Wesley's parish and the digital age?

The following article was delivered as the annual lecture of the Methodist Sacramental Fellowship at the 2016 Methodist Conference in London. Beginning with the original context of John Wesley's well-known phrase, ‘the world as my parish’, this article explores the digital aspects of our global parish today. Putting the digital age on the agenda of the Church's mission is seen as a similar response to Wesley's decision to become ‘more vile’ and enter the world of field preaching. The lecture concludes by offering a fresh approach to Methodist identity magnified by aspects of digital culture, calling for the creation of digital Arminianism, digital field preaching, digital creativity and, ultimately, a digital parish. The article proposes that Methodism embrace a digital social holiness to spread scriptural holiness throughout the geographic and digital landscape.

Social Holiness and Social Justice

This article explores the connection between social holiness and social justice. It accepts the view of Andrew C Thompson that ‘social holiness’ in Methodist history has a distinctive meaning which was not linked to, and quite different from, the notion of social justice. However, it argues that encountering grace was not restricted to the gathering of Christians in Wesley's theology or practice and that missional engagement opens another channel or means of grace. Acts of mercy are themselves expressions of and encounters with holiness, so that holiness will lead us to justice and justice to holiness. Social holiness and social justice are, thus, part of a divine ecology where one follows the other in the rhythm of discipleship.

Holiness, social justice and the mission of the Church: John Wesley’s insights in contemporary context

John Wesley summarised Methodism’s mission as spreading ‘scriptural holiness’. This article argues that the praxis of social justice as an expression of holiness is integral to the mission of the Church. The following themes from Wesley’s theology are examined: holiness as love; ‘justice, mercy, and truth’; social holiness; works of mercy as a means of grace; stewardship, and ‘the outcasts of men’. It argues that the praxis of justice, mercy and truth is integral to holiness and hence to mission of the Church. A contextualisation of this theme in the context of secularisation and migration is then developed.

Educating for Social Holiness in Institutions of Higher Education in Africa: Toward an Innovative Afrocentric Curriculum for Methodist Theological Education

In 2016, South Africa saw student and staff protests calling for the decolonisation of the teaching curriculum in institutions of Higher Education. Although these protests were centred in public universities, the issue of decolonisation also affects private institutions such as seminaries that need to transform curricula from being permeated with Western idealism to being authentically African. This article explores this issue for Methodist theological education. It argues that decolonisation affects not only the content of the teaching curriculum but also matters such as staffing and curriculum development. Its focus is to develop ways of implementing an Afrocentric curriculum in African Methodist seminaries.