Anxiety in the Wesleyan Spirit: A Core Theological Theme?

Abstract

AbstractEighteenth‐century writer and reformer John Wesley does not use ‘anxiety’ in its modern philosophical or psychological sense. However, Wesley carefully distinguishes between forms of religious fear and ‘nervous disorders’ throughout his published theological and medical works, indicating the felt quality of anxiety as a central theme. This is evinced in his published journals, sermons such as ‘The Spirit of Bondage and of Adoption’ (1746), ‘The Wilderness State’ and ‘Heaviness through Manifold Temptations’ (both published in 1760), and less‐conspicuous works such as Primitive Physic (1747), ‘Thoughts on Nervous Disorders’ (1786), as well as his publication on electricity, The Desideratum: Or Electricity Made Plain and Useful (1759). Wesley’s treatment of ‘anxiety‐qualia’ as religious predicament and physical disorder is instructive in terms of placing Wesley vis‐à‐vis the backdrop of Enlightenment Europe and its scientific and philosophical interests, which has been the subject of recent historical and theological scholarship related to Wesley. Wesley was a preacher and revivalist to be certain, whose emphasis on perceptible inspiration and the assurance of faith cultivated a global Protestant denomination, but he was also a curious thinker with a fondness for science and faith, steeped in the intellectual developments of the North Atlantic, early‐modern world.