Early Methodists, it seems, were obsessed with Jesus. To the staid Anglicans of Wesley's day, Methodists would bawl out the name of Jesus as, in the words of Rev. Sydney Smith in the Edinburgh Review of 1809, "enthusiasts, want of modesty, want of sense and want of true rational religion." Methodists believed Jesus "interferes with special and ordinary judgments on every trifling occasion of life." They also "believe they please the Maker by sacrificing truth, justice, and common sense, to the interests of (their) little chapels and their deranged instructors."
Too much Jesus, evidently, according to the established Church, was disrespectful to the majesty of the Divine. Whether too much or not, there was a lot of Jesus that attended the worship and the prayers and the preaching of the early Methodists, both in England and in America. In the official 1848 hymnal of the Methodist Episcopal Church, no fewer than 80 hymns were addressed to Jesus, 66 of which were from the Wesleys themselves. (As the church became more "progressive" the number would decrease; the 1935 hymnal had only 28 hymns addressed to Jesus, of which 15 belonged to the Wesleys).
One example of a hymn that offended the Anglicans was "Jesus, Lover of My Soul Let Me to Thy Bosom Fly." This was one of the most popular of the Methodist hymns of the mid-1800s but, according to the critics, including some Methodists by this time, it presumed too much intimacy with the Holy One, as, for example, being on a first-name basis with God. Furthermore it spoke of bosoms, which one did not do in polite company.
This background may be helpful in trying to understand one of the more unusual progressive developments of today-- "Red Letter Religion." Red Letter Religion gets its name from those editions of the Bible that print all of the words of Jesus in red. Years ago I rather liked the red letters--the words of Jesus are special, aren't they? --but then I began to realize that the assumption behind this is that Jesus' words are more important, or perhaps more highly inspired than, say, the words of the Psalmist or the letters of Paul. It brought back a slogan I remember used by some of the students in the Methodist seminary I attended: "Jesus is appealing but Paul is appalling." People who spoke about Paul being appalling were really objecting to Paul's teaching about the atonement. If Paul were writing Corinthians today he might have said: "We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles and progressives..." (I Cor. 1:23)
Some have called "Red Letter" religion a movement, though it is probably more a rallying cry used by some progressives to separate themselves from the rest of Christianity, and especially from evangelicals, in support of the liberal social agenda. So John Pavlovitz, popular progressive author, identifies himself thus: I'm an 18-year ministry veteran trying to figure out how to love people well and live out the teachings of Jesus. He then adds: I refuse to be a Christian devoid of the character of Jesus; his humility, his compassion, his smallness, his gentleness with other people's wounds, his attention to the poor and the forgotten and the marginalized, his intolerance for religious hypocrisy, his clear expression of the love of God.
I say Amen to his words about Jesus' compassion, his gentleness with other people's wounds, his attention to the poor and the forgotten and the marginalized, and his intolerance for religious hypocrisy, but some things extremely important are missing in Pavlovitz's testimony; namely Jesus' Incarnation, the Atonement for Sin, the Resurrection and Christ's presence with us today through the Holy Spirit, which, after all, is the Power that enables us to live out the teachings of Jesus. Another writer asserts: Jesus' way is found universally in every religion and in every person who follows the teachings to love their neighbor and welcome the stranger.
So all the religions teach Jesus' way? And even if they did, is this all there is to the religion of Jesus? What about salvation and sin and a personal relationship with a living Christ?
Not all of the red letters in the Bible fit this progressive understanding of things: Jesus said such things as: "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no one cometh to the Father except by me." "Except a man be born again he cannot enter the Kingdom of God." "The gate is narrow and the way hard that leads to life and those who find it are few." "Better to lose one of your members than your whole body be thrown into hell." "And they will go away into eternal punishment..." "You must be perfect even as your father in heaven is perfect." Actually, there is more teaching about hell in the red letters of Jesus than in any other four books of the Bible.
Liberal-progressive religion may claim to want to follow the Red Letters of the Bible but it has to be very selective in which of the red letters it wants to follow. It also must discount the part of the New Testament which interprets those red letters, as well as the death of Jesus, which lead to such Christian understandings as expiation, atonement, justification and sanctification. Following the red letters is a lofty goal but the truth is that none of us, evangelicals or progressives or well-meaning humanists, have within us the power to be true followers. The Sermon on the Mount is the most powerful moral teaching ever delivered to humankind, but that Sermon is an interpretation of Old Testament law and we are not saved by law. We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. As the apostle said: "I delivered to you as of first importance ...that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures" (I Cor 15:1).
It is because of these various issues that evangelicals today, like the early Methodists, are obsessed with Jesus. It is also because of these issues that The Confessing Movement was raised up in 1994 to lift high the name of Jesus when that Name was being compromised in so many ways and so many places. Its mission statement was at that time, as it is today:
We confess Jesus Christ, the Son, the Savior, the Lord.
And it was because of these things that The Confessing Movement was influential in adding the words about Jesus as Son, Savior and Lord to the mission statement of The United Methodist Church in 2000 as part of the rationale for making disciples of Jesus Christ.
Para 121: The United Methodist Church affirms that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Savior of the world, and the Lord of all.
