Methodism’s American History with Kevin Watson

GMC, AME, AMEZ, UMC, Church of the Nazarene, the Wesleyan Church, and the Salvation Army are all a part of the same pan-Wesleyan family. Dr. Kevin Watson details the history of that movement with a helpful template (doctrine, spirit, and discipline) for understanding what unites these institutions. Kevin’s scholarship and communication gifts are a blessing to this movement that needs to sharpen in self-understanding for our time.

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Transcript

Welcome to the more, to the story. Podcast. I'm so glad that you have come along. And I'm recording this today, not from my usual location, but I'm at epworth by the sea for the South Georgia. Global Methodist Church Annual Conference is an exciting time in this church I've met several students of Wbs who are here. It's been an exciting time to see the way God's at work through the global Methodist church

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Andy Miller III: at this unique moment in the history of Pan Wesleyanism, which is what we're gonna talk about today. But first, st this podcast is brought to you by Wesley Biblical Seminary, where we are developing trusted leaders, for faithful churches. And this is the very first, st podcast where I am making that announcement. And a after I've been elected as President. So I'm excited about this moment. Where is interesting time, we have more than 450

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Andy Miller III: global Methodist church pastors who are studying with us about 600 students who will be with us this fall.

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Andy Miller III: So there's a lot happening here from our academic programs in our Gmc course of study program, bachelor's master's doctoral degrees.

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Andy Miller III: If you're if you're seeing this before September, our Wesley Institute will be starting, which is 9 months of going through every book of the Bible, or 9 months of going through theological disciplines that happens every week, so we'd love for you to check us out for that and sign up for that. You can find out about more about us at Wbs Edu. Also, I'd love for people to sign up for my email list at Andy Miller, the thirdcom.

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Andy Miller III: That's Andy Miller Iiicom. And if you do, I'll send you a free tool called 5 steps to deeper teaching and preaching. It's an 8 page Pdf. Guide through the exegetical process, thinking about creatively presenting what you've studied. And also it has a 45 min video where I help you think through some of those things. So you can get that if you sign up for my email list at Andymillarcom.

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Andy Miller III: All right. I am so glad to welcome in second time, guest to podcast maybe. 3, rd I can't remember Doctor Kevin Watson, who serves as the Director of Academic Growth and Formation, a Asbury Theological Seminary, and he's a pastor at Asbury Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Kevin. Welcome back.

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Kevin Watson: Thanks so much for having me. It's good to be here again.

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Andy Miller III: So last time I had you on I was just transitioning to the Academy, and you are transitioning to another job. I guess I should be careful of the word transition. We were moving. We're we are changing, Job. But now we both changed again. So tell us about what's happened for you? Where are you at these days.

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Kevin Watson: Yeah. So I'm the as you said, the Director of Academic Growth and Formation at Asbury Theological Seminary, and I'm anchored at our Tulsa Oklahoma extension site. And it's actually started for me about 3 years ago. I started feeling like a really strong draw to Tulsa, Oklahoma and we have family kind of in the area, but it felt like it was more about a place than anything that we had ever experienced before.

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Kevin Watson: And and so, you know, kind of over time. There were some some bumps in the road and things that happened, but we we eventually were offered a position to to move to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and to direct, you know, part of the the work, especially at the Tulsa extension site for Asbury Seminary, and then also to, I was invited to be the scholar in residence at Asbury Church, which I jokingly say, I think, is the second coolest title on staff at Asbury Church. So it's.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, absolutely.

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Kevin Watson: Been a really fun fun experience. We've been here for our our job. My job started over a year ago. So I've been with the seminary for more than a year now, but we moved almost a year ago about 2 weeks. So we've been in Tulsa for a year, and family is just thriving, and just been a lot of fun to be here and see what the Lord is doing.

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Andy Miller III: Well, I'm glad. I'm glad you found the right place for you to be in last time we talked. I well, at least one of the times. I think I had you on twite 2 other times before this we were at you you had we? We talked about your book, perfect love and moving boxes behind you, moving.

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Kevin Watson: That's right.

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Andy Miller III: Atlanta.

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Kevin Watson: Yeah.

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Andy Miller III: So, you know, it's amazing all these things that happen. But we're here to talk today about your new book, which I am so glad. Oh, I'll see if I get on the screen

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Andy Miller III: I was so glad when I saw it in the Zondravin catalog, and you gave me a little hint that it was coming. Cause you you talked me a little about the Salvation Army chapters, but it's called Doctrine, spirit, and Discipline. A history of the Wesleyan tradition in the United States, and I'll just say for Wbs students. You probably know this as you've looked at your syllabi, but this is on the syllabus at least 2 classes already. So we have been waiting for this type of book, and I'm so glad that you're the one to write

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Andy Miller III: Friday. So. Before

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Andy Miller III: we could probably spend hours talking about this. But tell us about the formation of the idea like, when did you get the idea that this book was needed, because I mean, I could tell you why it is needed. But I'd love to hear what led you to start writing it.

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Kevin Watson: Yeah, I'd love to hear your perspective on that for me. It it the book was about 7 years in in formation, from kind of idea to getting to print. I was actually it was when I was on pre tenure leave, when I was teaching at Kandler School of Theology at Emory University, and I was actually the goal was to finish a different project that was essential for tenure. And this just kind of like came out of me one day. The writing on that other project had gotten pretty tough, and

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Kevin Watson: it was a hard day, and I just shifted to like it was like the Lord just lit me up with this, the burden to write this this book as a history of the Wesleyan tradition, and my sense of the need for it was that

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Kevin Watson: much of the work that has been done previously and kind of the history of Methodism.

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Kevin Watson: A a lot of it, I think rightly focuses on the very beginnings of the Wesleyan theological tradition. So there's a lot of work on John Wesley on his theology, on his teaching. There's also a lot of work on the 1st kind of generation or 2 of American Methodism, because there's this crazy growth that has caused it to even get attention from just American religious historians like, how did the Methodist go from the smallest group of Protestants on the eve of the Revolution

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Kevin Watson: to the largest denomination in the Us. Almost times 2 by the Eve, the decade before the Civil War. So there's been a lot of work that's focused in those 2 areas. But then the things that had gone beyond that, for the most part.

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Kevin Watson: we're either very, very specific kind of dissertation type questions.

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Andy Miller III: So.

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Kevin Watson: Or they were denominational histories that really are primarily interested in telling the lens of a particular part of the Wesleyan family, and what I thought was that there was a need for a kind of using a broader lens, you know. Kind of a pano lens to look at the whole Wesleyan theological tradition to see not only like, Oh, so get. We're getting to this denomination. So this group, you know, split away and broke off. But then we leave them behind, and don't keep up with their story, but

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Kevin Watson: trying to to say, You know the Free Methodist and the Wesleyan Church and the Nazarenes and the African Methodist Episcopal Church. And right, like all these different denominational expressions, still have, like a presence within the body of Christ. Today they're still alive. They're still active.

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Kevin Watson: And part of my argument in the book is that many of them have actually been more faithful to the founding doctrine and discipline with which they 1st set out than the mainline Methodist branch has been. I forgot to mention also the Salvation Army. I try to do some justice to that part of our tradition, too.

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Andy Miller III: No, that's good, and I think for me, I I've seen. I've seen this gap. So, for instance, like in teaching a class

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Andy Miller III: on Methodist history and Methodist polity. What what type of textbooks you go to, or even as a pastor? How do I help people see this tradition that they're part of. So in both contexts, maybe it's a well read person in a local church, you might say. All right. Here's heighten raiders John Wesley people called Methodist. Oh, oh, here's theaters, the history of the holiness movement. Here's Wigger, and and thinking about

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Andy Miller III: Francis, that oh, you gotta know about Francis Asbury. Oh, yeah. And, by the way, here are all these other other groups. And oh, don't forget about Pentecostalism, you know, like you have all of these things, and there's not one book

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Andy Miller III: to document the source of this. And so that's what I think you've done now. Of course, like I know, it might have been hard a few times, like as you looked at things like academic controversies, like the long 18th century, or even things connected to the ecclesiology of Salvation Army, or that, like, I'm really interested in, like, yeah, you could have said more there. But we have, how many? Almost 500 pages. So like we needed. We needed one source for this, and I like I love how you set it up, Kevin.

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Andy Miller III: because

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Andy Miller III: you and you've already said it. You use this quote a quote from within the quote a segment of the the famous quote from 1786. So I'm gonna read here, which is where you get your title I love after I read it. I love for you to say how that's the kind of paradigm that you use to explain Methodism in America, but in those of you been around, Methodism will recognize this, and denominational leaders often say something like this. But it's really true.

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Andy Miller III: John Wesley said in 1786, on his Thoughts on Methodist. I'm not afraid that the people called Methodist should ever ex cease to exist either in Europe or America, but I am afraid lest they should only exist as a dead set, having the form of religion without the power.

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Andy Miller III: and this undoubtedly will be the case, unless they hold fast

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Andy Miller III: both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline

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Andy Miller III: with which they 1st set out. So the title of your book is doctor and spirit and discipline. So tell us how that's the foundation for what you're doing.

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Kevin Watson: Yeah. So I mean you, you're you're discerning correctly that a big motivation for me, a big goal in the book was to try to get clear in the beginning chapters on like that. There is a there there, because we've kind of come through a period of time where there's like a lack of clarity about the identity of the Methodist tradition. And so I wanted to say, there is actually an identity. There is, you can say you can identify a Wesleyan kind of in theory. And then that helps, you know whether you're dealing with a real Methodist or real Wesleyan in practice.

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Kevin Watson: And so. But as you just read the quote Wesley's own metric, for that his own kind of measure is doctrine and discipline, and he focuses doctrine on, he like assumes Christian orthodoxy. So you have to like, know that at the outset, and then it's through the way of salvation. So he in in that essay he

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Kevin Watson: is really succinct. It's a fairly short essay, and he basically identifies it as repentance, faith, and holiness. But he's kind of clearly like giving a nod to the whole way of salvation that he talks about in so many different places. But it's about an evangelical lived. Faith, that's a relationship with a person an individual's relationship with with the person of Jesus Christ

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Kevin Watson: that leads to ongoing growth and holiness over the rest of one's life, and then the spirit, I think, is the one that he, even in that essay he doesn't really unpack it. He doesn't clearly define it. I think you can read spirit in terms of both lowercase and capital s spirits. I think there's a kind of spirit of zeal and earnestness, and like complete commitment that you can see in Methodism that

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Kevin Watson: is intended to be characteristic of of kind of all Methodists for Western traditions across time and place like there's no room for nominal Christianity and the Wesleyan theological tradition as it's conceived.

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Kevin Watson: It's it. If Jesus is Savior of your life, he must also be lord of your life, and a lot of, you know, that's a common Christian emphasis. But I think Wesleyans have really leaned into that, and in terms of how they actually inflict institutional reality and the life of the Church.

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Kevin Watson: And then and then capital S. Spirit. There was a an experience of the power and presence of the Spirit and and worship people would. Sometimes, you know, things would happen that were fantastic, like someone would fall out under the weight of their sins. And sometimes people would experience deliverance and Methodist worship settings. And so there was a kind of you know, and and this happened throughout that period of time in the kind of transatlantic Evangelical revival that there were these things

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Kevin Watson: the the contemporaries described as the surprising work of God. They weren't looking for it. They didn't expect it. But it happened, and then they they wrestled with like what is it that the Spirit of God is doing? And then doctrine? Our discipline

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Kevin Watson: is the way in which the beliefs are enflished through lived practices. And so for Methodists it's a commitment to a particular way of life that's identified publicly, and then people are communally held accountable to, and that's through things that you don't do, things that you are committed to doing, and a particular emphasis on the practice of the means of grace, the basic Christian disciplines of the Christian life.

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Kevin Watson: and then also an emphasis on small group accountability through things like the class meeting and the band meeting, which are small groups designed to help people stay focused on their current. Their present relationship with the Lord in order to continue moving forward day by day.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, beautiful. And and those are the things that are consistent within these various traditions which you listed at at the front. And I I love that. How in this book you you give a bit on each one of the Free Methodists, Wesley and Nazarene, Salvation Army and then the various expressions, too. That have

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Andy Miller III: that more directly come from

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Andy Miller III: Methodism, related John Wesley. Well, before you also have some really helpful chapters that help us think about kind of the pre-mepathist history kind of leading to the social, political context of what John Wesley experienced at alders, gate and people can go back to my podcast where I talked to mark Olson about what happens at Alders Gate. But I want to jump ahead to 1784.

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Andy Miller III: This is like a key moment for, and and you make you kind of take aside, and I like it. About what happens in 1784, John West. So so give us a little bit of context here. I mean, this is, it's what's happening in the United States with the A after the American Revolution that sets the stage for this with Francis Asbury, Thomas Coke, and what John Wesley does in response to some needs here.

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Andy Miller III: But I I think a lot of people miss in these, particularly the other denominations outside of United Methodism, global Methodism, Miss. How? What happens in their denominations connected to the events of 1784.

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Kevin Watson: Yeah, that's you frame that so well, I think you know part of the what the books trying to show is basically every expression of the Wesleyan tradition comes from John Wesley, and then, through kind of these events in 1784. And what I argue in the book is that so in Wesley's day.

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Kevin Watson: There are these kind of key pieces in the Church of England, because, of course, he was an ordained priest in the Church of England, and those there are things that constitute what it means to be a part of the Church of England. And Wesley basically takes a kind of similar analogous

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Kevin Watson: e instances of each of those things, and then gives them to the the Methodist Episcopal Church, which is founded in 1784. So he gives them ordination through ordaining a handful of lay preachers. He gives them doctrine by editing the articles of religion, which was controversial, and and in some ways has caused some problems for his his heirs ever since. Cause, for example, he edits, he just deleted the article on the Creed, so it allows some people to say Methodists aren't credle

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Kevin Watson: and which is, I think, historically, just deeply wrong cause the the the assumption that what people are saying is we don't have to believe the basic tenets of Christian orthodoxy which John Wesley, of course, held to all of them.

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Andy Miller III: So even the Sunday service still has the creeds in in the Sunday service.

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Kevin Watson: So a couple.

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Andy Miller III: This is the the John Wesley's Americanized, or what his edited version of the Book of Common Prayer to be used in America. So like it wasn't like he didn't include those.

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Kevin Watson: Yeah, yeah, it's they're literally in the Sunday service. You're exactly right. And then that's the other big thing he sends. Oh, and in addition to the edited articles of religion, he sends a body of teaching through sermons that he had written, which are today referred to as the standard sermons, and then finally, the Sunday service that he sends, which is, you know, if if you know anything about the Church of England, you know that liturgy is kind of the defining, unifying thing for the Church of England

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Kevin Watson: and the Sunday service as a good angle. Ken Wesley thinks this is the this is gonna be the liturgy of the method of Episcopal Church. And that of all the things he sent, I would say is, the is the main thing that isn't really received in kind of popular Methodism in the United States, but it is definitely something. He intended to be a part of the kind of the original vision.

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Kevin Watson: And then so what I'm wrestling with is, there have been some who have argued that Methodism is best understood as basically a renewal movement within the Church of England.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah.

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Kevin Watson: And there's there's there's kind of some quirky historical arguments that frankly, I just think are bad historical arguments. But.

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Andy Miller III: You. I'm I'm with you.

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Kevin Watson: Yeah. Yeah. And what what I'm trying to show is that from, from any any standpoint of like what Wesley thinks a church is, he takes every single aspect of that and gives it to the method of Episcopal Church. So he clearly, consciously thinks that he's creating a new denomination, a new church, and gives them even the not only does he ordain people for it, but he gives them a new path to ordination themselves, and sacramental authority, which is one of the

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Kevin Watson: big presenting issues. And the American Church was the lack of access to sacraments because there weren't leaders who had sacramental authority.

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Kevin Watson: And they they took sacramental authority so seriously that they knew they needed access to the sacraments. But they didn't just willy, nilly sort of decide. They could do it themselves.

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Kevin Watson: And so I have this. This. There's only one excurs in the whole book, but there's an ex cursor.

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Andy Miller III: I like it.

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Kevin Watson: Asking, like, you know, is is this for renewal movements only? And my argument is, I try to unpack in a variety of different ways. That this is, I think, is clearly actually designed for an ecclesial understanding of of the church itself.

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Kevin Watson: And that part of what's interesting in that is that Wesley includes still the class meeting and the band meeting and the general rules as a part of this new church. So he's basically bringing into his Church of England, understanding something that eliminates the possibility of nominal Christianity. It's basically everybody has to be in the game. Everybody has to be actively involved

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Kevin Watson: and engage in the church, or they just simply get removed. So there's there's a kind of conception of membership that's actually basically always probationary. You can be a member of Methodism. But if you if you disappear, if you, as people would say today, if you ghost your church, then you would just get removed from the membership roles of your church after 3 months and and to to continue to be a member, you have to keep keeping the general rules and and keep showing up. You have to keep going to your class meeting.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, maybe the argument could be from the other side, and you and I have friends who would defend that other position that positioned and founded purely as a renewal movement, is the the historical challenge that John Wesley stayed in England, and then never left the Church of England like that

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Andy Miller III: be because of that. That makes it seem harder to imagine in our context that he really did start a new denomination. But I think the reality of everything else you say in the book demonstrates that that was pragmatically true.

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Kevin Watson: Yeah. And I mean the I think that the letter that he sent with them, you know, to for for this this new church pretty clearly to me is like he's he thinks he's starting a new church. And it is interesting because you're right, like, historically. Well, 1st of all, I love that you framed it as we have friends, because it's good for your listeners to be reminded that

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Kevin Watson: academics can talk in pretty strident, like stark ways about intellectual arguments. That doesn't mean for me that I'm like hating in my heart the people that I disagree with. It's like for us. It's just fun to argue about things like this, and it is important to be as as clear and careful as you can to be right about the truth. But it also there can be a recognition that you know that the people that I disagree with about this, I think, have integrity and are thinking about it as as clearly as they can, and they think I'm just as wrong as I think that they are.

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Kevin Watson: And they, I believe they consider me friends, too, and so I'm thankful for that. But I think you know, for in terms of like the argument like Wesley sends this letter, and and and the letter. I think he thinks he's creating a church. But you're right. The the challenges like it's interesting that he doesn't fully step into it with both feet, and I think the reason is because

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Kevin Watson: he doesn't think that the need for Methodism, the the reason that Methodism becomes a church in the United States is this uncommon train of provinces, he says, where you know, basically, by which they found themselves strangely free. So they've become untethered from the mothership. There isn't a governing authority in the United States that it can't. There can't be a Church of England when the United States isn't under the authority of England anymore.

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Kevin Watson: Whereas for Wesley, unless he's gonna move to the United States, it doesn't make sense for him to think of himself as not under the authority of the Church of England, because he's still in England.

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Kevin Watson: And so for for me, that's the like. It's the political realities kind of are moving things forward and pressing the issue, because, when you have an Established Church

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Kevin Watson: colonies, if they secure their independence one way or another, then the Established Church doesn't have the authority, and that context that it that it used to have. And so the United States could have chosen to create an Established Church on their own. But I think Wesley was like

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Kevin Watson: shrewd enough, and seeing what was happening to realize that that wasn't going to be the case, there wasn't going to be an established national Church. And so there was actually a need to provide leadership, structure, accountability, doctrine, and authority for a church of those in this kind of tradition that he had seen God so strangely raise up in his own lifetime.

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Kevin Watson: And so he took steps to do that.

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Andy Miller III: So a basically, all the materials are there. All of the ingredients of a of a church are present in this. A and what he commissions to come in in the United States, and essentially other traditions in in, you know, my own research into the savage armies in similar is basically in in William Booth was such that he rejected the language of Church.

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Andy Miller III: And but

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Andy Miller III: the function is all there, like the until, of course, until he removes the sacraments in 1883. But I think what what happens with the confused?

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Andy Miller III: Okay, I don't. I don't say deficient.

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Andy Miller III: But the confused ecclesiologies of

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Andy Miller III: the Wesleyan tradition often stem from what we've just been talking about, that is, it's hard to. And we have to realize, I I think we have to realize that

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Andy Miller III: churches so often before the 18th century 19th century were connected, and still sometimes are, to countries.

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Kevin Watson: Yeah.

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Andy Miller III: Like this is like I. And so we're we're so different in the United States. With this, it's it's hard to grasp like what was happening. We have to think about that context. And I think you set that up really. Well here at the beginning. I'm glad to let you jump in on anything I just said, though too.

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Kevin Watson: No, I mean, I I agree with you, and I think I think one of the challenges for Methodism is just. It's growing hand over fist. I mean you. There. There's this great book called The Churching of America by 2 sociologists Finke and Stark, who show the kind of dramatic explosive growth of American Methodism in its 1st decades in the Us.

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Kevin Watson: And they, you know, they they really show that it's growing at such a staggering pace that I think part of. That's why Methodism in the Us. Didn't have time to fully flesh out an ecclesiology cause it's just growing so fast that they just keep figuring out like, how do we have enough structure to stay connected to each other? And you know but the thing is growing so fast. I think it's like, by 1812

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Kevin Watson: Methodism is growing faster than the aggregate population in every State and Territory in the United States. So it's like just in a particular. There's not a hotspot. Methodism is growing faster than the population everywhere in the Us. That's like crazy. That doesn't happen historically. It's rare for any religious movement to outpace population growth in like a county or something. But but for across the country as a whole.

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Kevin Watson: And there was this period of time one of my favorite stats, where there's like more Methodist churches than post offices.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah. Thanks.

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Kevin Watson: And you know. So there was. There was pretty dramatic and astounding coverage and I think because of that, their their evangelical fervor, their their commitment to kind of individual personal salvation there and then this kind of explosive, rapid growth.

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Kevin Watson: the some of this there isn't the sort of same emphasis on reflection on what it means to be a church, and making sure that it's stood up in kind of the most bulletproof way that it could be in terms of how it's intellectually conceived and articulated. And that's why I think across our history you have all these different expressions, and my argument is, the identity is not actually in that ecclesiological understanding. In the same way it doesn't get fleshed out in the same direction, and Wesley himself doesn't say the meaning of a Methodist is.

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Kevin Watson: you know, that there are bishops, cause he doesn't actually think there should be bishops like he was opposed to them. And you know, so you have these there, there's actually a lot of diversity within the Wesleyan theological tradition in terms of how Poly gets expressed in terms of ecclesiological structure and development organization. But there's a commitment to the basic kind of this is what we believe. And this is the way at the at the sort of ground level that we think this should be lived out, you know. And this is how Methodism comes to life and stays alive.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah. And and having that foundation in doctrine and discipline is so help, so helpful for us to like, there there still needs to be

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Andy Miller III: boundaries that define us like in in the. This is what's led to the contemporary concerns. But maybe we'll hopefully get there at the end. Okay, you work for 2 institutions with the name Asbury in it. So we need to just at least talk a little bit about Francis Asbury. Because most people probably don't know too much about him, and I think you have a good healthy portion here on on Asbury. But why was he so important to this pivot

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Andy Miller III: in Wesleyan theology in, you know, 1784. But then also what he does after that.

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Kevin Watson: Yeah. So I mean Methodism. And it's kind of first, st like, 1st stage, you know of, of growth and development is almost entirely under the the charism and leadership of John Wesley by the power of the Holy Spirit, right? But, like Wesley, is a key leader, and he's a pretty like strong, bold leader. And I would. The way I usually describe it when I'm like teaching to students is that Francis Asbury was the John Wesley of American Methodism.

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Kevin Watson: So he's the same kind of level of he's pretty shrewd politically to kind of

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Kevin Watson: distance himself, separate himself for rivals from power and authority. One of the very 1st divisions is with James o' Kelly and the Republican Methodist Church.

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Kevin Watson: That's over contesting Asbury's authority specifically, and O'kelly takes a lot of people with him. But the Mec. Keeps going and ends up really clearly, surpassing them and putting a ton of distance between them. And then O'kelly basically moves away from the Wesleyan tradition and other directions. So Asbury is like the key indisputed leader of the 1st generations of American Methodism.

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Kevin Watson: and one of the reasons he does, that is, you know. I I remember one day just kinda hit me that like as Francis Asbury never owned a home like in the United States. He constantly was traveling from one place to the next, providing oversight for the Methodist Episcopal Church.

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Kevin Watson: and part of what that meant for him was, he was always dependent on the hospitality of the people that he was serving? And I think sometimes people in, you know, in leadership and parts of the Wesleyan family today would would be pretty chastened if they actually, after the way they presided at a denominational meeting, or something, had to go stay in the house of a normal person in the church that was being impacted by their decisions, and by the way that they.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah.

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Kevin Watson: There's sometimes a pretty significant disconnect from the rank and file kind of leadership, and and just the the laity. And then the the upper levels of denominational leadership, especially in the more kind of hierarchical and bureaucratic parts of the Wesleyan family. And so Asbury is always in touch with the people. He's always moving on and staying at somebody's house, and traveling by horse and you know, and that kind of thing. And so there was.

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Kevin Watson: Wigger says in his brilliant biography of Francis Asbury, American Saint. He says that there was a period of time where you could write a letter from another country, and you could just address it to Francis Asbury, America. I think that's pretty amazing. And the other thing that wigger kind of argues that I thought was really interesting to think about, and he persuaded me he was right. Is that

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Kevin Watson: Asbury and kind of the 1st 25 years of the history of the Us. Like he would have been

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Kevin Watson: the most arguably the most recognizable face in the United States. Because of the fact that he just was always traveling. He was always around people, and there were other people that I think rightly, or seen to be more influential in terms of the founding of our country and that kind of thing. But but Asbury, you know, was a deeply influential person and kind of the revolutionary generation, and the the years following, I think, kind of in a variety of different interesting ways, but without question. Within the the Westland family itself.

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Andy Miller III: It's, you know, learning about him and learning about these changes in this period as much as much as I love and lean into John Wesley's theology. You know, understanding a little bit more of British Methodism. And what's happened there?

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Andy Miller III: I sometimes think

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Andy Miller III: I'm real. It's easy to say this is American. I'm an American Methodist like I. I look back to this district and and the type of things he did, the entrepreneurial spirit, the way that they welcomed

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Andy Miller III: expressions of the spirit

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Andy Miller III: I I'd like, I think, the various traditions that you talk about in this book. This is our one, together with John Wesley, a spiritual grandfather of sorts, and I love, I love how you unfold this and and I hope that other people will see that as well. It just hasn't been as accessible for people understand this beyond seeing as Barry's name connected to street signs and bookstores and institutions. So I think you've done great service to us with this.

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Kevin Watson: Thank you. And I I love the language of kind of spiritual father, because, you know, he also was single his whole life, and didn't have logical kids. And I think it's it is beautiful to think of the way in which he did actually have, you know, a a really powerful lineage. That just is. It's in the spirit, not in the in the flesh.

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Andy Miller III: Amen.

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Andy Miller III: One thing you could work through throughout the book, which I'm so glad, and I think you handle it in a sensitive way. Are the the challenges of racism

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Andy Miller III: that express themselves at very beginning of Methodism in in the United States. But then continue on and if you've been to some Pan Wesleyan events. Where there are multiple expressions. I I hope those events include folks from the Ame Amy, Z. Cme, we. We have some other expressions of that, even at Wesley Biblical Seminary. Katusa.

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Andy Miller III: The Church of Christ. U.S.A. It's a holiness denomination so. But but talk to me a little bit about that like, I. I appreciate that you did this. But tell us about the

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Andy Miller III: how racism and its consequences were a part of the American methods movement.

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Kevin Watson: Yeah, I mean, Methodism is really interesting, because from kind of the beginnings, there's a pretty clear sense that the leadership of this movement knows that slavery is a sin. And Wesley's outspoken on that famously. The very last extant letter we have from him was written to William Wilberforce, who was the famous British abolitionist, and he's

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Kevin Watson: encouraging out Wilberforce and his fight to to end slavery in Britain. And, you know, makes an explicit comparison to American slavery, which he says, is the vilest under the sun.

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Kevin Watson: And so Wesley's clearly kind of unapologetically and uncompromisingly opposed to slavery. And so, when Methodism in the Us. Is founded as a church, and it has a sense of like discipline, is important where we actually name the ways in which we say this is who we are, and this is who we aren't. Slavery is originally put in the general rules as a category of sin. This is under no harm, and it's in the 1st discipline the 1st General Conference goes on record.

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Kevin Watson: But soon thereafter this. This method is in the South. Push back pretty hard, especially those who own slaves. And and so there's this history of both attempts to take a prophetic countercultural stand, and that's also mingled with compromise.

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Kevin Watson: And the compromise at times is is is pretty painful. I still find teaching, so Richard Allen is is the kind of, I would say, like the founding father of. Of. Really he's in the founding generation. He's in the famous picture. That there's a little circle of just part of the image where Asbury's ordained Richard Allen's present when that happens.

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Kevin Watson: And so he's 1 of the founding fathers of Methodism, and is the 1st you know, key leader of traditionally Black Methodism, who

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Kevin Watson: purchases his own freedom from slavery, becomes the leader of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and buys and builds Mother Bethel Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, not once, but twice, because the leadership of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Pennsylvania is trying to force that church to accept a White Overseer within their church. And there's a famous story where they basically bar the aisle and don't allow him access to the pulpit

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Kevin Watson: and so then the Mec. Uses the trust clause to basically put the church up for sale, and Alan has to scrap together as much money as he can to buy back the church a second time. From from auction. It's a it's a it's a really evil sinful, broken story.

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Kevin Watson: just thoroughly unjust, but it also shows Richard Allen's I mean just his persistence. He! He's I think he's a pretty optimistic, hopeful person in the ways that he's able to keep going despite adversity, and the Ame Church is that it is a really dynamic and robust movement that's that's absolutely within the Wesleyan Methodist family. And so I wanted to do the best I could to include that as a part of the history.

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Kevin Watson: And I think you said something earlier, and I think one of the obvious criticisms of my book would be that if you were reading it from the lens of any particular denomination, you could say that more could have been said, and my response to that criticism would just be like, yes, that's true, and I appreciate how generously you framed it. It's like also the book is pretty long as it is

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Kevin Watson: and it's not intended to be an exhaustive history of any particular denomination. But what I'm hoping to do is to to provide enough of a sketch that, in a way, the way I found myself thinking about it was that people who are unaware of these other parts of the family tradition would start to find relatives. They didn't.

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Andy Miller III: Amen!

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Kevin Watson: Existed and would find more of an interest in. You know I want to learn more about the African Methodist Episcopal Church, because I didn't know much about them, or maybe for some folks in the Ame church. They don't know anything about the Church of the Nazarene, and so it's a way to begin to engage and learn something about those crazy holiness people from the early 20th century. And what have they been up to? And both then provide

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Kevin Watson: pointers through the recommended readings and footnotes to you know much more that can be read so and so in that sense, it's it's it's truly introductory in in terms of getting to know the deeper history.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah. And I like, how you do this, too, like connecting people to other family members in this broad movement. For instance, many people know that United of United, the Methodist Church is connected to Eub Evangelical United Brethren, but many people probably don't know that that's already its own combination. The Evangelical Association, and then, the United Brethren, I like how you you give space to them as well, too, and you to think about Richard Farmer being in that picture

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Andy Miller III: with Asbury. Of course she also have otterbine being pre present there, laying his hands upon Francis Asbury, and tell us, Bill, about that movement, and what's happening in German pietistic, influenced traditions.

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Kevin Watson: Yeah, I mean the the Evangelical Association and the United Brethren are both really interesting because they're they are the kind of exception they aren't. They don't come from the Mec. They actually merge into it at the founding of the United Methodist Church in 1968, but they go way back before that. So they have a hundred 50 year history and heritage. Even more than that, prior to the the merger end with the Umc.

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Kevin Watson: And historians have wrestled a lot with like, why didn't they ever merge? And it's it's interesting to a lot of historians they didn't merge together with each other soon, or they merged together in 1946 to form the Evangelical United Brethren.

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Kevin Watson: and that one, I think, is still a little bit more of a historical puzzle, but it looks like when you look at specific instances where they talked about merger. It's just the kind of thing that happens. Sometimes. One institution isn't willing to give in on a thing that to us with hindsight, or if we're just not in, it seems like a fairly small thing. But they just weren't able to work out all the logistical details, to actually bring 2 different entities together into one new thing.

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Kevin Watson: If you want to kind of think about that today. A lot of people ask me if I have hope for a kind of realignment of the more conservative Westland denominations, and usually I feel fairly pessimistic about it, not because I don't think they have so much in common, but because of just how hard it is to figure out. How do you actually bring a church that has a trust clause, together with a denomination that's founded in a lot of ways from deep hurt and feeling like they were extorted to get out

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Kevin Watson: and won't, won't ever have a trust clause. And that's just one example. Right? Then one denomination has bishops, another, one doesn't and those kind of things. And so there's a lot of like, even though from a distance it looks like, yeah, the it should be obvious they should figure out how to work together, so that there is

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Kevin Watson: greater unity, that the unity is expressed institutionally and those kind of things. So I think that's 1 of the things that's going on. And then the other obvious thing is that for many, many decades the Evangelical Association and the United Brethren both are almost entirely German speaking. So there's just a cultural and linguistic barrier. That is, is

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Kevin Watson: is real. And and actually, that's, I think, easier for us to understand, there's a really robust German American population and and parts of the Us. For a good long time, and still is, but that was actually more

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Kevin Watson: like. There was a deep unity within those communities that didn't go out as much, and so they were able to sustain that culture and that heritage for for a long time, and that's what happens

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Kevin Watson: if you look at the history of the founding of the United Methodist Church, where the Eub joins in and gives united to the Methodist Church. There is a fear by a lot of folks in the Evangelical United Brethren Tradition, that they will be swallowed up, and that their history will be lost and basically sort of be colonized by the Methodist Church.

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Kevin Watson: And I think a lot of of folks that are are fair minded in that would say that that is actually largely what happened. Even today. A lot of or, you know, decade before. It took me a long time to actually get clear in terms of just being a student of this that United meant Evangelical United Brethren. Not that it was an aspiration to be united, you know, in in the sort of more generic sense, and

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Kevin Watson: so mo, and I, I think for sure most laity in the United Methodist Church don't don't know anything about where the word United comes from. They just it's just, you know, it's just part of the branding and part of the name. So that's I wanted to try to do the best I could to make sure that that we don't forget that part of the history and and see that it's connected to you know the the United Methodist Church itself.

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Andy Miller III: If some people look at it, maybe it's just connected to 20th century ecumenism, and that that's that was happening and other denominations. And Canada, you have a a united church that comes together. But that yeah, this this is connected. Yeah. I. When when I was at Asbury Seminary as a student. I study Steve O'malley and I really

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Andy Miller III: he he hammers pretty hard to to think through the pietistic foundation. I think I'm talking about the movement. Piet is not just like an inward heart focus. But you was interesting with the with those traditions. What comes with them is their history

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Andy Miller III: that influenced Wesley in the 1st place. So you have things, Spainer Kirsten, these type of Spiritualist pietists, inward focused movements that are already a part of the Evangelical Association and United Brethren. Well, it kind of it starts to make sense because those are key things that shaped Wesley. I love that that care and just my own personal experiences, but

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Andy Miller III: in it now these are folks that sadly are are dying now. But when I've come upon somebody who was a part of

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Andy Miller III: the United of United Methodist. They came from the Eub or from one of these groups. There is a richness. I and I. I have a grandmother in law who's a hundred years old, who comes from that tradition? And there there's I can't academically demonstrate this, but there's something there that's vibrant in a way with these folks that I think this movement needs.

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Kevin Watson: Yeah. And if you look at so in the United Methodist Church's standards of doctrine today, they have the articles of religion.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah.

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Kevin Watson: Confession of faith, and the confession of faith is the Eub side right? Like they didn't know how to actually merge them together. So they just kept both, and the confession of faith actually has the more robust articulation of entire sanctification, which is.

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Andy Miller III: Yes.

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Kevin Watson: And theological, distinctive. So there, there's definitely something really robust. There, I I completely agree. And usually it you almost if you're in a a church that was an Eub church. People always know that, and if they don't always know that they were in a Methodist Episcopal Church or Methodist church, the the sort of forerunner of of on the Methodist side. So there is. There's just an awareness and a pride, I think, in their history and heritage that I find to be lovely.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, I I'm also I have a book coming out sometime on hopefully, 2025 on the afterlife heaven with seabed. And in that I've looked at the doctrinal statements on. And I also have a chapter on Health

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Andy Miller III: is the Eub statement that has a clear articulation of the doctrine of health, too.

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Kevin Watson: Yep.

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Andy Miller III: And it's interesting.

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Kevin Watson: Cause. Theirs is new, I mean, they actually like wrote it. And you know, recent memory as opposed to the the articles of religion which are.

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Andy Miller III: Aye.

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Kevin Watson: Hey? Wesley's editing of the Church of England's articles from the 15 Hundreds, or, you know it's there. There's there's a much.

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Kevin Watson: much different kind of sense of connection to the present.

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Andy Miller III: You know, we we talked about the Sunday service to a lot of people make this. I I wasn't until I actually went and found a copy of it myself. Back to Wesley with the articles of religion.

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Andy Miller III: I had assumed that in the Sunday service he took out the phrase, he descended to hell or descended to realm of the dead. But that's still in the Sunday service. Interesting enough.

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Andy Miller III: I'm trying to trace that down, because I I think there's something really powerful about the the doctrine of Jesus' descent that we're we're missing. So that okay, that's probably something for me and usually talk about on the side. All right, let me jump ahead to the 20th century.

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Andy Miller III: So I liked. I I was so glad to see your chapter or section on Boston Personalism, and this is, I think we can see the beginnings of what has been experienced in United Methodism. But also.

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Andy Miller III: I I'm sad to say, like, I just see some other denominations that are wrestling with the same issues. And and many people won't know what I'm talking about when I say Boston personalism. So tell tell us about why that's important and what and what's happened in Methodism in the last 150 years.

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Kevin Watson: Yeah, I mean, I think the way I'd put it for folks who don't know much of the background is that the shorthand way of thinking about it would be that there's kind of a bunch of things that happen at the same time. But Methodism starts to realize it's become somebody. They're the biggest denomination in the United States, but they don't have the institutions that the more older established mainline denominations have. They don't have the colleges, the universities, and the schools of divinity and seminaries.

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Kevin Watson: And so the a and like sort of beautiful ornate churches, which actually was prohibited in the Book of discipline kind of a theological claim for a long time. Which I talk about in the book, and I think is is a fascinating piece of our history, too. But the

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Kevin Watson: so what happens is, there's kind of a sense of like we need to have these institutions. And since it's like a chicken or egg thing. So if we're gonna build them, we need people to teach in them. We don't have to send people to get taught in. And so the 1st generation of Methodist academics, by and large, went to where sort of the most popular acclaimed academics were in Christianity and Christian thought. And that was in Germany, which was basically the advent of Liberal Protestantism.

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Kevin Watson: And Gordon Parker, bound, was one of the people who went there. Brilliant, brilliant mind and and he developed this school of thought known as Boston personalism because he taught his his whole career. At Boston University, and was a philosopher of religion, and and kind of. But it personalism gets a lot of of

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Kevin Watson: kind of attention, because it's just also synced up historically with like historical criticism. And you know, there's there's just a lot of different ways in which there's new energy and kind of the place where the scholarly kind of energy is.

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Kevin Watson: is gradually pulling away from just the simple, simple faith and the basic claims of historic, Christian orthodoxy. And so it's a it's a key piece, because then, like Boston University, is kind of the dominant school and and the Mec. For for many, many years.

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Kevin Watson: and so is raising up new professors to teach. But also, if you kind of wanted to go to the most prestigious Methodist school to become a big steeple pastor, you wanted to be a bishop, or something like that. There was a period of time where that was the place where you would have gone to study. So it had a really significant impact for a pretty good period of time on on the Methodist tradition. And it was part of what I'm suggesting in the book, is

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Kevin Watson: it's not really. Wesley and Boston bound was raised in a family that was deeply influenced by the Holiness movement. He kind of sarcastically said, and sort of dismissively said that the guide to holiness was read as much in his house as the Bible, and and he's saying that as a bad thing, and so for him. He's he's kind of like consciously trying to move Methodism away from. It's kind of founding vision into intellectual respectability and and kind of new intellectual currents.

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Kevin Watson: And I'm arguing that that is also a move away from a kind of grounding and a clear identity and understanding of what it actually means to be Weslaine, as opposed to just generically a liberal Protestant.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah. Yeah. So from that time there also is a movement, then

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Andy Miller III: from like a social holiness which you've talked about in other places to social justice as well, not just in Methodism, but also in other traditions as well. These 2 things come together, I think, to create a a stew of sorts for what becomes Liberal Methodism? I like that. You made that distinction. But do you want to tell us about that? Like the move from a social holiness to social justice.

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Kevin Watson: Yeah, so. And and and John Wesley only uses the phrase, social holiness once and all of his. You know many, many, many words that he wrote and it's in a context where he's actually creating a contrast with the desert monastic tradition. And it's a bit unfair. It's it's a bit too strong. But you know, he says, holy solitaire is a phrase no more consistent with the gospel than holy adulterers. So he thinks in his own day and time

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Kevin Watson: that the image of adultery as a path to holiness is clearly not gonna work, you know. We may not always be as clear about that. But you can't become holy through practicing adultery. And so, same way, in that analogy, he's saying, you can't become holy in isolation from other Christians.

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Kevin Watson: and so then he says, the gospel of Christ knows of no religion but social, no holiness but social holiness.

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Kevin Watson: And so in that his vision this is like partially becomes the justification for the necessity of things like class meetings and band meetings and regular connection to the society meeting, which is basically what we would think of today as the local church and weekly worship.

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Kevin Watson: And so that is is something that's taken for granted. And then, as as Methodism moves forward. There's a period of time where there's pretty deep agreement across all branches of Methodism that the goal is to bring individual people to saving faith in Jesus Christ. And there's an optimism that through salvation, and then full salvation through sanctification, that those people will then

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Kevin Watson: use their lives in ways that build up others and are a blessing to other people.

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Kevin Watson: And so there's a sense that society is blessed through the efforts of not just individual Christians, but the working of the body of Christ as it was ordered and designed by by the Lord.

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Kevin Watson: And as as Methodism grows and develops, what ends up happening is, those 2 things sort of get like separated off from each other, where you have some people who are really emphasizing individual salvation. And and you know importance of personal conversion and personal faith, and other people are working to kind of try to fix the things that are broken with society and and sort of increasingly doing the 2

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Kevin Watson: in opposition to the other. Like, I'm not. I'm not actually wanting to get people to walk the Sawdust trail. I'm trying to like. Figure out how to solve poverty. And and vice versa. And I think that's a rift that you you see, in many parts of the Wesleyan family, even to today, where there's a kind of false alternative between the 2 like, which one are you in favor of? Are you in favor of this or that, and.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, yeah.

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Andy Miller III: no, he, I he picked up on this, and I was glad to see. Yeah, I've I've quoted Ed Mckinley in a similar way in his talk about the Salvation Army. It's very. He's very observant of what was going on with the American Salvationist and you took out some of the spicy part of his quote. Maybe Zonda remade to do that. But he said something like the salvation so early. Salvationist knew nothing of social justice

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Andy Miller III: theories. And then I I have the or you quote here. It's in my book, a holistic hospitality the whole. The whole quote is in my my book. Okay? But you say it's except that their heavenly commander had ordered his soldiers to take in strangers, visit the sick and imprisoned, and offer a drink to the thirsty and food to the hungry like. That's the kind of

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Andy Miller III: I. And I think a lot of the holiness movement.

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Andy Miller III: That's the basic call, okay, people are enslaved. They shouldn't be enslaved. They need. They need to be out of slavery. People are hungry. They need to be fed. But when it starts to move in a different direction. This is where we end up. Getting.

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Andy Miller III: you know, brought into ideologies that sometimes come run counter to the gospel.

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Kevin Watson: Yeah. And I think I think that I think there's actually the irony of it is that historically, I think there's a good argument to be made

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Kevin Watson: that in the periods of time where people were most concerned about personal salvation, they were also actually making the greatest impact on society.

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Andy Miller III: Hey! Man!

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Kevin Watson: We got separated. There's a lot of talk about social justice but but you know, tending to do it from the safety of your Prius, or something like that, as opposed to living sacrificially. I mean the people who are doing this in Methodism, that

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Kevin Watson: just look like disreputable fundamentalist to to sort of more respectable people today. We're also living very sacrificially, and we're themselves quite poor. Because they saw the need in front of them and weren't taking care of their own luxuries first.st But we're we're actually investing, you know. They were taking everything they could get, just like John Wesley, did, you know, and and putting it into the places where you immediately saw the needs in front of you.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah. Oh, i i i definitely think that's the case. And I I, for instance, in about 15 years ago.

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Andy Miller III: this is going to be a little picking. Some of my audience won't like this. I say this, but the Salvation Army started a something that'd be similar in a Methodist church to some of your boards of church and society, and the like, but it was called the Social Justice Commission.

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Andy Miller III: and what happened is that moved into New York City into a

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Andy Miller III: a location. They actually moved out a basic soup kitchen.

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Andy Miller III: That was the kind of like a basic response to needs in that area, and they brought in the Social Justice Commission, which then ended up. Having to move, be moved out and separate out because the office started to use. I mean, my, this is my interpretation, like

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Andy Miller III: basic critical theory, a a lens to to evaluate things speaking against government regulations. And but what was missing was missing. It was like the basic response of trying to to serve people that that and why and why did that happen? Why did? It's not just in the savage army. Why did people want to serve? It came out of a desire for personal salvation. So I'm with you on that.

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Kevin Watson: Yeah, it's it's a. It's a key part of our our history and heritage. That I think is is important to, you know, to wrestle with, and where necessary, repent, and turn back to the Lord.

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Andy Miller III: Okay, you also have, I? I. We don't have time to go through in in detail. But you talk about what happens with the formation of the United Methodist Church as an experiment and pluralism, theological pluralism, and some people will resist that. But but going back just historically, what happens in 1968. That was what was happening. So tell us about the formation of the United Methodist Church, and why it was problematic.

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Kevin Watson: Yeah, I mean, i i i think you're right. There will be folks who won't like this. I for me, just, you know, as a brief preface like this doesn't come out of a place of

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Kevin Watson: like finger wagging. I just think, as a historian it seems true to me. So in 1968, there had been several efforts at mergers, and there had been mergers that had happened. I think actually, if you want to really critique a merger that happened in the whole history of the Wesleyan family. The one to go for is the merger that founded the Methodist Church in 1939.

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Kevin Watson: That's the high water mark of of institutional racism in the history of of the I think the whole Westland tradition. That's when the central jurisdiction was founded, where all people were segregated out of their annual conferences, and jurisdictions were created

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Kevin Watson: at that merger, which is what actually ended up, I think, kind of finally fatally injuring the polity of the United Methodist Church because they did away with the central jurisdiction in 1972. But it the jurisdictional system persisted, and that's what eventually broke the the unity of of the United Methodist Church as one church, and and people started doing what was right in their own eyes and different regions of the Church.

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Kevin Watson: So the you know, for me, 1,968 is kind of the next step of like.

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Kevin Watson: you know, we there's this part of us that looks a lot like us, and we'd like to be more united with, which is all to the good. I honor and respect that, and think it's healthy and good. I think the problem was that as they were having conversations with each other, they realized that the diversity, I think the reality is the diversity that was already in the Methodist Church. The 1939 merger was so much that it couldn't actually be resolved

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Kevin Watson: and sort of express in a truly co intellectually or theologically coherent way.

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Kevin Watson: And so, as you're trying to bring in the eub, you, you're basically what outlaw does is he realizes for the sake of of a merger that's gonna bring all of this together into one big national church.

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Kevin Watson: That he's gonna have to also create, like an an, a sort of articulate, a, a reason for a big tent vision for Methodism.

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Kevin Watson: And that gets expressed in his 1st articulation of this and our theological task in the 1972 discipline as theological pluralism. Which I think was a very unfortunate phrase. I I don't know how he missed the obvious connotation of it. Cause. He claims that it's not what he meant in terms of how it gets interpreted. But it. It seems like theological pluralism means what it means.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, she's right.

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Kevin Watson: You have multiple theologies.

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Andy Miller III: Happens.

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Kevin Watson: Yeah, and it. And it is certainly what happens in reality.

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Kevin Watson: I think probably what happened is that outler wanted there to be multiple approaches to the Wesleyan theological tradition, but he assumed they would be circumscribed in ways that like it's sort of like. Once you remove the boundaries, he didn't realize how much was out there in terms of how how disparate and and diverse the theological perspectives on offer would be and also then created the you know, he

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Kevin Watson: others before had articulated a kind of quadrilateral of in terms of a method for theology. That was the same. 4 things Scripture tradition, reason, and experience, but our sort of

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Kevin Watson: pushes it forward as this is. This is what it means to be a United Methodist. We reflect theologically in this way. And that's the place where theologians like Billy Abraham push back so hard that there isn't method. The Wesleyan tradition has never enshrined in an approach to epistemology, that how do we know what we know? They never said. This is how we know things is through this.

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Andy Miller III: Particular.

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Kevin Watson: Method. And so someone like like Abraham would have said, it's it was a mistake. It was wrong to say that you must use a particular method. And and also, I think, would have pushed Outler to come clean, that the reason he was doing that was

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Kevin Watson: to to sort of advantage himself to give himself home field advantage for this kind of big tent vision that he was was erecting. And the irony is what ended up happening in it is that it? It actually advantaged people who wanted to speak outside of kind of traditional Wesleyan theological perspectives, and it disadvantaged those who want people like me who would want to say there is a there for the Methodist tradition. It means this, and it doesn't mean these other things

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Kevin Watson: that the the Quadrilateral was kind of used to actually say, it's okay for Watson to say that as long as he recognizes the validity of other people saying the opposite. And and that's the same problem that you know seminary students learn about with

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Kevin Watson: kind of the the inclusive, exclusive kind of arguments that the inclusive position actually excludes the overwhelming majority of Christians throughout the history of the Church. And so it doesn't turn out to be very inclusive, and I think the the sort of articulation of you know, the quadrilateral and the big tent vision for Methodism

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Kevin Watson: at the founding of the Umc kind of ends up, you know, having that same problem, I will say, like an honor of Outler's vision is, I think it's actually remarkable that it persisted as long as it did. It had a really good run. It held things together for a long time. I think there was a ton of tension really early on when people talk about the argument, for example, about same-sex marriage

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Kevin Watson: the ordination of self, about practicing homosexuals in the Umc that started in 1972. I mean, it started from the very beginning of the denomination. And so the fact that he did create something that was.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, and.

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Kevin Watson: Hold things together for that long is is actually pretty astounding in a lot of ways.

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Andy Miller III: So you think you've referred to our our theological task, and you and I are pretty well inside of this. So we recognize that that's like something that was written. That was a part of the discipline, and that continued on for a long time. Some people outside of

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Andy Miller III: United Methodism, Gmc. Might not know that's referred our theological task. But you. So you're saying, you think that that was strong enough to help hold the ground on sexuality for 30, 40 years. Is that the case?

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Kevin Watson: Well, what I mean is that it was it was outlord did a good enough job conceiving of a big tent that it actually was able to be a big tent for a remarkably long time, and and what I mean by that is like it. I think

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Kevin Watson: I don't really actually mean it as a positive endorsement, because I.

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Andy Miller III: Okay.

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Kevin Watson: Created. It created intellectual incoherence. But the incoherence

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Kevin Watson: was like hard enough to see for long enough that people weren't like terribly troubled by it. That's kind of how I think about it. And that's 1 of the things that that I I do in the book, as you're sort of why we're talking about this. I unpack that 1972 statement from the the Umc discipline and in detail. Because

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Kevin Watson: I think it's it will probably look to folks who aren't United Methodist like this is undue emphasis on one part of the tradition, but for me from, I think that that it's just

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Kevin Watson: the case that the Umc in that period of time was disproportionately influential within the family. So I'm trying to correct that through the way the history is told overall. But I'm also trying to say that, like other parts of the tradition, need to pay attention to what I see as as kind of mistakes that were made in this.

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Andy Miller III: Yes, yes.

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Kevin Watson: So that they can can see the the importance of the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which we 1st set out. When when Wesleyans actually adhere to the basics of their identity. They tend to grow. And I think that's because the Holy Spirit is blessing them. Tend to move away from those things. They they tend to decline.

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Andy Miller III: Amen. No, I think I I can see this. And I've had on my podcast people from various denominations that are experiencing those tensions right now. I mean, as we're, you know, talking. This is going on Nazarene Church, and certainly in the savage army. Those are 2 that I'm most connected to. I liked how, in your section on the savvy Shinar army, you identified the orders and regulations

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Andy Miller III: as a contemporary expression of the doctrine, spirit and discipline. I I think that's indeed the case in in people in the Savage Army would like. Maybe they don't even know. Their own history. Is that the 1st handbook of doctrine was called the doctrines and disciplines like this. This was like trying to root ourselves in this exact same tradition with a military slant.

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Kevin Watson: Yeah, and it's interesting. I I had not ever noticed that before, but as you said, that, like the Umc did the opposite right like they. Our 1st discipline was the doctrines and disciplines of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and we actually cut off discipline, and I mean doctrine and and kept discipline. So you have, you know. Did I get that right, or did I? Is it the same.

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Andy Miller III: No, no, no, you got it right. Yeah, William Booth. I was just thinking about. Historically, William Booth adapted that from the Methodist new connection in England, and that's more of his source, as opposed to say, the Wesleyan Methodist connection which might have taken a little bit different direction. Even in his time.

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Kevin Watson: Yeah.

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Kevin Watson: But yeah, I mean, I think I think it's like a that's a really basic point for anybody interested in the Western tradition to like. Remember that from our founding we think doctrine and discipline are important, and actually neither works without the other. Right? You can't.

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Kevin Watson: One of them, because it's a set of distinctive beliefs that are brought to life through a distinctive set of practices. Right? It's like it's the 2 we we don't know what to do without knowing what we believe, and we don't know how to live if we don't know what we believe. And so they're they're like, both really essential.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, the in the Savage Army. This works out where there there are articles the soldiers coven. It used to be called articles of war, where there is a doctrinal statements, 11 short statements, and then, therefore, and then we wills, which are discipline statements, and those that those came later, sadly, there are people within the tradition who who are breaking this that I mean essentially, this is why I think it's such a helpful book, Kevin, is that

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Andy Miller III: this basic formation, doctrine, spirit, and discipline. If we can hold on to this, we see the connection of who we are. But what's happening in the savage army. I think the same is true in the Nazarene Church

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Andy Miller III: as church in Nazarene is that there's they're wanting to break that off. So some are wanting to say the popular thing for coming from Northern, European and Western European

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Andy Miller III: territories and savage armies to say No, no, no, the they'll say the articles of Fay, the the soldiers covenant th. This doctrine is in this basically doctrine of discipline. That's an evolving document. Right? We can we can change that our ethical commitments aren't connected this those change over time. We can just make different assumptions. So

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Andy Miller III: I I think this is the foundation that we need, and I want wanted to highlight to kind of pivoting back and moving towards wrapping up.

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Andy Miller III: I like how your book goes to John Wesley Co. Brings these 3 important ideas in, but it says, the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they

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Andy Miller III: 1st set out, and so, like my encouragement to you is like. Not only have you said there's a there, but I want to say there's a they there.

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Kevin Watson: Indicate.

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Andy Miller III: There's a day there, and those who are in this tradition have a responsibility, I think, to hold this. So I wanted you to exhort people in these traditions. Here, as we close out like, how can they be like within their institutions, be people of the doctrine, spirit, and discipline?

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Kevin Watson: Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. The the 1st thing you have to do is know your history. And that's that's why I put the time and energy into this. I I really hope that it helps people to remember who they are to rediscover the riches of their heritage, and that I hope that whether it's a Salvationist, whether it's a you know Wesleyan Church member, a United Methodist or an Ame like across the whole spectrum that that we can say like.

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Kevin Watson: Thank you, Jesus, that you've given us such a rich heritage as just one part of your body, and that really, what we're trying to do is build up the body of Christ and be faithful to the gospel of Jesus.

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Kevin Watson: And to to know that. So that you know, I think we're in a time of of dramatic cultural change that's also impacting academic changes and real pressure and dramatic shifts and changes within the church.

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Kevin Watson: And I think that one of the key kind of things to do in that is to put down really deep roots as deep as we can in our own history and heritage so that we can be differentiated from our cultural moment

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Kevin Watson: and discern what faithfulness looks like. You. You know, as as you were just kind of talking about those like the the ethics and so forth. Change. It's like interesting as a historian that the people, the way people want the tradition to change is always in accordance with their cultural moment, you know. And and when we look back at history, the people that we most admire and revere are not the people who are the most accommodated to their cultural moment? It's, on the contrary, it's people who

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Kevin Watson: often paid the ultimate price. And I don't really wanna romanticize like seeking martyrdom. But, like, you know, Martin Luther King Jrick Bonhoeffer, like 2 of the big names that they get a lot of attention. Recently, you know, they both were W. Experience such opposition that it ultimately cost them both their lives. And we we actually admire them and rightly regard them and honor them because of the fact that they were pushing against the injustices

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Kevin Watson: of their moments. They weren't actually in sync with the cultural moment, or we wouldn't remember them or know who they are today. And I think that's the challenge for Christians. And every time in place is to be able to discern? Where is the culture in sync with the gospel? Where is it? Out of sync? And and then we, our response is always based on the Gospel, and it doesn't change the Gospel. It we advocate and resist, or, you know, pursue

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Kevin Watson: accordance with the teaching of Jesus as revealed in the Scriptures. Which are unchanging. And so for me, it's getting really grounded in that. The other piece is, I just think I think courage begets courage.

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Kevin Watson: So I think that people in these different traditions who are willing to to take stands that may cost them something that may come at a professional cost. That may you know

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Kevin Watson: where especially, I think, in those moments, I think, for the average listener it's like the place where the rubber hits the road is where you don't know what's gonna happen next. If you come to this place where you feel like the Lord is calling you to like. Say, this kind of here I stand. I can do no other like, and you don't know whether there will be consequences or not. Cause sometimes there is, and sometimes there isn't, and that's the place where life is really lived. And I think when people see you doing that, it will make it easier for other people

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Kevin Watson: to do it too, and enable faithfulness and others. So I would strongly encourage that. And then the last piece for me is I think that the history of the Wesleyan tradition. One way of looking at it is

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Kevin Watson: from the moment where Methodist kind of became self aware, like, Oh, we we're somebody like there's a whole lot more of us than anybody else. We want more power in the culture. We want more recognition of this. We need bigger and more beautiful churches and more institutions, and that there's this tendency that we we drift away from who we were created by the Lord to be

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Kevin Watson: when we become more desirous and needful of the culture's approval. And we tend to not. Our history is not as interesting in those moments. That's the moment where we change the book of discipline in the South to accommodate to slavery. That's when we refuse to ordain women, even though we're convicted theologically, that it's a it's good and right to do. It's it's those kind of things that come from accommodation to the dominant culture within its moment. And I think that

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Kevin Watson: we need to realize that it's a day and time to not to have a chip on our shoulder, not to try to alienate the world before it can reject us. But just to be people of principled commitment that have counted the cost. And Jesus is the treasure he is, you know. It's like the I love that verse in Matthew.

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Kevin Watson: Where the man's like trespassing in somebody else's field, and he finds a treasure, and he goes and sells everything to buy that field because it's like, if you have Jesus, you have everything, and if you don't have Jesus, you have nothing.

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Kevin Watson: So he is the treasure that's worth giving everything to to gain and and to to continue to cling to. Once. Once you have faith in Jesus.

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Andy Miller III: Amen. Yeah, I love it, Kevin. Thanks so much. Appreciate all the work that you do. I know you've met your your work, and speaking and writing has meant so much to this movement even before this book, but now even more so, this book. So I want to encourage people to go get it. I don't think it's show up on my screen. Doctrine, spirit, and Discipline, by Zondarvan, and I'm glad it's published by such a established publisher like Zond.

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Andy Miller III: I students west of Biblical Seminary. You're gonna have to read it. It's just gonna be how it works.

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Kevin Watson: Pretty good. You.

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Andy Miller III: Won't get out. You're good without reading, or at least, you know, having to do something with it. So there you go, Kevin. I I asked you this I always ask, is there more to the story of somebody? Last time I think you said something about the Astros. Maybe they've won a world series since then I don't know. But is there more to story? Something you're you're into these days something happening that you could tell us beyond the type of stuff we normally talk about.

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Kevin Watson: Yeah, that's a great question. What I'm fired up about right now is, I'm embarrassed. I talked about the Astros last time we Asbury church had, I think, the 1st kind of night of prayer and worship that we've had kind of in our Church's history, and we just had a really it was a really sweet evening. It was last Wednesday, and there were 400 people who came.

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Kevin Watson: and I don't. We didn't count the number of people who responded, but I think it was more than half of the people who came at some point. Came forward for prayer. And

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Kevin Watson: you know, it was just a real. There's times in ministry. I think it's easier for academics to forget this, because you don't have the same level of accountability to your people where you show up at the same community every week, and preach to them, and and hope they'll be willing to follow you and listen to you, and so forth, and

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Kevin Watson: so for me it was really a blessing. I had an opportunity to to, to sort of give an invitation at 1 point that night. And that was a it was a. It was a real blessing for me to do that with my family of faith. Not just kind of being out in the church somewhere, which I love doing, too. It's always a blessing, but it's actually more vulnerable to do it in your church to show kind of your passion in a sort of unfiltered way. And you know, and and to to just trust the Lord with it. And I'm just I want. I'm sharing that as an encouragement that

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Kevin Watson: Jesus Zoe says He is. He is alive and active in his church. It's not just happening in the global church. It's happening here in the United States. And so, you know, if you have a hunger for revival, if you have a hunger to see. Lord bring healing like. Let's go like let's go for it, you know. Let's let's pray big prayers. Let's pray bold prayers.

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Kevin Watson: We're not magicians. We don't have incantations, or, you know, recipes. It's really all about just creating space for the person of Jesus to do what he wants to do and to to look to him as the pioneer and perfector of our faith.

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Andy Miller III: Amen. It's great. Well, Kevin, thanks so much for coming on. It means a lot to me that you take some time out of your schedule to speak to my audience.

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Kevin Watson: Thanks, great to be with you.