John Wesley

» Snead - Evangelism

The Christian church during the Middle Ages was a remnant of the original early and mid 1st Century ideal and idea. What was left had become corrupt and openly practiced an opposite or completely different version of what was originally intended.

The 1500s saw a rebirth or new awakening of the original ideas promoted by the first church. There was open rebellion against the anti Christian practices of the organized religious institutions sanctioned by civil authorities.

This happened in central Europe since the old Roman Empire was the only place where Christianity was organized to any large degree. The birthplace of Christianity in the middle east had long been over taken by differing ideas aggressively opposed to it.

The invention of the printing press insured the masses an avenue of access to the written word preserved through the Dark Ages. The rebirth and awakening of the written word as passed down by the original church members was emphasized by the reformers who initiated it. A natural evolution of the original intent of the written word was to become unstoppable. It had been taken out of the hands of the few and been made available to those who questioned authoritarian interpretation and desired to know what had been written exactly.

By 1600, scholars had studied the original text enough to determine more of what was originally intended by the first Christians. By 1700, as this revelation took hold, an understanding of the original intent included the proliferation of the information to others. This was the beginning of modern evangelism.

The first group to organize in this regard was led by John Wesley (1703-1791). He was an Englishman who traveled to America midway through the first half of the 18th Century. He lived a long life which spanned almost the whole century. He had many followers and sent scores of evangelists into the field. His impact was great and continues more directly to this day than the ones who began the rebirth itself. Wesley was the result of the bridge formed by the few of enormous influence who preceded him. He was not the first of the first. He was the last of the first and the most effective at European evangelism.

All modern evangelists evolve from what happened when Wesley arrived on the forefront of the modern Christian movement in the 18th Century. Before that, there was more fighting to decide what it meant, than agreement to share it with society. It took over two hundred years of fighting and killing to finally agree on enough to make the whole idea worthwhile.

John Wesley took the interpretation of the word by Martin Luther and John Calvin to fruition for modern evangelists of today. The word went from the Medieval Catholic Church to the Germans and on to Switzerland and Holland before reaching England and culminating in American evangelism today. That natural process gives us the benefit of everything learned throughout history.

-- posted by Snead

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