MEET ME AT FETTER LANE

What is needed for spiritual revival in the United Methodist Church is not another Aldersgate but another Fetter Lane.  Let me explain.

Most of us in the Methodist and Wesleyan tradition are familiar with the life-changing event that happened in John Wesley’s life on May 24, 1738. Having been theologically trained but spiritually ill-equipped, Wesley returned to England from a disastrous missionary adventure in Georgia full of doubt and despair. After an anguished season of soul-searching which culminated in a spiritual crisis, he said he went “very unwillingly,” without enthusiasm, to a meeting on Aldersgate Street where he said he felt his “heart strangely warmed” and, by God’s grace, he “passed from virtual faith to real faith, from hoping to having.” (Albert Outler, John Wesley, New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), p. 17.

But Aldersgate was only the beginning. The Eighteenth Century Great Awakening would begin later, under the leadership of John and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield. But this would happen only after a period of deep and prolonged prayer at Fetter Lane.

The Fetter Lane Society was a small community of faith founded in London by Wesley’s Moravian friend Peter Bohler. The Wesley brothers and Whitefield attended, and it became the arena for theological argument/holy conferencing as well as the estuary for the formation of Wesley’s theology. The Fetter Lane model was part of the inspiration for the Methodist societies after Wesley left Fetter Lane in 1740. Wesley’s Journal tells of one meeting at Fetter Lane nine months after Aldersgate which might well have been the springboard for the Great Revival:

January 1, 1739: Mr. Hall, Kinchin, Ingham, Whitefield, Hutchins, and my brother Charles were present at our love feast in Fetter Lane, with about sixty of our brethren. About three in the morning, as we were continuing instant in prayer, the power of God came mightily upon us, insomuch that many cried out for exceeding joy, and many fell to the ground. As soon as we were recovered a little from that awe and amazement at the presence of His Majesty we broke out with one voice, “We praise Thee, O God; we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.” (John Wesley, The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., ed. Nehemiah Curnock. London: Epworth Press, 1938), 2:121-25.

Some historians refer to this Fetter Lane meeting as a “little Pentecost” which helped launch the great Wesley-Whitefield revival in Britain. Lewis Drummond writes: “What actually happened to Wesley at the Fetter Lane prayer meeting was a refreshing, a reviving, and infilling of God’s Spirit that blessed, challenged, encouraged, empowered, and thrust him out in great evangelistic activity. He was awakened anew. He was personally revived.” (Lewis A. Drummond, The Revived Life: How to Have a Personal Spiritual Awakening. Nashville: Broadman Press, 1982), p. 25.

In our research of great revivals and awakenings of history, we have found that revival always begins with periods of fervent, heartfelt prayer. People were “continuing instant in prayer” until three o’clock in the morning! And God showed up and mightily answered their prayers. When was the last time you and some of your friends prayed until three o’clock in the morning? 

Meet me at Fetter Lane.

Is Christianity Dying?

Christianity is not dying. What is dying is Christianity that serves Empire. Constantinian Christianity.  That is what is dying, at long last, and that NEEDS to die.  The Crusades, The Inquisition, The Puritans, The Witch Hunts, the Self-Serving Sanctimonious “Religious Right” – all that gives Christianity a bad name and which is antithetical to the teachings of Jesus – all these which are not religious movements at all but political tools – these are dying, and rightfully so.

It all began with Constantine’s vision of the cross in the clouds – “In hoc signo vinces.” Jesus NEVER SAID THAT. Seriously I often doubt whether Constantine ever really saw it. This was the first occurrence of someone consciously or unconsciously appropriating the cross for their own selfish ends – twisting the meaning of the cross on which Jesus of Nazareth GAVE HIS LIFE FOR OTHERS into a justification for TAKING THE LIVES OF OTHERS.  A symbol of humility and sacrifice became a symbol of arrogance and conquest. It has been well documented by Stanley Hauerwas and others that this is where counterfeit Christianity – Imperial, militant Christianity that seeks to dominate rather than to serve – was born. 

These various forms of counterfeit Christianity have endured for nearly 2,000 years, for power is the headiest of wines. When religious faith is conscripted into the service of political and military power – note the rise of Islamist militancy – the core faith is so obscured, so distorted that it is unrecognizable.      

Even the most secular, non-religious persons are now recognizing all these as counterintuitive to the Spirit of Christ. This is why so many of them have no use for the present form of the Christian church. They have called us “hypocrites” and to some extent they are correct.

The famous “Serenity Prayer” goes, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” It is good therapy to learn to accept the things I cannot change, but there are times when I must change the things I cannot accept. This is one of those times.