Methodist Christology: From the Wesleys to the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

All too often Methodist theology can fall into one of two camps. On the one hand, it can become a scholastic (better still, encyclopaedic, in the unlovely sense of that word) engagement with the thought of the Wesleys—repeating them with an ever greater exactitude and believing that to do so is to fulfil the task of theology, speaking as if the gulf of nearly 300 years to the present did not exist and was of no importance. On the other hand, Methodist theology can act in such a manner as to believe that gulf so insurmountable (never mind the 1,700 years of theology preceding it) that we should proceed as if we were working always with a novum—reinventing the theological bicycle with engagements that owe more to creative writing than serious engagement with the theological traditions. This volume of serious historical, dogmatic, doctrinal, systematic, contextual, and constructive engagements is not only important, therefore, in terms of its discussion of Christology but also in moving Methodist theology in general beyond the unhelpful binarized forms it so often takes. Here, tradition and history are explored and taken seriously but neither viewed through the chilly light of scientific historicism, nor treated as a museum piece to be treasured and preserved at all costs. And the theological enterprises that follow engage in a manner that brings the tradition(s) to life in dialogue with other major theological movements, dealing formatively with the contours of Methodist thought on Christology in relation to a variety of figures, movements, contexts, and theologians. False dichotomies of the constructive or the systematic, the dogmatic or the creative, the historical or the theological are finally put to bed. This is a volume whose significance is far beyond the essays it contains on Christology.Vickers and Van Kuiken have assembled an excellent cast of (North American) authors to tackle questions relating to Christology. Identifying the centrality of Christology to the Christian faith (and Methodism more specifically) and the contested ground on which Christological dogmas sit, the essays are arranged into three sections: first, an historical discussion of the Wesleys, the early Methodists, and the nineteenth-century Methodist dogmaticians; second, a focus on the twentieth century and Methodist engagements with Christology in this century (albeit the choices of figures are a little narrow perhaps); and third, a series of essays on the future of Methodist Christologies, including discussion of womanist, feminist, Latina/o, and Christologies ‘after’ significant figures or movements.If I were to be (overly) critical, it might have been good to see some more biblical engagement, and to consider the significant contributions that have been made by Methodist scholars (perhaps dominantly this side of ‘the Pond’) to New Testament Christology: Morna Hooker, James Dunn, and C. K. Barrett all spring to mind. And, as is all too often the case (in our theology), the essays lacked much detail on the preceding context that leads to the Wesleys: chapters on the Reformation and on Patristic Christologies as context for the first section would have helped. But only so much can be done in any volume. And this one is a tremendous achievement of first-rate theological endeavour.