Any day now, I am going to open my door and receive my author’s copy of Submitting to Be More Vile: The Illustrated Adventures of John and Charles Wesley. Considering I never thought these comics would actually gain an audience, I’m kind of freaking out from the anticipation. After six and a half years of weekly comics, I still love poking fun at my Methodist heritage. Because let’s face it, John and Charles gave us a lot to work with.
Primitive Physick
For instance, one of John Wesley’s most widely published works was Primitive Physick: An Easy and Natural Method of Curing Most Diseases (1747). A sort of Farmer’s Almanac for health care, Wesley collected practical medical advice and put it into the hands of the poor masses. His book questioned the steep cost of medical care and the collusion between doctors and pharmaceutical providers. Wesley’s thoughts on religion, politics, and medical care always tended towards Populism. While this made him a rock star to the masses in England and America, he was largely deemed irrelevant by the government and medical professionals.
Primitive Physick remains an interesting read today. Yes, John Wesley advised anyone with obstructed bowels to let a puppy play on their tummy until they were able to take a…well, you get the idea. This may be farcically adorable, but is not far removed from the practical advice you’d get on YouTube today: lay on your back and massage your stomach in circles until your bowels work properly again.
The Gospel For Soul AND Body
For John and the early Methodists, religion meant nothing if it was inaccessible to the poor, the uneducated, the unrefined. His gospel was for soul AND body.
Can you really feed the hungry soul if you’re not interested in feeding the starving body? Can you really heal a sin-sick soul if you ignore their physical illness? The incarnate Christ did not just preach good news to make the wealthy and educated elite feel better about themselves. The incarnate Christ did not pander to the wealthy church member for fear of losing their tithe…
Jesus was good news to the poor. Didn’t Jesus feed them with real food? Didn’t Jesus restore them from real physical ailments that had kept them from earning wages? This was a message consistently lived into by the Wesley brothers. Before writing Primitive Physick, Wesley began using The Foundry (the first Methodist meeting house) as a medical dispensary, providing free pharmaceuticals to the poor in London. The Methodists hired a surgeon and a pharmacist to run the place, inspiring Wesley to make this knowledge (especially of preventative medicine) more widely available through publication.
When Wesley’s work received public criticism from a medical professional named Dr. William Hawes, John’s response was so snarky and self-assured that I literally just used it as the punchline for the last comic in today’s series.
In Other News
To celebrate the upcoming publication of Submitting to Be More Vile, I am currently running a 20% off orders of $60 or more in the Merch Store. It’s a great time to pre-order liturgical calendars for 2020 and get those decks of Wesley Bros Playing Cards for yourself, your confirmands, or your soon-to-be-ordained friends! Use coupon code: BULKCARDSALE
For Wesley Bros Comics friends in North Carolina, there will be a BOOK RELEASE PARTY at Highland UMC, Raleigh at 6:30pm on Wednesday, October 16. Come on out and you can get the book in person! I’d love to see you there!
I was recently asked to discuss the role of comedy in our approach to theology and daily faith. Please check out the podcast!
New Charlie Baber
The Rev. Charlie Baber, author of Wesley Bros cartoon.
When not drawing the Wesley Bros cartoon, the Rev. Charlie Baber, a United Methodist deacon, serves as youth minister at University United Methodist Church in Chapel Hill, N.C. His cartoon appears on United Methodist Insight by special arrangement.