Wesleyan Theology and Social Science: The Dance of Practical Divinity and Discovery
Editor: M. Kathryn Armistead, Brad D. Strawn and Ronald W. Wright
Date Of Publication: Feb 2010
Isbn13: 978-1-4438-1733-2
Isbn: 1-4438-1733-3
Science and religion are living, organic, and creative traditions. Both see humans as profoundly interconnected and in some way responsible for our environs. This worldview is especially true for social science and Wesleyan religious tradition. While the dance between science and religion will always be complex, it can also be enjoyable and mutually satisfying. However when couples dance only one at a time can lead and both have to acknowledge the importance of the other. This book is written with the conviction that theology and science can have a beneficial relationship if only both recognize their mutual value to the lives of persons.

The Methodist tradition links the welfare of the body with care for the soul. Historically, ministry involved tending to physical and psychological needs of the Methodist band members but also to non-churched poor and imprisoned. Thus Methodists built places of worship, schools, orphanages, and hospitals. For John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, practical divinity always involved attention to whole persons including their living conditions and basic physical needs. He sought to improve life for all. Therefore throughout his life, Wesley was interested in theology but also scientific discovery as paths toward a better future. He believed that both were of value to help people move toward “perfection.” He even attended lectures and offered medical treatment in the first Methodist meeting hall in Bristol, England. As a scientific practitioner Wesley wrote the best selling book, Primitive Physic or An Easy and Natural Method of Curing Most Diseases using the cutting edge science of his day. Packed next to the Bible, this book traveled with countless pioneers as they settled the territories that became the United States.

Methodism has a long tradition of using science and religion to carry out the biblical mandate to go into the world and make disciples for Jesus Christ. This book seeks to continue that legacy by bringing current trends in psychology into conversation with Wesleyan theology. Composed of essays that represent different psychologies and theological traditions, which trace their roots to Wesley, this book aims at creating a space where science and theology can partner and dance. In the book readers will find positive psychology, self psychology, object relations, family systems, moral psychology, and neuroscience in conversation with various theologies. Under this canopy, the contributors see themselves as “people called Methodists” seeking to follow the example of Wesley to use all available tools to enable persons to live fully and well.

M. Kathryn Armistead is Editor for Books, Bibles, and Media at Abingdon Press. She is the author of God-Images in the Healing Process (Fortress Press, 1995) and project manger for the Wesley Study Bible (Abingdon Press, 2009). Her Ph.D. (Religion and Personality) is from Vanderbilt University and she is a deacon in The United Methodist Church.

Brad D. Strawn is Vice President for Spiritual Formation and Dean of the Chapel at Southern Nazarene University. His Ph.D. (Clinical Psychology) and M.A. (Theology) are from Fuller Theological Seminary. Previously he taught psychology at Point Loma Nazarene University, maintained a practice in San Diego, and did advance psychoanalytic training at the San Diego Psychoanalytic Institute. His areas of interest are psychology/theology integration, cognitive neuroscience and psychoanalysis.

Ronald W. Wright is a licensed psychologist and Professor of Psychology at Mount Vernon Nazarene University, Mount Vernon, Ohio. He has served on the executive council for the Society for the Study of Psychology and Wesleyan Theology and his interests include the integration of psychology and theology, qualitative research, relational psychoanalytic psychotherapy, and Wesleyan theology.

“It is evident that we have pressed the ‘delete’ button too soon and too often, thereby cutting ourselves off from rich and pertinent sources that pertain to contemporary life. This wondrous collection of essays pushes back behind ‘delete’ to probe the ways in which John Wesley, a formidable and generative thinker, engaged with and practiced psychology. His affectional pastoral sensibility provides an important articulation for contemporary psychology, most especially Object Relations perspectives, as it probes the moral dimension of relationships. The book offers careful impressive research that will a) lead to a fresh engagement with Wesley as a learned critical thinker, and b) draw contemporary secular psychology back to its roots in the quest for joy, empathy, and finally health. The book boldly and effectively moves between disciplines to the great benefit of both.”

Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia

“The engaging essays of this book are an invitation to think seriously about the relation between Wesleyan theology and the social sciences in general as well as John Wesley's understanding of co-operant grace and contemporary psychology in particular. The fruits of such integrative and thoughtful reflections should be considerable in the days ahead.”

Kenneth J. Collins, Professor of Historical Theology and Wesley Studies Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky

“While some theology-science 'dialogue' is more of a monologue, with either scientists or theologians merely listening, this book is truly dialogical. Much of its success comes from the shared theological

perspective of the authors, giving them the ability to ask quite specific questions of science (and of their own theology). I hope it will serve as a model for groups from other sub-traditions within

Christianity.”

Nancey Murphy, Professor of Christian Philosophy, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California; and author (with George F. R. Ellis) of On the Moral Nature of the Universe: Cosmology, Theology, and Ethics, Fortress Press

“This book makes a grand leap forward in the inspiring interaction between science and Wesleyan theology. Front and center is theological anthropology and some of the best recent research in psychology. The contributors include the finest minds in this burgeoning and fruitful field. Future Wesleyan science-and-theology research will be indebted to this fine collection of scholarly essays.”

Thomas Jay Oord, Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Northwest Nazarene University, Nampa, Idaho; and editor of Divine Grace and Emerging Creation: Wesleyan Forays in Science and Theology of Creation

"As a Christian in the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition, I celebrate this contribution in general and its substantive contents inparticular. Do not let the book's brevity suggest that it is slim in substance. The editors have successfully pressed the chapter authors to discuss theology historically and in a variety of contempoary scholarly and applied extrapolations to psychology.

A particular point of appreciation is that each author demonstrated understanding of this giant of eighteenth-century theology and sought to bring their understanding to twenty-first century psychology in a manner that connected timeless theological principles to highly different cultural and specific issues.

Don MacDonald, Professor, School of Psychology, Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, Faith-Science News, Vol. 63/2 June 2011

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