In working with a friend in preparation for co-teaching in a small group on the book of Esther starting later this month, I was introduced to her prior engagement with a book by Maxie Dunnam on holiness, She showed his list and descriptions of “holy, catholic, apostolic, and charismatic” aspects of pursuing righteousness. The two of us had been having a conversation about moral development through several stages from life in the flesh (which is embracing the culture’s self-interest based ethic) to the pinnacle of life of virtuous character exemplified by Christ, and passing through through 2 intermediary stages of rules-based ethic and value-based ethic in the maturing process. She and I are both strongly Wesleyan in our approach to discipleship. She mentioned Dunnam’s position in the book on the necessity of charismatic movements in the church.
As I looked at her notes, I saw a correlation between his list and the Wesleyan quadrilateral. “Holy” defined by Scripture, “catholic” defined by the unity of reason arising through shared embracing of the mind of Christ, apostolic defined through the traditions of the ancient Christian practices of first century followers of Christ and connection to the Hebrew roots of which Jesus spoke so frequently, and finally charismatically expressed experiences defined by the SHARED experiences among
Christ-followers across something like a Bell Curve distribution by which the broadly disbursed experiences resulting from the manifested gifts of the Holy Spirit provide a definable context for expected “norms” of believers’ experiences which will be found to be compatible with and observed or generously allowed in scripture, tradition and reason and that can be safely defined and fostered and tested without moving beyond healthy boundaries into highly individualized and less broadly experienced limits. Divergences from a large “under the curve” definition of charismatic experiences may simply represent “outliers” that fail to align with scripture, reason, and tradition when examined in light of our culture’s independent-minded, liberty-loving, and personal-experience-validating culture. The institutional church, in chasing the culture’s approval, has essentially tossed aside corporately agreed upon standards of orthodoxy, i. e. Authority of Scripture, Isaiah 1:18’s “Come, let us reason together” through the Spirit’s connection in community, and apostolic tradition in order to edify, validate and exalt the individual’s personal charismatic experiences as the most significant, or even the ONLY self-defined parameter for quality and depth of pursuit of one’s pursuit of righteousness. If experience of charisma is viewed primarily through a lens of each single individual’s experience, or equally exclusively as the presence of only a single, defining manifestation (I.e., tongues) with God instead of through the communal, Body of Christ, corporately-defined Bell curve approach, then every peak ecstatic transcendent emotional stirring, regardless of source and expression becomes the individual’s frame of reference for Holy Spirit engagement and all three other criteria for testing “truth” are shown the door or forced to sit along the wall and keep quiet. It has been this aspect of the UMC and most institutional religious groups’ dynamic, elevating an individual’s experience and definition of love and tolerance and inclusiveness to a degree that perverts it in ways never intended since I came to this denomination in 1972 that has been frustrating to me.
Individual experience instead of the shared experiences of the larger Body and alignment with the other three criteria for testing and validating Truth has become idolized, having lost all perspective on the necessity of alignment with the other three. Because of the divisiveness associated with quadrilateral terminology, Dunnam’s 4 defined parameters for pursuit of holiness offer an alternate way of defining and arriving at the same end, but in terms more people are likely to accept. Attempts at systematic theology (like defining Wesleyanism through the quadrilateral) lead to unnecessary disagreement ( although all 4 of the quadrilateral’s criteria for seeking truth are easily observable in Christ’s lengthy discussion with the Samaritan woman at the well in John’s Gospel. And in that dialogue the standard of scripture is the coup de grace that brings the verbal parrying to a revelatory climax. All 4 criteria are essential for “the fullness of grace and truth”, which is life in Christ, to be known and revealed.