I remember sitting in the third-story office of my master of letters graduate program supervisor, looking out the window across the ancient and lush St. Mary’s College quad at the University of Saint Andrews. He asked me, “Have you thought about studying the conversion theology of the early evangelicals? It’s surprising, but there are many questions in that topic area that haven’t been examined.” Five years later, I received a PhD in historical and systematic theology from the University of Aberdeen. My thesis was on the conversion theology of John Wesley and George Whitefield.
One of the first steps of PhD research in the United Kingdom is to read everything written by the person(s) you are studying. Wesley and Whitefield wrote a lot. This task took me about two years to complete. Prior to my research, I knew very little about Wesley, Whitefield, or any of the other major figures in their era—including Jonathan Edwards. While I was reading the works of Wesley, Whitefield, and others for the first time, I encountered some things that made me uncomfortable. I remember sitting in the King’s College Divinity Library surrounded by walls of modern and ancient books—the college was founded in 1495. As the saying goes, “If only the walls could speak.” The walls were quiet that day, but the books spoke loudly. I plodded through the writings of Wesley and Whitefield hour after hour. Reading such a high volume of publications is mind-numbing, but from time to time, something catches your attention, and you stop. I stopped because I noticed that Wesley and Whitefield wrote about people groups in racist and demeaning ways. I brought my concerns to my supervisor, and he made no excuses for them—he was just as uncomfortable with the comments as I was.
Historian and activist Jemar Tisby writes, “Many individuals throughout American church history exhibited blatant racism, yet they also built orphanages and schools. They deeply loved their families; they showed kindness toward others. . . . very rarely do historical figures fit neatly into the category of ‘villain’” (Jemar Tisby, The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism; Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2019). After studying Wesley and Whitefield, I realized they too didn’t fit one category neatly either. And yet I was uncomfortable labeling them “men of their day” and moving on. My academic path led me to study Jonathan Edwards, another early evangelical, and I found that he fit this assessment too. Authors Christina Edmondson and Chad Brennan write, “If an esteemed theologian like Edwards can have such a disconnect in his life, none of us are immune to falling into similar traps” (Christina Barland Edmondson and Chad Brennan, Faithful Antiracism: Moving: Past Talk to Systemic Change; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2022). I wanted to learn more about these men and their contemporaries because I knew that they had immense influence on the evangelical legacy I inherited and the life I live.
What does it mean to say that these historical figures were “men of their times”? Neal Conan, host of NPR’s Talk of the Nation, interviewed Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. of Harvard University about Gates’s research on Abraham Lincoln (National Public Radio, Talk of the Nation, February 11, 2009, www.npr.org.) Gates learned that Lincoln hated slavery, but also used the N-word, told racist jokes, and hoped to send America’s Black people to Africa. Conan opened his interview by stating, “Intellectually, we know that Lincoln was a man of his times, that attitudes towards race were very different in the first half of the nineteenth century.” Gates helped listeners like me see a more complex, and more accurate, picture of Lincoln than before.
Notice, though, how Gates framed his discussion around the phrase “man of his times.” People use this phrase to introduce a suspension of judgment because of a chronological gap. When we say someone was a “man of his times,” we must also answer what man (or woman) and what time we’re talking about. Skeptics like me ask another question: why should we withhold judgment on that person? In Lincoln’s case, his legacy of abolishing slavery immediately brings the credibility required for sympathetic consideration, and Gates, the eminent Black historian, is on hand to guide the conversation, so listeners know they are in trustworthy hands.
Will you be remembered as a man or woman “of your times”? You might answer that you don’t care how you will be remembered. But you should care. It’s an important question because it isn’t really about future generations—it’s a question that shapes our present decisions. It helps us think deeply about which beliefs and actions are timeless rather than products of our current location, culture, and era.
Many of us have an older relative whose beliefs and actions we filter. Because they are our relative, we tend to grant more leeway than we would give a stranger. Because we know them better than most, we weigh their strengths against their weaknesses and respond with calculated patience when we encounter their uncomfortable beliefs and actions. This approach is common with family members.
Considering how we will be remembered shapes us right now more than it shapes how people in the future will remember us. Imagine if you are that older relative (or maybe you are!). Are your beliefs and actions a reflection of your age, upbringing, and culture? Or are they rooted in something deeper, something timeless? Lincoln’s racist jokes reflect prejudice common among some White men in his time, but his belief that slavery is unjust is timeless.
I want to put you in the shoes of John Wesley because Wesley had the gift of time. Wesley lived the longest (by far) of Wesley, Edwards, and Whitefield, and he eventually played an important role helping Christians and non-Christians alike to advocate for the timeless truth that no human should own another human. Wesley didn’t start his life advocating for this, and if his life had ended earlier (as it did for Whitefield and Edwards), Wesley would be remembered differently.
Wesley had the gift of time. Will you?
How long will you live? What if your days had ended when you were half your age? What if your days end when you are twice your current age? As I write this today, I am forty-five years old. While I’m not all that different from when I was twenty-two years old, I have changed in some ways. If I had a chance, I would challenge twenty-two-year-old me in several areas, and I’d give myself lots of advice. I can only wonder how ninety-year-old me might challenge me today. Experience tells me that I would be wise to listen to the older me. What if I don’t live that long? Or what if I discovered I only had a few years to live?
The lives of John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, and George Whitefield provide us a wealth of insight about navigating our lives today as we own what happened in the past in order to better own our decisions today.
Adapted from Ownership by Sean McGever. ©2024 by Sean McGever. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com.
