The Cambridge Companion to John Wesley (review)

The bicentennial of John Wesley’s birth in 2003 occasioned an impressive spate of publications on the life, work, and theology of this Oxford don and Anglican priest who, for the majority of his life, spent very little time on campus or in the parish church. What these studies have revealed is the diverse range of responsibilities he held, in addition to his more recognizable roles as preacher, evangelist, and moral spokesman. Capitalizing on the results of this scholarly revival, The Cambridge Companion to John Wesley presents areas of recent research, assesses ongoing and emerging debates, and suggests fruitful ways forward.

Contributions are made from both British and American scholars, as well as from those working in theological and historical fields. Following an introduction by the editors, the collection includes “The Long Eighteenth Century,” by Jeremy Gregory, “Wesley’s Life and Ministry,” by Kenneth J. Collins, “Wesley in Context,” by David N. Hempton, “Wesley as Revivalist/Renewal Leader,” by Charles I. Wallace Jr., “Wesley as Preacher,” by William J. Abraham, “Wesley as Biblical Interpreter,” by Robert W. Wall, “John Wesley as Diarist and Correspondent,” by Ted A. Campbell, “John Wesley as Editor and Publisher,” by Isabel Rivers, “Wesley’s Engagement with the Natural Sciences,” by Randy L. Maddox, “Wesley as Adviser on Health and Healing,” by Deborah Madden, “Wesley’s Theological Emphases,” by Jason E. Vickers, “Happiness, Holiness, and the Moral Life in John Wesley,” by Rebekah L. Miles, and “Wesley’s Emphases on Worship and the Means of Grace,” by Karen B. Westerfield Tucker.

The collection concludes with four essays on Wesley’s continuing legacy: “Spread of Wesleyan Methodism,” by Kenneth Cracknell, “The Holiness/Pentecostal/Charismatic Extension of the Wesleyan Tradition,” by Randall J. Stephens, “The African American Wing of the Wesleyan Tradition,” by Dennis C. Dickerson, and “Current Debates over Wesley’s Legacy among His Progeny,” by Sarah H. Lancaster. With the exception of the last essay, this final section presents cursory overviews of material far too broad for the page limitations, resulting in unwarranted claims and misleading presentations: for example, Dickerson erroneously credits Richard Allen (b. 1760) as “the world’s first black bishop,” and Stephens fails to address the substantial movement of Oneness Pentecostalism.

As the best of the Cambridge Companions manage to achieve, this volume succeeds in digging deeper than the typical survey, pointing the reader toward contemporary debates in order to encourage further study. Its weaknesses, which stand out all the more, due to its strengths in this regard, are located where it fails to fulfill this inter-textual responsibility. For instance, as the collection comprises a Festschrift on the occasion of Richard Heitzenrater’s retirement, the reader might expect a more fruitful interaction from his chief interlocutor, Kenneth Collins, but is instead left with material admittedly culled from Collins’s earlier writings.

Bibliographical notes throughout contain a wealth of invaluable signals for further study, in addition to a helpful six-page bibliography. Unfortunately many of the notes lack complete publication information, in some cases referring merely to an article without indicating whether it should be found in a book or journal. Yet the sheer volume of references, coupled with today’s ease in online searching, do mitigate this annoyance.

Conspicuously absent, however, are discussions of Wesley’s relationships. Campbell’s attention to correspondence excluded, the overall impression given here is one of John Wesley as an island unto himself. Such an observation may appear misdirected toward a companion volume devoted to an individual rather than a movement. But given that disproportionate emphasis on elder John Wesley has been a long-standing grievance among scholars of both George Whitfield’s Calvinist wing of Methodism and Charles Wesley’s evangelically orthodox Anglicanism, this collection might have addressed the larger nexus of relationships on which “Wesley” depended and the additional debates that such relationships have spawned.

The trade-off, however, is that John Wesley is excised...