How Should Methodism View Politics?

Tom Oden, one of Methodism’s great theologians, has a new book, John Wesley’s Teachings Volume IV:  Ethics and Society, which addresses Wesley’s political theology.  Unlike other great Christian thinkers across the centuries, like Augustine or Calvin for example, Wesley offered no systematic application of faith to statecraft.  He was primarily a ministry leader and preacher, not a public theologian, although he did at times publicly address social issues.

Wesley’s public theology mostly must be discerned through his attitudes, practices and assorted stances across his nearly 90 years.  He supported Britain’s constitutional monarchy and its state church.  He believed God ordained government to uphold order, punish the wicked and advocate morality.  He distrusted political revolution, at home, in America and, although late in life, in France.  He famously opposed slavery.  Primarily in defense of the vulnerable, he denounced gambling, Sabbath breaking, coarse public entertainments, and the easy availability of hard liquor.  These vices most directly corrupted their practitioners but also corrupted wider society, chiefly victimizing the poor, especially women and children, whom both state and church had divine charge to protect.