Authentic Christianity in the Wesleyan Understanding

“Authentic Christianity, in the Wesleyan understanding, is a Christianity of radical transformation.  It has nothing to do with straightening out one’s life, cleaning up damaging addictions, or taking the moral high ground.  These will likely be some of the consequences of that transformation, but they are not the source of it.  Christ alone is that source. When people come to him in repentance and faith they enter a new relationship with God and a new life in Christ.”

 -Daniel L. Burnett, In the Shadow of Aldersgate: An Introduction to the Heritage and Faith of the Wesleyan Tradition, 2006  (quote found in Michael Pasquarello III’s John Wesley a Preaching Life, p. xiii)

DC-Mentality As Seen by Lee Atwater

Lee Atwater (1951-1991), known as a brutal, consummate political strategist and hardball Republican National Committee chair, became a repentant believer and foe of “DC-mentality” before he died of brain cancer.  Before he died, he said, “I acquired more [wealth, power, and prestige] than most.  But you can acquire all you want, and still feel empty. It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime. [The leaders of the ‘90s must] speak to the spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society. . . . What is missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart.”

--from A Cup of Coffee at the Soul Café by Leonard Sweet, p. 19