Wednesday - August 27, 2008

250-year-old journals reveal fears for C of E and ISLAM.

Charles Wesley’s 250-year-old journals reveal fears that Church of England could split.
The 300,000-word journals of Charles Wesley, the co-founder of the Methodist movement, have finally been decoded after a nine-year project to unravel the hidden messages within his complex personal shorthand.

By John Bingham
Last Updated: 11:05PM BST 26 Aug 2008

Rev Prof Kenneth Newport, pro vice-chancellor of Liverpool Hope University, has deciphered more than 1,000 pages written 250 years ago between 1736 and 1756.

He has uncovered details of Wesley’s anxieties over the possibilities of a split from the Church of England, his younger brother’s plans to marry and even over the growing influence of Islam.

He used a handwritten transcription of the four gospels made by Wesley as a guide to deciphering the journals themselves.

Wesley’s concerns over the prospect of the newly founded Methodist Societies splitting from the Church of England echo the Anglican Church’s current debate over the consecration of gay clergy and the threat of schism.

According to his journals, the hymn writer - who is best known for “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” and “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing” - was vehemently opposed to any move toward a formal break.

“He was very much opposed to separation, he saw the Methodist Societies as within the established church and anything that smacked of separation was something he took a very strong view of,” Rev Prof Newport said.

“At one point in the journal he is talking to the society at Grimsby and goes into block capitals and says ‘I told them I would remain with them as long as they remained with the Church of England but should they ever turn their back on the Church they turn their back on me’.”

Wesley’s opposition to the split is disclosed despite his older brother John, with whom he co-founded the Methodist Church, being widely credited with setting the process in motion.

It was John Wesley who ordained clergy to lead the movement in America and who set up the structures which would ultimately replace those of the established church.

The whole debate echoes that within the Anglican Church of today, which is threatening to forge another lasting split. The Evangelical wing of the Anglican Communion boycotted the recent Lambeth Conference and set up the rival Global Anglican Futures Conference (Gafcon) group in protest over the ordination of the gay Bishop of New Hampshire, Gene Robinson.

Charles Wesley’s volumes also detail his fears over the possible “encroachment” of Islam into western society and contain passages outlining his opposition to his brother’s plans to marry Grace Murray, because she had once been engaged to another man.

“He (John) is insensible of both his own folly and danger, and of the divine goodness in so miraculously saving him,” Wesley wrote.

Rev Prof Newport studied the journals from copies of the originals held at Manchester’s John Rylands Library.

Much of the writing is in an idiosyncratic personal shorthand which has never been decoded before.
Rev Prof Newport’s used a handwritten transcription of the four gospels made by Wesley as a guide to deciphering the journals themselves.

http://tinyurl.com/6atgpo

Posted by Drew458     on 08/27/2008 at 09:44 AM   
Filed Under: • History • UK •  
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