Steve Tomkins wrote an article for Ship of Fools featuring "10 things you'd hate about John Wesley" and "10 things John Wesley would hate about you." That article has since disappeared, but happily, the two lists are preserved at bathgates.net... and likely should carry a footnote, something along the lines of "NOTE: John Wesley was born and lived in the 18th century."
A sample, from the "would hate about you" list:
Wesley would be shocked by the lax standards of Christians today. He expected men and women to sit separately in church. To start a morning meeting after 5am was “giving place to the Devil”. He expelled members for swearing and for playing football on Sunday.
So, sure, the father of Methodism was a big ol' crank on top of everything else; men and women of vision often appear extreme when judged as actual human beings. Nonetheless, the list makes me more fond of the man, not less.
(Hat tip to the Methoblog twitter feed for posting the link.)
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