An Understanding of Methodism in Southern Africa Today 

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Chapter Three An Understanding of Methodism in Southern Africa Today

There can be found, despite the risks of relativism and subjectivism, within Methodism in Southern Africa today, various theological emphases or ‘streams’, though they are difficult to define and separate precisely.
For the sake of discussion in this paper, in terms of the MCSA, these theological emphases will be divided into three general ‘streams’ namely:

• Those loyal to the roots and essence of Wesleyan Methodism as handed down from John Wesley namely Fundamentalist Methodists.
• The main criteria, amongst others, for this stream, is an unfastened adherence to the teaching of Wesley’s order of salvation and the view that Western culture and context are critical to the implementation of Wesleyan teachings. In other words, in most cases, those suffering, directly or indirectly, from a hangover from colonial oppression and who negate African cultural identity as possible religious experience. This stream can be identified mainly in their methodological and theological formulations especially with regard to concepts such as mission and evangelism.
• Those who advocate strong liberative and liberation theological emphases, namely, Liberationist Methodists.
• The main criteria for this stream is found in the search for an liberating ontological expression of Christianity. The notion that “salvation isn’t something otherworldly…it is the communion of men with God and the communion of men among themselves. It embrace s all human reality,transforms it and leads it to its fullness in Christ”⁸⁴ and “sin is a historical reality… a breach of the communion of men with each other.”⁸⁵
  In other words, this stream has at the centre of its theological method, experience. In the terms of the MCSA, oppression, social, gender, cultural identity and political are ontological tools. However that does mean that Scripture, tradition or reason are negated.
  There is little doubt that each of these ‘streams’ is a potential papers on its own and an in depth examination could easily detour the main question of this paper, because it is for the most part “evident that the social, cultural, and political context of Wesley’s theology is vastly different from that of the liberation theologies; it is equally evident that the thought-forms and language of Wesley are quite different from those employed by the liberation theologians and are, indeed, perhaps quite unintelligible to the Christians among whom they have done their thinking and writing.”⁸⁶
  Therefore this paper will focus on a dialogue with Fundamentalist and Liberationist Methodism within the MCSA. Those that place both Fundamentalist and Liberationist theology together, namely Symbiotic Methodists. These views are brought about essentially by the dynamic tension between the two and these views are often compounded by uncertainty around vision within the MCSA. This stream has the at its core a desire to keep the status quo.

Fundamentalist Methodism

Attwell ⁸⁷ maintains that Methodism has always been missionary in character both in England and abroad. It was by its nature a movement within the established church.
These are two fundamental concepts of Methodism, which are foundational, both theologically and in Methodism’s unique witness and structure. Without these tenets, there is a possibility that an Institution may be built which will at some point move its clergy and people alike away from the MCSA’s ‘grand depositum.” Methodism in Southern Africa offers a unique theological method and therefore the training of its ministers and the MCSA as Institution are two areas critical to the growth and development of the Methodist theological method.
Methodism for the Fundamentalist Methodist is essentially about the individual and their response to God’s love as a foundation for their praxis or action. “It must be remembered that as “Methodism (in Britain) spread, Methodists were taught not only to use the “instituted” means of grace as they pressed toward holiness, that is, the Lord’s Supper, prayers, Bible reading, fasting and “Christian conference” or fellowship, but also to use what Wesley called the “prudential” means of grace. Among these latter was “visiting the poor” in which Methodists would discover “grace.” This focus was always essentially on the individual and the individual’s experience. The very essence of a ‘methodical’ commitment by the individual to their spiritual development is one the significant keys to understanding that, for Wesley, the growing toward perfection was an individual’s journey, even though there may be those who co-journeyed along the way.
Traditionally speaking then, this understanding is fundamental to English Methodism and recent scholarship has shown that Charles Wesley also expressed his brother’s commitment to “works of mercy,” which he considered to be as certainly means of grace as were the “works of piety”. In other words, to be merciful was not merely a matter of the “imitation of Christ,” but truly established an arena for divine encounter. “Therefore, Charles Wesley saw Methodists as called to live out the faith and love they experienced as “vessels, instruments of grace”.⁸⁸
This being said, defining or advocating a definition for Methodism in general is difficult, because of its theological method, and even more so in the MCSA, which it can be argued, never really had a grass root, uniting theology for the majority of its members. It has always been tempered and influenced by Western ideas of theology.
However, a Methodist ethos is easier to define, and as was seen from the discussions above, the early training and structure of the MCSA for the most part provided for a closer model to Methodism’s Wesleyan roots than is evident today.
The impact of the struggle for political freedom on the majority of the MCSA has without doubt influenced the church with regard to some of the fundamental doctrines such as the Doctrine of Christian Perfection.
For Fundamentalist Methodists the basic premise remains, individuals need to come to salvation by accepting the offer of Christ as Lord and Saviour and “good works” follow. At the same time, little is made of experience as part of the MCSA’s theological method.

Liberationist Methodism

Here the theological focus is on liberation motifs, on the past liberative movements, the search for an authentic African Methodist theology, Black Consciousness, Black Theology and Feminist Theology.
The early emergence of this stream is not easy to distinguish, because right from the outset, within the MCSA, those not aligned to Western theological thinking struggled to find their place in the missionary movement, often accepting Fundamentalist views simply to get by and /or because they were forced to do so.
As was stated earlier, early on in the developing MCSA, those who could no longer stand Western supremacy in the church structures left, some to start their own churches, mainly because their experience was oppressed.
In later years, a more conscious Liberationist Methodism began to emerge, helped by other movements such as the Black Consciousness movement. However, Liberationist Methodism today tends to be quite ambivalent. For example: in the MCSA, movement toward equality for women is slow -especially in Black communities, though some changes have been made as women are increasingly being asked to function as Local Preachers (lay people trained to preach), Society and Circuit Stewards.
The MCSA has long recognized that special efforts will have to be made to drastically change the status of women in the church. Accordingly, for example, the Synod of the Cape of Good Hope District recommends, in its Report to Conference in the year 1994, that an official document expounding the Theological and Biblical basis for the ordination of women be produced and distributed to ministers. Furthermore, the Doctrine Committee “recognizes the serious attitudinal problems of prejudice and bias against women ministers … and recommends that the Conference appoint a committee to identify harmful attitudes and actions with regard to women.

Chapter One Introduction 
(1.1) Provisional unwrapping of the problem-setting of this paper
(1.2) A Working definition for the term “Theology”
(1.3) A Working definition of John Wesley’s Theology.
(1.4) A Working definition of Liberation Theology
(1.5) Three Key points for this paper
Chapter Two  A Brief Examination of the Development of Methodism in Southern Africa 
(2.1) The MCSA and Wesleyan Theology.
(2.2) Wesleyan Methodism in an African context.
Chapter Three An Understanding of Methodism in Southern Africa Today 
(3.1) Fundamentalist Methodism
(3.2) Liberationist Methodism.
(3.3) Symbiotic Methodism
(3.4) The MCSA Today
Chapter Four Liberation Theology in Methodism in Southern Africa 
(4.1) The MCSA’s Unique Witness
(4.2) African Liberation Evangelism
Chapter Five Christian Perfection
(5.1) The Doctrine of Christian Perfection
Chapter Six  The Uniqueness of the Methodist Witness In Southern Africa
(6.1) A Comprehensive Liberation
Chapter Seven A Way Forward
(7.1) Liberating Hermeneutic
(7.2) A Way Forward
Chapter Eight  Bibliography
GET THE COMPLETE PROJECT
THE IMPACT OF LIBERATION THEOLOGY ON METHODISM IN SOUTH AFRICA WITH REGARD TO THE DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIAN PERFECTION