The Use of the Old Testament in a Wesleyan Theology of Mission

Abstract

In this interesting study, Gordon Snider, a professor at Kansas Christian College, sets out to examine if and how representative Wesleyan theologians and missionary leaders used the Old Testament to shape a theology of mission, and how far the outcomes corresponded with distinctive Wesleyan emphases. Snider takes three groups of case studies: the British founders of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (Thomas Coke, Jabez Bunting, Adam Clarke, and Richard Watson); voices from the nineteenth-century Methodist Episcopal Church (Nathan Bangs, the contributors to Whedon's Old Testament Commentary, and Edmund F. Cook); and spokespeople from the Wesleyan holiness tradition. In each case, evidence is sought for attitudes to the questions Snider judges to be central to contemporary missiological readings of the Old Testament: the universal reign of God, the election of Israel, and Israel's responsibility toward the nations. Evidence is also sought for the key Wesleyan emphases of the image of God in humanity, prevenient grace, a therapeutic model of salvation, and a concern for Christian perfection. This analytical framework enables Snider to marshal a considerable amount of material, and to demonstrate the importance of the Old Testament for the theology and advocacy of missions in the family of Wesleyan and Methodist traditions.