Today I dove into my first book about John Wesley. It's a history book covering the state of England's culture before and after the revival that Wesley instigated.
So far, I am neck deep in the "before". That would be the early 1700s.
I have to say, it's pretty shocking stuff. My mental image of British culture is "stiff upper lip" types sipping tea, eating crumpets, and speaking proper English.
Here's what I don't picture:
- Widespread drunkenness on gin.
- Open corruption among government officials.
- Rat infested prisons.
- A list of 160 offenses for which even children could be publicly executed by hanging.
- Large crowds showing up for those hangings, creating a party atmosphere.
- Three out of every four children in London dying before their fifth birthday.
- Orphanages where babies were intentionally starved to death.
- Brutal forms of entertainment involving deaths of animals.
- And, of course, all the horrors of the slave trade.
As I am reading, here is where my mind goes:
A) Modern American culture is bad, but maybe not as bad as English culture once was. There's hope for us yet.
B) If Wesley had a hand in turning British culture around, it was not primarily through political activism. And it was not exactly through preaching against particular cultural sins.
It was through his efforts at introducing people to Christ AND then developing them as disciples.
Christians today talk a lot about the culture war.
If we were serious about winning the culture war, we would be devoting more effort to evangelism and discipleship.
Amen!
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