The Crossroads of Christianity and Culture

Talking about anti-Semitism is like walking barefoot through a mixture of broken glass and whole eggs, but it has to be done. Let's start with the basic facts. Anti-Semitism is as fundamental a feature of Western culture as racism is of American culture. It begins among followers of Christ with the rhetoric of the Gospels, particularly the Gospel of John.  It becomes institutionalized in the emerging Catholic church, which made the gospels part of the Canon. It became embedded in the wider Roman culture when Christianity became the religion of the empire. From the 4th century until today anti-Semitism has been continually manifest in discrimination and violence against Jews, culminating but not ending with the Holocaust.  Over the last 2000 years the character of anti-Semitism has changed. Vague anti-Semitic tropes and baseless accusations about Jewish behavior were systematized by Friedrich Schleiermacher in his taxonomy of religions and theological anti-Semitism became burie...

In a recent article in Firebrand David Watson took up the important question of what make Methodism unique.  https://firebrandmag.com/articles/a-peculiar-methodism . He argues, and I agree, for a recovery of Methodist peculiarity. I disagree with his analysis of what went wrong, which simply repeats the old traditionalist tropes going back to the 70's. But what I really miss in his presentation is much sharper listing of Methodist distinctives as they might play out in the US particularly, but also beyond, and that’s what I want to provide below. Evangelism for personal salvation . What made Wesley and the revivalists of his day both unique and threatening to the religious establishment was an emphasis on personal conversion. In the context of 18th century England this was truly radical because it had radical social and political implications. If people could, through their own personal decision, enter into a saving relationship with God through Christ then the entire English eccle...