THE MEANS OF GRACE: TOWARD A WESLEYAN PRAXIS OF SPIRITUAL FORMATION
by
Dean G. Blevins
In searching for the proper grounding for the authority of the Bible, scholars often appeal to certain intrinsic properties found in scripture or to an inherent relationship between the Holy Spirit and the Bible. While these approaches merit due attention and dialogue, they are not the primary concern here. An effective way to demonstrate this writing's identification of the predicament lies in a personal story.
The Predicament
I was visited one evening by a friend who was completing his doctorate in the human sciences. My friend, who had an extensive background in a conservative branch of the Christian tradition, was in a state of spiritual disrepair and doubt. I inquired about his practice of reading the Bible and he admitted difficulty. He summarized his circumstance by saying: "I have problems staying with the reading because I feel I have already done all that stuff." The "stuff" my friend alluded to was the ordering of scripture around certain theological and moral propositional constructions which left little space for returning to scripture for a potentially creative second reading.
I also have found this problem in my teaching. Often in Bible study I have asked the class to consider what the text "is saying" or "means," hoping for an inductive search of the passage. The response often has been that the text's meaning lies in a summary definition of a particular doctrine or moral code, more the result of an acquired folk theology than any disciplined thought. The biblical account was truly theological raw material,1 but the problem occurred when it became limited material that resourced only specific formulations. Scripture, even when considered a first-order account of revelation, is collapsed into supporting second-order theological and moral constructions which are allowed to carry the greater weight of influence.
Amazingly, this problem often has occurred in a number of settings regardless of the person's position on the inherent authority of scripture. In spite of the claim to the primacy of scripture, in practice the Bible's authority had been subordinated to supporting particular theological or moral propositional truth claims. The predicament became one of scripture practically losing its authority to make its own claims. This same predicament also is experienced through certain forms of preaching when sermons are based on biblical passages that seem tangential at best to the point being made.
M. Robert Mulholland, Jr., has identified this problem as one of an informational-functional culture seeking to control its own environment through primarily rational, cognitive, and intellectual dynamics.2 Mulholland lists several characteristics of informational reading, two of which are of special consideration: the tendency to try to master the text to bring it under our control; and the tendency to see the text as an object "out there" for manipulation.3 Mulholland observes:
From within our entrenched position, we seek to read the Bible to find more support for our position or to explain away anything which seems not to fit our position. This is the analytical, problem-solving dynamic of the informational mode. The text is an object to be controlled and manipulated. The text is something "out there" which we control, and the basis of our control is that entrenched position we bring to the text. It doesn't make any difference, as [Thomas] Merton said, whether it is a religious presupposition or a cultural one; the text remains an object of our manipulation.4
Many people do not consciously intend to manipulate the biblical text inappropriately. Persons often do, however, file the scriptural text away, like a computer file in a particular theological or moral subdirectory, to be retrieved only when that subdirectory is addressed. The problem occurs when that particular subdirectory not only captures the text, but also inhibits the reader of scripture from truly attending to the text for additional meaning. This may not be the fault of the particular doctrine or moral code. Theological construction is not the issue. The failure lies in the reader's inability to understand the relationship between the construction and the Bible, often creating a form of presumed cognitive mastery of the Bible which inhibits personal engagement with its revealing text.
This inability to re-engage a scriptural account with depth, to pause before the text and seriously offer full attention to the text because of previous constructions, thereby limits the authority of scripture for that individual. To overcome this lack of appropriate attention, Robert Mulholland offers a particular method of reading scripture based on John Wesley's guidelines.5 While this approach is commendable, it is my opinion that it does not grasp the full resources available to us for overcoming the problem.
Wesley's understanding of the role of scripture should be addressed within the larger framework of Methodist praxis, particularly understood as participating in the means of grace. The Christian educator, utilizing the full range of the means of grace, places the practice of reading scripture in an ecology of holistic practices, some fixed and some contextual, which operate interdependently. To understand this ecology of practices, the following first surveys Wesley's descriptions of the means of grace and then explores one possible understanding of how the practice of prayer, in relation to scripture reading, may compensate for a preoccupation with cognitive mastery.
The Means Of Grace
A key quote comes from Wesley's sermon "The Means of Grace" that emerged in part during Wesley's dispute with certain Moravians and from his assertion of the value of participating with God's redemptive work.
By "means of grace" I understand outward signs, words, or actions, ordained of God, and appointed for this end, to be the ordinary channels whereby he might convey to men, preventing, lefting or sanctifying grace.6
Wesley also would interchange the word "means" with the word "ordinances" on occasion7 as an indicator that this participation was expected by God. The "means", however, were not an end in themselves:
But we allow that the whole value of the means depends on their actual subservience to the end of religion; that, consequently, all these means, when separate from the end, are less than nothing and vanity; that if they do not actually conduce to the knowledge and love of God, they are not acceptable in his sight.8
While the means themselves were understood to have no intrinsic worth, they were channels by which the Holy Spirit worked to communicate grace for the full work of salvation. Jesus Christ is the ground of this grace, particularly through the act of the atonement: "the merit is that of the Son."9 The means, like grace, are available to all, even to those who do not yet experience what Wesley would call "salvation" (or the witness of the Spirit). As grace is a dynamic, so are the means of grace. The result is that there are many different forms which Wesley categorized as either "Instituted" or "Prudential" means of grace.
The Instituted Means Of Grace
Wesley believed that there were five means of grace that had been evident in the life of Jesus.10 They are the Lord's Supper, Prayer, Fasting, Scripture, and Christian Conference or Conversation.11
1. The Lord's Supper. In coming to understand Wesley's explanation of how grace might be channeled, the sacrament of Eucharist or the Lord's Supper is particularly enlightening. The Eucharist, primarily a communal act, connects individuals to each other and to the grace available through the work of the Holy Spirit in our taking the bread and cup. What makes the Lord's Supper such a powerful introduction to the means of grace is it's ability to operate at different levels of meaning: as a memorial; as an immediate divine presence; and as an eschatalogical promise.
The memorial aspect of the Supper for Wesley is not just a solemn recalling to mind of the events of Christ's death. Rather, it communicates a deeper sense of reliving the event. "Not only our mind or memory is involved, but all our senses as well."12 In this dynamic drama of worship, the Eucharist is re-presented.13 The events are recreated, connecting the worshiper not only with the initial Supper but also with each subsequent re-enactment.
The second aspect of the Lord's Supper is the immediate availability of grace. In an earlier dispute, certain Moravian quietists, who were part of the Fetter Lane society, were stressing that, since salvation came by faith alone, they were not "bound or obliged" to practice the ordinances of grace, including the Eucharist. Wesley, as noted in his journal from June 22 to July 20, 1740, opposed this viewpoint and ultimately he, along with eighteen or nineteen others, left the society.14 The heart of Wesley's argument was that the power of the Lord's Supper includes its actively and immediately conveying grace. For instance:
Sat. 28 (1740). I showed at large (1) that the Lord's Supper was ordained by God to be a means of conveying to men either preventing or lefting, or sanctifying grace, according to their several necessities; (2) that the persons for whom it was ordained are all those who know and feel that they want the grace of God, either to "restrain" them from sin, or to show their sins forgiven, or to renew their souls in the image of God; (3) that inasmuch as we come to his table, not to give him anything but to receive whatsoever he sees best for us, there is previous preparation indispensably necessary but desire to receive whatsoever he pleases to give; and (4) that fitness is not required at the time of communicating but sense of our "state", of our utter sinfulness and helplessness; every one who knows he is fit for hell be just fit to come to Christ, in this as well as all other ways of his appointment.15
The question remains if it is the actual elements, the bread and cup, which convey divine grace. Wesley would say no. He draws from a variation of the Reformed doctrine of virtualism: "that the elements remained unchanged but Christ is nonetheless present through the Holy Spirit."16
A third aspect of the gracious efficacy of the Lord's Supper's is its eschatalogical nature. Beyond Wesley, theologians such as Geoffrey Wainwright have understood that participation in the Eucharist is participation in the "sign of the future banquet of the heavenly kingdom."17 Since this heavenly banquet is open to all, the Eucharist carries not only an eschatalogical message, but also an eschatalogical mission to announce its availability.
It should not be surprising that Wesley believed "it is the duty of every Christian to receive the Lord's Supper as often as he can."18 Wesley admonished his ministers and laity that communion be served "every Sunday and holiday of the year."19 Wesley himself participated on the average of once every four or five days.20 He did this not only because it was "a plain command of Christ,"21 but also because of the Supper's ability to empower the spiritual life. "This is food for our souls: This gives strength to perform our duty and leads us on to perfection."22
2. Prayer. The central theme of Wesley was always heartfelt prayer. He said that prayer is the lifting up of the heart to God.
All words of prayer, without this, are mere hypocrisy. Whenever therefore thou attemptest to pray, see that it be thy one design to commune with God, to lift up thy heart to him, to pour out thy soul before him.23
What is significant is that Wesley advocated that this heartfelt prayer could be found in many forms of either extemporary or written prayer. In advocating extemporary prayer in the morning, Wesley said: "Consider both your outward and inward state and vary your prayer accordingly."24 He believed that this form was "a more excellent way" of prayer than dull repetition of a standard form.25 Wesley identified four basic elements of prayer: petition, confession, intercession and thanksgiving.26
He also cherished written prayers and kept a personal diary of other people's prayers.27 The major source for Wesley's written prayers was his Anglican heritage. For John Wesley The Book of Common Prayer was "only just less inspired than the Bible."28 This book, however, was not above revision, which Wesley did for American Methodists out of ecclesiastical and liturgical necessity.29
In 1733 Wesley published a series of written prayers for the morning and evening of each day of the week, with questions for meditation and themes for each day. He also wrote morning and evening prayers for families to use each week and also prayers for children.30 The power behind these written prayers was that Wesley expected them not only to be read but to be prayed as well. Each prayer would be read until their meaning was a part of the person who read them. The prayers then became a daily extension of each individual and each community.
3. Fasting. Fasting for Wesley was closely connected with the continuing practice of prayer: "It is a help to prayer; particularly when we set apart larger portions of time for private prayer."31 Wesley observed that fasting could occur in multiple forms and for varying lengths of time. He also noted that "of all the means of grace there is scarce any concerning which men have run into greater extremes."32
Wesley connected fasting with levels of abstinence, the restriction of certain foods, particularly pleasant foods. He advocated limited forms of fasting particularly for those who might have health problems. Even in his later years, Wesley resorted to abstinence more than to his traditional one-day fast. Food was always the object of the fast, so some liquids might be taken.33 He was constantly alert that fasting might be done for the wrong reasons.34
Wesley also associated fasting with "almsgiving"- "works of mercy, after our power, both to the bodies and souls of men."35 Citing Isaiah 58, he noted that fasting had a very social consequence as well.
4. Scripture. Wesley has long been described as the "man of one book," while it is well-known that he read extensively in other fields and published approximately six hundred works of various themes.36
I want to know one thing-the way to heaven; how to land safe on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way: this very end he came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price, give me that book of God! I have it: Here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be "homo unius libri" [A man of one book]. I sit down alone: Only God is here. In his presence I open, I read his book; for this end, to find the way to heaven.37
For him, scripture spoke to life, in its reading and proclamation, at deeply human levels.
Wesley's hermeneutical process was not as sophisticated as many methodologies today, but it was not a static process. When confronted with difficult passages, Wesley would first turn to divine guidance, then he would compare the text with similar parallel passages, meditate upon the text and even consult other commentaries by "those who are experienced in the things of God."38 He was deeply concerned that the meaning of each text be accessible, so much so that he wrote explanatory notes on the Bible. His concern for his translation and accompanying notes (many of which he acknowledged that he borrowed from other commentators) was not only for an academically precise text, but also for an understandable one.39
5. Christian Conference. The religious life and community were also inseparable for Wesley. The literal meaning of "conference" is an intensive meaning of the word "together."40 Conference was not merely a loose association of individuals, but an intensive, accountable, organic community. Specifically, Wesley would use the word to describe groups of people, particularly lay preachers from different Methodist circuits, who met with John and Charles.
This I did for many years, and all that time the term "Conference" meant not so much the conversation we had together, as the persons that conferred; namely those whom I invited to confer with me from time to time.41
Generally the term might be used to include all of Methodism in its various social groups. The emphases of Wesley's groups were spiritual renewal, mutual accountability, mutual responsibility, and Christian practice in the world.42
The heart of Christian Conference was to provide different levels of fellowship and accountability based on the different needs of the individual. An overview of the different forms of the Methodist groups indicates that all groups were voluntary and were designed to impact people at different levels of the Christian life. John Drakeford describes five levels:
1) Associational (the Society): primarily for fellowship and
encouragement, including non-believers;
2) Behavioral (the Class): primarily for examining the behavior
of Christians and providing encouragement and correction;
3) Motivational (the Band): extended examination beyond
behavior to the very intent of the Christian;
4) Aspirational (the Select Society): for the most enthusiastic
member, seeking as full a Christian life as possible;
5) Reclamation (the Penitent Band): for those who had failed in
other groups but were willing to attempt to return.43
Tickets were issued quarterly for admission to closed groups in order to insure that members would take attendance seriously and to prevent hostile members from continuing. Affiliation was determined by the Society members. Those rejected had opportunity to answer questions or to face their accusers in order to determine true intent. If repentant, they were allowed a provisional membership for two months.44 Band members were carefully screened and divided into separate peer groups according to sex.45
Wesley understood that spiritual life and communal life are connected. He also understood that his groups provided a means of grace by allowing people to embrace the communal life without having to fully withdraw from their everyday world. At issue was the necessity of living a practical Christian life (engaging daily with the world), and yet having a community available that was designed specifically for renewal and growth. Methodist groups gave people a sense of identity while incorporating them into Christian life. They were offered neutral ground to experiment with this life on cognitive, affective, and behavioral levels.46 Wesley trusted the Holy Spirit to communicate grace to the individual at his or her level.47
The Prudential Means Of Grace
The "Prudential" means of grace were designed to meet the person at the point of need. Such means could vary "according to the person's needs and the circumstances, thus showing Wesley's simple concern for man's particular historical situation."48
The prudential means of grace spanned those activities found in the instituted and the general means of grace. They also included Christian social praxis.49 They were contextual. While the instituted means belong to the universal church in all eras of history and in all cultures, by contrast the prudential means of grace vary from age to age, culture to culture, and person to person. They reflect God's ability to use any means, in addition to those instituted, in accordance with different times and circumstances.50 Henry Knight lists several prudential means:
1. Particular rules or acts of Holy Living.
2. Class and Band Meetings.
3. Prayer meetings, covenant services, watch night
services, love feasts.
4. Visiting the sick.
5. Doing all the good one can, doing no harm.
6. Reading devotional classics and all edifying
literature.51
Wesley included several metaphors for living the Christian life which Knight places under the "General Means of Grace."52 These metaphors were "watching, denying ourselves, taking up our cross, exercise of the presence of God."53
Wesley also understood that it was prudential to utilize the instituted means of grace. The replication of Christian Conference in some instances as both instituted and prudential means of grace meant that all ordinances were to have a "contextual" meaning. In every use of the means, Wesley was concerned about spiritual pride. He would tolerate no sense of works righteousness. He endeavored to make sure that each individual first recognized God's activity on their behalf.
Wesley wanted Christians to realize that there was to be an outcome to the holistic use of the means of grace within the life of each person and group. Grace resulted in a life of holiness and righteousness. The outcome of grace was not to be received through mere practicing of one of these ordinances in isolation. This grace, springing from the merits of Christ, became available as one participated in a myriad of practices, often used interdependently, just as the Instituted and Prudential means found a common point of reference through Christian Conference. Grace was available through the holistic practice of the dynamic family known as the means of grace.
Scripture And Prayer In Holistic Praxis
Since, for Wesley, scripture was part of this larger ecology dedicated to communicating grace, we need a way to illuminate the interdependence of the means of grace by overcoming this problem of inattentiveness to scripture. A possible corrective is to be found in the Bible's relationship to prayer as viewed from the perspective of psychology and religion. According to Ann Ulanov, prayer often suffers from inattention because of our limited preconceptions of God.54 Our picture of God becomes distorted by self or other images based on authority figures or poor religious pedagogy.55 Ulanov suggests, however, that our attentiveness to God increases at a deeper psychic level as we confront our projections and continue in prayer.
We become disillusioned with our projected images. In religious language this usually is called a "stripping away," a "scouring," in the experience of the "dark night of the soul." In psychological language this is the experience of exhausting the power of our projected inner objects. We know now that we cannot impose them onto the reality of God.... In the venerable phrase of Christian spirituality, we die to the world, the outer world and the densely populated psychic world within.56
We begin not only to understand better the personage of God, but also recognize this personage through the limitations of the very preconceptions that we originally had. This is the movement from seeing our projections of God as imitative of God to a new perception which explores those same projections.
The common stuff of our human life-all the different kinds of psychic structures composed of introjected and projected materials- come eventually in prayer to achieve a transparency through which is glimpsed the unstructured, open, welcoming face of God found in Christ.57
Under Ulanov's model, the very constructions of our understanding of God in prayer become a gateway to actually attending to God at a deeper level: "Somewhere along the way an obstacle is turned into a vehicle."58
A person versed in this understanding of prayer (or even in the process of acquiring this understanding of prayer) might then approach scripture from the same perspective. This form of tacit knowing, often occurring at a level below our immediate cognition,59 would then inform the scriptural reading process so that second-order formulations would also serve as gateways into scripture rather than summary statements about scripture. The person of prayer might then approach scripture with an attention level which subverts the informational-functional process. The invitation to "pray as we read and read as we pray"60 would then convey new meaning.
The conclusion drawn for Christian education is that any serious consideration of the role of scripture in the Wesleyan tradition should always be done with attention to the full range of the means of grace. This attention is crucial if we are to be true not only to John Wesley in his day, but also true to the very sources Wesley used and the implications of those sources for our day.61 Like Wesley, Wesleyan Christian educators should wish to insure that the primary outcome is that of holistic Christian praxis, which results in grace received and lived. This form of holistic praxis also might contain the very comprehensive resources necessary to overcome some of the practical problems we see in a lack of attention to scripture or in other areas of spiritual formation when they are isolated from the fullness of the means of grace.
ENDNOTES
1. Greathouse, William and H. Ray Dunning, An Introduction to Wesleyan Theology (rev.) (Kansas City: Beacon Hill, 1989), 15.
2. M. Robert Mulholland, Jr., Shaped by the Word (Nashville: The Upper Room, 1985), 48-49.
3. Mulholland, 21-22 & 49-50.
4. Mulholland, 51.
5. Mulholland, 119-128.
6. John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, 3rd ed (Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson Publishers, 1832, 1986), vol.5, 187.
7. Wesley, 185.
8. Wesley, 188.
9. Henry Hawthorn Knight, The Presence of God in the Christian Life: A Contemporary Understanding of John Wesley's Means of Grace (Ph.D. diss. Emory University, 1987, Ann Arbor:UMI, 1987), 59.
10. Steve Harper, The Devotional Life in the Wesleyan Tradition (Nashville: The Upper Room, 1983), 19.
11. Wesley, vol 8, 323-324
12. Ole E. Borgen, "John Wesley: Sacramental Theology, No Ends without the Means," in John Wesley: Contemporary Perspectives, ed. John Stacey (London: Epworth Press, 1988), 70.
13. Ole E. Borgen, John Wesley on the Sacraments, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1972), 70.
14. Wesley, vol. 1, 282.
15. Wesley, 280.
16. Knight, "John Wesley: Sacramental Theology, No Ends Without the Means," 191.
17. Geoffrey Wainwright, Eucharist and Eschatology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 56.
18. Wesley, vol. 7, 147.
19. Wesley, 156.
20. Harper, 36.
21. Wesley, vol 7, 145.
22. Wesley, 148.
23. Wesley, vol 5, 330.
24. Wesley, vol 7, 30.
25. Wesley, 30.
26. Knight, 171.
27. Harper, 75, note 11.
28. Frank Baker, John Wesley and the Church of England (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1970), 234.
29. Baker, 242-249.
30. Wesley, vol. 11, 201-259.
31. Wesley, vol 5, 351.
32. Wesley, 345.
33. Harper, 49-50.
34. Wesley, vol 5, 358-359.
35. Wesley, 360.
36. Harper, 28.
37. Wesley, vol 5, 3.
38. Wesley, vol 5, 3-4.
39. Wesley, Explanatory Notes on the New Testament, preface, n.p.
40. James D. Nelson, "Christian Conference" in Wesleyan Spirituality in Contemporary Theological Education, ed. Hal Knight (Nashville: Division of Ordained Ministry of the United Methodist Church, 1987), 48.
41. Wesley, vol. 13, 248.
42. Knight, 139-143.
43. John W. Drakeford, People to People Therapy (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1978), 11-20.
44. Henderson, 98.
45. Drakeford, 17.
46. Henderson, 161.
47. David Lowes Watson, The Early Methodist Class Meeting (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 1987), 87.
48. Borgen, "John Wesley: Sacramental Theology, No Ends without the Means," 105.
49. Harper, 64.
50. Knight, 4.
51. Knight, 7.
52. Knight, 178-184.
53. Wesley, vol. 8, 323.
54. Ann Belford Ulanov, "What do We Think People are Doing When They Pray?" in Picturing God (Boston: Cowley Press, 1986), 84-89.
55. See James Hamilton, The Faces of God (Kansas City: Beacon Hill, 1984); and J B. Phillips, Your God is too Small (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1961), 15-59.
56. Ulanov, 89.
57. Ulanov, 92.
58. Ulanov, 94
59. Michael Polayni, "Tacit Knowing: Its Bearing on some Problems of Philosophy," in Knowing and Being (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1969), 164.
60. Greathouse and Dunning, 14.
61. Albert C. Outler, "A New Future for Wesley Studies: An Agenda for 'Phase III'" in The Future of the Methodist Theological Traditions, ed. M. Douglas Meeks (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1985), 46-47.
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