John Wesley

Life

Wesley was born in Epworth, a small town in Lincolnshire, England. His father was Samuel Wesley, an Anglican priest, and his mother was Susanna Wesley; he was the fifteenth of nineteen children. Because Britain did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until after 1703, his birthday is given in two forms: June 17 (Julian calendar) and June 28 (Gregorian calendar). He studied at Charterhouse School and at Christ Church, Oxford. He was ordained a deacon (the order of ministry below the priesthood) in 1725, was elected a fellow of Lincoln College in 1726, and was ordained a priest in 1728.

In 1729 he returned to Oxford and took leadership of a devotional group begun by his younger brother, Charles Wesley. The group met for prayer and Bible study, visited prisoners, and aided the poor. Its opponents mockingly called its members the "Holy Club" and "Methodists" (people who did everything strictly by rule). The name "Methodist" later became the English name of the Methodist Church. In 1735, at the invitation of James Oglethorpe, Wesley went as a missionary to the American colony of Georgia, but he returned in 1738 without significant results. Around this time he was deeply influenced by the Moravian Brethren, especially Peter Böhler. On May 24, 1738, at a meeting on Aldersgate Street in London, while listening to a reading of Martin Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans, he felt his heart "strangely warmed." This event is commonly referred to as his conversion. He died in London on March 2, 1791.

Ministry and Achievements

• Field preaching and itinerant evangelism: Beginning in 1739, Wesley preached outside church buildings. He traveled throughout Great Britain and Ireland as an evangelist.
• Organization: He gathered believers into small groups called "classes" for spiritual formation. The first class meeting is said to have been organized in 1742. Another distinctive feature was his appointment of lay people as preachers who traveled from place to place. By the time of his death, the Methodist societies are said to have had about 120,000 members.
• Social engagement: He purchased a former armaments factory in London (the Foundery) and made it a center for worship and charitable work. Under Wesley's leadership, Methodists also took part in prison reform and the movement to abolish slavery.
• Themes of preaching: He emphasized sin and repentance, justification (being declared righteous by faith), the new birth through the Holy Spirit, and holy living.

Wesley had no intention of founding a new church and remained an Anglican priest throughout his life.

Influence on the Korean Church

Wesley's ministry and writings influenced not only Methodism but also the nineteenth-century Holiness movement, The Salvation Army, and the twentieth-century Pentecostal movement. Methodism first entered Korea in 1884, when Robert Maclay, an American missionary stationed in Japan, came to Seoul and met with King Gojong. Subsequently, Henry Appenzeller founded the Paichai School. Today, Methodist churches, including the Korean Methodist Church, as well as Holiness denominations such as the Korea Evangelical Holiness Church, the Jesus Korea Holiness Church, and the Korea Nazarene Church, together with The Salvation Army Korea Territory, are counted among the denominations that carry on the Wesleyan tradition. Methodist churches still use the name and format of the class meeting for their small groups. In older documents and in some churches, his name is also rendered "Yohan Wesle."

Assessment

Methodists regard Wesley as their de facto founder. Anglican churches and various Methodist churches commemorate May 24, the date of his conversion.

Views of Wesley's soteriology differ among denominations. His contemporary, the revivalist George Whitefield, held to Calvinist predestination, whereas Wesley was closer to Arminianism, which affirms human free will. The Reformed tradition has criticized him on this point, and some Korean Presbyterian theologians likewise point to his Arminianism. Denominations in the Wesleyan tradition regard the combined emphasis on God's grace, human response, and holy living as a distinctive characteristic of Wesleyan theology and continue to uphold it.