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Review Essay
John Fletcher as John Wesley’s Vindicator and
Designated Successor? A Response to
Laurence W. Wood
Donald W. Dayton
Finally, we see the appearance of the long-promised study on John Fletcher by Laurence W. Wood, Professor of Systematic Theology at Asbury Theological Seminary. At the 1998 joint meeting of the Wesleyan Theological Society and the Society for Pentecostal Theology in Cleveland, Tennessee, Wood burst on the scene in a plenary session with a study of “Pentecostal Sanctification in John Fletcher and Early Methodism” (published the next year in the journals of both societies). In the same meeting he unveiled a special issue of the Asbury Theological Journal(Spring, 1998) that included, along with various interpretive materials, the first publication of a mis- placed essay on the “new birth” by John Fletcher, a key theological figure in early Methodism. Wood suggested that this essay could play a key role in the interpretation of early Methodism and its relation to the emergence of Pentecostalism. Now we have the book length argument, published as one of the larger volumes (almost 400 pages) in the Scarecrow Press mono- graph series of “Pietist and Wesleyan Studies,” edited by David Bundy of Fuller Theological Seminary and Steven O’Malley of Asbury Theological Seminary.
This is a complex book with multiple arguments going on at the same time. On one level the book is an introduction to the life and work of John Fletcher, who came from French-speaking Switzerland to England where he joined the Methodists and became founder John Wesley’s confidante and interpreter. Fletcher is often called Wesley’s “designated successor” (the title of Luke Tyerman’s biography)—though his constitution was
© 2004 Brill Academic Publishers, Inc., Boston pp. 355–361
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frailer than Wesley’s and his premature death prevented him from fulfilling this role. He is often described as the “saintly John Fletcher” and is seen as a prime personal exemplar of the Methodist doctrine of “entire sanctification” or “Christian Perfection.” Most of his career was spent as vicar of the parish church of Madeley, but he was involved as well (as president) with Trevecca College, the first theological school of Methodism, and became the first theological interpreter of Methodist movement. In this last role he is best known for a series of treatises under the title of Checks to Anti-nomianism that defended Methodist Arminianism against the reigning Calvinism.
Wood’s interest, however, is primarily in Fletcher’s role in the “Pentecostalizing of Wesley’s theology.” Fletcher developed a doctrine of “dispensations” (either three or four) that give a heightened focus on the “church age” as the “age of the Spirit” inaugurated at Pentecost. Wesley welcomed this vision especially because its application to the life of the believer allowed him to speak developmentally of the “stages” in the Christian life. (Interestingly, some modern dispensationist literature refers to an unknown and mysterious “Mr. Fletcher” whose teaching is seen as anticipating some of their teaching.) But Fletcher also identified the “sec- ond blessing” of Methodism with the disciples’ experience at Pentecost, laying the foundations for a doctrine of the “Baptism of the Spirit” that flowered in the late nineteenth century “holiness” wing of American Methodism and became the major force in shaping the Pentecostal under- standing of this theme (without “tongues”—the addition of which marked the emergence of Pentecostal theology building on the holiness herme- neutic of Acts).
Wood’s real interest in this book is to defend Fletcher’s reading of Wesleyan theology as the normative reading of the tradition and to argue that Wesley approved entirely these moves of Fletcher. On one level this is a defense of Wood’s earlier work Pentecostal Grace (Zondervan, 1980), which is a modern defense of the reading of the Wesleyan/Holiness tradi- tion through the lens of the “Pentecostal” Fletcherian prism. There is also a minor positive theological argument in the book that Fletcher’s thought provides a better basis for the practice of the rite of confirmation in the current “liturgical renewal” of Methodism. (As I noticed in my Theological Roots of Pentecostalism, Pentecostalism and the classical tradition of confirmation share a common hermeneutic of Acts in separating the recep- tion of the Spirit from “baptism” and associating it with a “second expe- rience” of the “laying on of hands.”)
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This thesis runs counter to an emerging consensus that Wesley did not approve of Fletcher’s moves and that Wesley’s more “Christological” ori- entation was in tension with Fletcher’s more “Pneumatological” reading— and that the last third of the nineteenth century marks the rise of the Pentecostal reading of the Wesleyan/Holiness tradition that led into Pentecostalism. This negative side of Wood’s polemic leads him into a number of theses: that Wesley entirely approved of Fletcher’s theological path, that the Fletcher tradition was the normative reading of Wesley not only in England but in early American Methodism, and that Fletcher’s ori- entation ought to be revived in our time as the flowering and fulfillment of a properly “Pentecostal” or “pneumatological” (but not “Pentecostal” in the sense of “speaking in tingues”) reading of the Methodist theologi- cal tradition. These theological concerns lead Wood into chapters about the later development of the tradition as he confronts the emerging reign- ing consensus that sees more of a “conflict of interpretations” rather than Wood’s argument for “continuity.”
I do not want to presume too much, but even though there are only half a dozen references to my work I often feel that my Theological Roots of Pentecostalism is in the line of fire of Wood’s artillery. I have heard both directly and indirectly that Wood and some of those convinced by his reading consider this book a definitive refutation of my work. If so, I wish that my work had been more directly confronted and dismantled. As it is, I am left with the feeling that I am caricatured (my explicit qualifications are ignored) and the range of my broader theological argumentation is neglected. Be that as it may, I felt from preliminary intimations of Wood’s work that he was reopening major questions that needed careful attention. As a response to this discussion I spent a month in Bristol, England, in the Charles Wesley house reading early Methodist literature and then taught a doctoral seminar on these questions at Drew University in the Wesley and Methodist Studies program. In that course we read key selections from Wesley and Fletcher, primary material from subsequent developments, the fragments of Wood’s arguments then available, early and more recent secondary treatments of the development of Methodist thought on these themes, and so on. The result of the seminar was largely negative in its evaluation of Wood’s thesis—even when accounting for the influence of a professor in shaping the thought of students. I have not yet seen any reason for a major modification of the argument in Theological Roots of Pentecostalism.
Full discussion of the issues involved is beyond the constraints of this essay.
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Those who wish to get into the details are referred to paired articles in the Fall, 1999, issue of the Wesleyan Theological Journal. There Randy Maddox of Seattle Pacific University, perhaps the preeminent Wesley scholar of out time, challenges Wood’s interpretation of Wesley and the status of Fletcher as the normative reading of Wesley. Wood vigorously responds, laying the foundation for the detailed argument in this book.
The key issue in the Wood/Maddox exchange is whether Wesley’s ref- erences to Pentecost and the “sanctifying spirit” involve Fletcher’s doc- trine of “Pentecostal sanctification” (that Pentecost was an experience of “entire sanctification” of the disciples—and that this is the paradigm for the contemporary believer whose experience would also include a recep- tion of the Spirit as a subsequent and second moment of sanctification). I agree with Maddox that Wood tends to “over-read” his sources by taking any reference to Pentecost or the Spirit as involving the full doctrine of “Pentecostal sanctification.” Wesley was reluctant to follow Fletcher because this doctrine (building in part on a Trinitarian articulation of the doctrine of dispensations) tended to separate the reception of the Spirit from con- version. In part Wesley was also concerned for the doctrine of “assurance” witnessed to by the Spirit, independently of the experience of sanctification.
Wood claims that Wesley moved increasingly toward Fletcher in the last two decades of his life after the issue surfaced about 1770 in the so- called “Calvinistic Controversy” associated with Trevecca College (located more in the Calvinistic wing of Methodism of George Whitefield and the Countess of Huntingdon). I continue to doubt this—at least on the key point of “Pentecostal sanctification.” In part, Wood’s case is based on claims that Wesley approved of Fletcher in general and that this approval may be extended to include all points of Fletcher’s theology. This posi- tion underplays the extent to which Wesley and Fletcher continued to be aware of “slight differences.” On March 22, 1775, Wesley wrote to Fletcher that “our views on Christian Perfection are a little different though not opposite.” Wesley claimed that “every babe in Christ has received the Holy Ghost” but has “not obtained Christian Perfection.” Three years later Fletcher was even more explicit about these differences (in a letter of March 7, 1778, to Mary Bosanquet, later his wife). “I would distinguish more exactly between the believer baptized with the Pentecostal power of the Holy Ghost, and the believer who, like the Apostles after our Lord’s ascension, is not yet filled with this power.” I prefer to rely more fully on these explicit descriptions of difference than the efforts of Wood to sup- press these references in general statements of their agreement.
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Wood would like to think that awareness of a difference between Wesley and Fletcher is a modern phenomenon raised only in the last third of the twentieth century. Under pressure from some of us, he nods in this book to James Mudge’s 1895 book Growth in Holiness Toward Perfectionwhich shied away from the Fletcher articulation in part for the sake of reassert- ing “process” in the understanding of “sanctification.” I find it hard to avoid the feeling that Wood is willing to engage Mudge so that he can dismiss him because of his larger rejection of classical Methodism. Wood does not seem to realize that Mudge is only one figure in a long line of those that would reject his historiography. One of the most interesting is R. C. Horner of Canada, a Methodist who founded several holiness move- ments and was a key articulator of what came to be called the “third bless- ing heresy” by the classical holiness movement. Horner was so aware of the fact that Wesley rejected the idea of “Pentecostal sanctification” that he developed a theology a three experiences: “conversion” as articulated in the revival traditions of the evangelical movement, “sanctification” as formulated in classical Wesleyanism, and “baptism in the Spirit” as a Pentecostal empowerment for service and witness. Horner is a key figure both as a testimony to the differences between Wesley and Fletcher and as a bridge in the transition to Pentecostalism—a figure that Wood could not dismiss as easily as Mudge.
This “slight difference” between Wesley and Fletcher goes to the heart of significant theological issues at the core of both the Pentecostal and the Wesleyan/Holiness movements. At stake is the distinctive holiness and Pentecostal “hermeneutic” of Acts that makes the Pentecostal descent of the Spirit normative for the post-Pentecostal era by providing a paradigm for the separation of the reception of the spirit from the reception of Christ. The continuing debates about “subsequence” and “secondness” of a Pentecostal experience are dependent on this hermeneutic. The implica- tions for Wesleyan/Holiness theology are profound. The Holiness Movement has always been troubled by the post-Wesleyan shift from the “process” of sanctification to the “crisis” of the “second blessing.” I believe that the best explanation of this shift is the rise of the doctrine of “Pentecostal sanctification”; Pentecost is after all an “event” that has little space for “process.” There are also subtle theological shifts involved in making the Lukan text of Acts primary. Wesley was more Johannine in orientation, and part of the instability of the late nineteenth century Holiness Movement was the awkward preaching of Wesleyan themes through Acts texts that do not entirely support them. Pentecostalism does a better job of consistently
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preaching the Lukan theology. One could go on. I am convinced that the decline of “ethical” themes in the holiness movement is related to this shift—as well as the increasing openness of the holiness movement to being sucked into the dispensationalism of the late nineteenth century. I find these influences largely pernicious.
But the issues are even deeper and go again to the heart of larger dis- cussions. One might even suggest that the filioque of the western text of the Nicene Creed is at stake in Fletcher’s tendency to separate the recep- tion of the Spirit from the reception of Christ. I have come to appreciate the firm “Christocentrism” of Wesley. He regularly spoke of “sanctification” as “having the mind of Christ” and “walking in the way that Jesus walked.” In this Wesley may have anticipated the late nineteenth century concern of many that a “Baptism of the Spirit” had the danger of losing the definite Christological shape of Wesley’s vision. I rather think that Wesley was more concerned that one should follow the example of Christ in visiting the poor than have a certain “experience” of Pentecostal Baptism as evi- dence of having grasped the depth of “perfect love.” More may have been at stake than a “slight difference” between Wesley and Fletcher.
These issues take their own shape in Pentecostalism. It is generally assumed that Pentecostalism is a “pneumatological movement.” My friends in Cleveland, Tennessee, point out an unintended implication of my Theological Roots of Pentecostalism: to question this assumption. In the “foursquare gospel” it is Christ who saves, baptizes in the Spirit, heals, and comes again to reign. It may well be that Pentecostalism is a Jesus piety that holds firmly to the filioque and sees the Spirit firmly linked to Christ. If so, it may be that Oneness Pentecostalism (the “Jesus Only” wing of the movement) arises out of the heart of Pentecostalism rather than being a fringe aberration. And perhaps that movement should be appropriated as an exaggerated corrective to tendencies put in motion by Fletcher. That may be too strong, but it does indicate that these are not trivial issues.
In summary, then, I value Wood’s book for several reasons. I appreci- ate his bringing the neglected Fletcher back into the center of the discus- sion. His book leads us into significant historiographical and theological issues—ones crying out for debate. I have, however, grave doubts about his book as a guide to historical developments and the implicit endorse- ment of the path set out by Fletcher. But we must admire the passion of the book and follow it into the larger theological issues that it raises.
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Laurence W. Wood, The Meaning of Pentecost in Early Methodism: Rediscovering John Fletcher as John Wesley’s Vindicator and Designated Successor (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2002), published as volume #15 in “Pietist and Wesleyan Studies.”
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