gather jewels for his diadem.”