A Not So Calm Address to American Methodists on America's 250th

Opinion

Resource UMC | July 9, 2026

More than 250 years ago, John Wesley wrote “A Calm Address to Our American Colonies” in an attempt to persuade the restless colonists not to rebel against Great Britain. Dr. Ashley Boggan and the Rev. Andy Oliver examine what Wesley’s warnings against false liberty, propaganda, rupture and moral decay mean for United Methodists today.

Two hundred and fifty years ago, John Wesley wrote “A Calm Address to Our American Colonies”—one of the most controversial political writings in Methodist history. Written on the eve of the American Revolution, it was Wesley’s attempt to persuade the colonists not to rebel against Great Britain. In other words, Wesley told a restless people: you need to calm down.

In our own time, the same demand echoes everywhere harm is challenged: be reasonable, lower your voice, wait your turn, do not make people uncomfortable. But when immigrants are hunted, trans children are targeted, Black history is erased, poverty is criminalized, and Jesus has been co-opted as a mascot for nationalism, calm is not a virtue.

So we have taken Wesley’s warnings against false liberty, propaganda, rupture, and moral decay… and we have redirected them against their rightful target for our day: white Christian nationalism, authoritarianism, and every power that asks the harmed to be calm. We have aptly named this treatise:

A Not-So-Calm Address to Our American Methodists at America’s 250th

1. Freedom is not autonomy

Wesley worried that the colonists had mistaken freedom for complete autonomy. He applied that badly, in defense of empire, but the question remains: what do we mean by freedom? In our time, freedom is too often reduced to doing, owning, saying, and consuming whatever we want while owing nothing to anyone. But Wesleyan freedom is not isolation. It is being free for God and neighbor. It is the freedom to be joyful, heard, seen, acknowledged. It is the ability to seek happiness and perfection in Jesus Christ. Liberty without love becomes license. Liberty without justice becomes domination. When challenged to define Christian perfection by a class-leader, Wesley said, “Love is the perfection I seek.” We cannot be free without being accountable to God’s love in us and that means that we have to seek justice for all. We must reclaim freedom as the holy capacity to love God and neighbor more fully.

2. Accountability is not oppression

Wesley believed the colonists were rejecting accountability to the larger body that had shaped them. He aimed that concern in the wrong direction, defending empire over people seeking self-determination. But the deeper question remains: to whom are we accountable? Not kings, parties, or institutions for their own sake. We are accountable to God, neighbors, the vulnerable, the truth, the body of Christ, and future generations. Accountability in a Wesleyan way is not merely following rules and being ‘good.’ It is, instead, holding oneself to putting on the mind of Christ and ensuring that every single thing that we do during our life is lived out with love first and foremost. We must practice accountability that protects the vulnerable, tells the truth, and builds Beloved Community.

3. Beware agitators and propaganda

Wesley warned against “inflammatory papers” and “designing men” who played people against one another. That warning speaks clearly in an age of propaganda machines, outrage economies, algorithms, attacks on history, misinformation, and political movements that need neighbors to fear one another. In Wesley’s day, he confronted false narratives of ‘the people called Methodist’ over and over again – this is why most of his treatises begin with a definition of how he defined a Methodist. Even when John and Charles Wesley were beaten for proclaiming God’s love, they didn’t stop. They knew that they spoke God’s truth and acted in a truly Christ-like manner and that those who beat them had been brain-washed by rumors and misinformation. Today, white Christian nationalism thrives by making people afraid and confusing Jesus with power. We must become a truth-telling people who refuse to be formed by propaganda, panic, and manufactured enemies.

4. Rupture becomes easier when we stop seeing neighbors

Wesley warned that “the rupture is growing wider every day.” We are becoming better at identifying enemies than recognizing neighbors. Wesley defined our neighbors as “ every child…, everyone that breathes the vital air, all that have souls to be saved.” When Wesley states that “The gospel of Christ knows of no religion but social, no holiness but social holiness,” he was calling us to affirm neighbor. Holiness is not merely private morality, individual piety, or personal virtue. Wesley never imagined holiness as a solitary project. Holiness was feeding the hungry, visiting the imprisoned, educating children, caring for the sick, opposing slavery, and organizing communities of accountability. A faith that saves souls but ignores suffering is not Wesleyan. A church that is concerned with respectability but indifferent to injustice has forgotten its own tradition. The gospel does not permit us to surrender our imagination to algorithms, politicians, or preachers who need us divided. The stranger is not a threat. The poor are not a problem. The immigrant is not an invasion. The trans child is not a weapon. We must resist every story that trains us to see neighbors as threats and every call to unity that asks the wounded to disappear.

5. Hope is not in nation, party, or king

Wesley ended with “Fear God and honour the King.” We should say it differently now: fear God, not the king; fear God, not the strongman; fear God, not the party. Our hope is not in America, courts, presidents, platforms, or patriotic mythology. Our hope is in Jesus and the Kin-dom he announced. We must remember that when Wesley said “The world is my parish” he was not calling for colonialism or even evangelism. He said this as an act of defiance against a Bishop who dared to critique him for preaching outdoors to the poor. Our loyalty is not even to denomination. “The world is my parish” is a statement that refuses boundaries and loyalties because human needs matter more than institutional comfort.  We must place our ultimate trust in Jesus and measure every earthly power by the lives of the people it harms or heals.

6. We are not the last generation

Wesley warned his readers to consider what they were handing down to their “latest posterity.” We are not the last generation or the owners of the future. We inherited institutions, stories, theologies, wounds, lies, and unfinished work. Some inheritance must be cherished. Some must be repaired. Some must be repented of. Some must be buried. This is why history is so important, not only in this moment, but especially in this moment. We cannot forget the harm we’ve done and we cannot abandon or ignore those whom we’ve intentionally silenced. We must do better for we are not the end of the story. We must repair the United Methodist foundation and hand it over for the next generation to rebuild. We must become faithful ancestors by repairing what is broken and building what love requires for those who come after us.

7. Listen to the people closest to the harm

This is where we must learn from Wesley’s failure. Wesley spoke about the colonists more than he listened to them. He treated their anger as disorder rather than revelation. The church cannot continue to repeat that mistake with immigrants, Indigenous folks, Black communities, queer and trans people, poor people, women, disabled people, unhoused people, or anyone scapegoated by power. The people most harmed by a system often see that system most clearly. If we are to live into the General Rules, the first of which is “do no harm,” then we must recognize that sometimes the best move is to sit down, shut up, and listen.  We must trust the testimony of those closest to the harm and let their truth reshape our theology, politics, and practice.

8. We are bigger than what divides us, but not by denying harm

The gospel calls us not to be custodians of respectability, but to be proclaimers of liberation. But “we are bigger than what divides us” cannot mean “move on,” “stop talking about injustice,” or “forgive before the powerful repent.” We are bigger than what divides us because Christ is bigger than empire, not because harm is small. We must seek reconciliation through truth, repentance, repair, and justice—not denial.

9. Do not celebrate 250 years with nostalgia or despair

As this nation approaches 250 years, the church must resist nostalgia and despair. Nostalgia tells false stories about the past. Despair tells false stories about the future. We do not need patriotic self-congratulation. We need self-examination. What have we learned? What have we refused to learn? What sins have we enshrined? What histories have we erased? What truths have we inherited but not yet obeyed? We must mark this anniversary not with empty celebration, but with honest examination and courageous transformation.

10. The call is repentance, resistance, and reform

Let us put away our sins: white supremacy, Christian nationalism, queer and trans hatred, greed, militarism, voter suppression, poverty, and every theology that teaches us to look away. Wesley and the early Methodists were mocked, slandered, pelted with stones, dragged before magistrates, and ridiculed in newspapers. Yet they persisted because they believed faithfulness mattered more than respectability. The church has often mistaken civility for discipleship and respectability for holiness. But the Methodist movement began as a disruptive force. Not violent. Not cruel. But unwilling to be silent. We must recover the courage to be thought foolish when love demands it. Let us make the next 250 years worth remembering because we repaired what was broken, repented of what was evil, resisted what was false, and built what love requires. We must not be calm in the face of cruelty; we must be faithful.

So, if we are not to be calm, what shall we do? 

If John Wesley teaches us anything, it is that faithfulness is never passive. Wesley did not stay inside the walls of Oxford when people were suffering outside of them. He did not remain behind church walls when the poor were neglected. He crossed boundaries, disrupted expectations, challenged the powerful, organized communities of accountability, fed the hungry, visited prisons, opposed slavery, empowered women, preached in fields, and proclaimed that the grace of God belonged to everyone. 

Had Wesley lived in 2026, he would almost certainly be where he always was: among those pushed to the margins, standing with those bearing the weight of injustice, calling the church to repentance and love-filled action, and reminding the powerful that their authority is subject to the judgment of God. The question before us is not whether we admire Wesley, but whether we will follow the path he blazed. Let us reject every false peace that demands silence from the wounded. Let us refuse every nationalism that confuses the cross with the flag. Let us tell the truth about our history, repair what has been broken, defend those who are targeted, and build communities shaped by holiness, justice, mercy, and love. 

Two hundred and fifty years from now, may those who come after us say that when fear demanded our obedience, we chose courage; when hatred demanded our silence, we chose love; when oppression demanded our calm, we chose faithfulness. For the world is still our parish, our neighbors still need good news, and Christ is not finished with the people called Methodist. 

The call of this moment is not to be calm in the face of cruelty, but to be Methodist in the face of it.

Dr. Ashley Boggan is top executive of the General Commission on Archives and History. The Rev. Andy Oliver is senior pastor of Allendale United Methodist Church in St. Petersburg, Fla., and co-president of Methodist Federation for Social Action.