The Wesleyan use of the phrase "social holiness" is much misunderstood among contemporary Methodists. The founders of Methodism used this term to refer to holiness that is formed by immersion in a living community of God's faithful people. As opposed to "personal holiness," which was more individualistic or interior, this kind of holiness required the discipline of constant interaction with others. Social holiness was external in the sense that it was shaped by a community from the outside working inward on a person's soul, rather than from the inside out on our own. The genius of early Methodism was the discovery that both were necessary in the formation of the whole Christian person. Personal and social holiness belong together; the individual's relationship with Jesus and the shaping influence of the community of believers are both important.

"Social holiness" in our own time, however, has come to mean something else. In The United Methodist Hymnal, for example, you will find a section under "sanctifying and perfecting grace" devoted to hymns on "social holiness." You will find hymns there with titles such as "Where Cross the Crowded Ways of Life," "Let There Be Peace on Earth," and "Cuando El Pobre (When the poor ones who have nothing share with strangers)." A prayer of Mother Teresa's, in the same section, reminds us of our Lord's mandate about "Serving the Poor." Here is a social holiness of a different order. My point here is that both definitions of social holiness are valid, important, and decidedly Wesleyan. While the original meaning had to do more with the importance of accountability groups, the more contemporary meaning has to do with ministries of social justice and works of mercy. Recognizing these differences, I want to focus our attention in these brief moments on the more contemporary understanding of social holiness as our calling to be "servants of shalom in the world."

This understanding of servanthood is well expressed in one of Charles Wesley's hymns, "A Charge to Keep I Have" (UMH 413):

These familiar words declare an extremely important principle. They remind us that God has chosen us to be servants. God has not chosen us for privilege. We are not called so that we can declare to others that God has not called them in order to make ourselves feel special. We are called to be servants, and the field of our service is God's world. Our charge — our duty and responsibility as Christians — is to serve the present age. And we are to use all of our gifts and powers to declare the amazing love of God to all. The context of our ministry, therefore, is wherever we live.

Social holiness, in this sense, therefore, has everything to do with mission. And our calling to be servants of shalom is rooted in our vision of the church. What is the essential calling of the church? The conclusion of the Wesleys was that it is mission — God's mission. The church is not called to live for itself, but for others. It is called, like Christ, to give itself for the life of the world. It is not so much that the church has a mission or ministries; rather, the church is mission. The church of Wesley's England had exchanged its true vocation — mission — for maintenance, a confusion that often slips into the life of the church in every age! It had become distant from and irrelevant to the world it was called to serve. It needed desperately to reclaim its true identity as God's agent of love in the world. The Wesleys firmly believed that God raised up the Methodists specifically for the task of resuscitating a mission-church.

The primary question for the Methodist, therefore, is not, "How can I be saved?" Rather, it is, "For what purpose am I saved?" For the Wesleys, the answer is clear. My neighbor is the goal of my redemption, just as the life, death, and resurrection of Christ are oriented toward the salvation of all humanity. The self-giving love of Christ must, therefore, become the goal, purpose, and style of our lives. The genuine Christian is the one who embraces the mission of Jesus in humility and servanthood. But what was the mission of Jesus in concrete terms? In what did it consist? Jesus' mission was characterized by healing those who were sick, liberating those who were oppressed, empowering those who stood on the margins of life, and caring for the poor. In all of these actions he incarnated shalom, God's vision of peace, justice, and well-being for all.

In the opening pages of his Advice to a People Called Methodist, Wesley laid out the mission of his followers in this simple definition:

If you walk by this rule, continually endeavouring to know, and love, and resemble, and obey the great God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, as the God of love, of pardoning mercy; if from this principle of loving, obedient faith, you carefully abstain from all evil, and labour, as you have opportunity, to do good to all men, friends or enemies; if, lastly, you unite together, to encourage and help each other in thus working out your salvation, and for that end watch over one another in love, you are they whom I mean by Methodists.

(From the Thomas Jackson edition of
The Works of John Wesley, 1872)

Mission, on its most basic level, is nothing more or less than offering Christ to others through concrete actions. Or listen to these powerful words of another "song for the poor" by Charles:

Happy soul, whose active love
emulates the Blessed above,
in thy every action seen,
sparkling from the soul within:

Thou to every sufferer nigh,
hearest, not in vain, the cry
of widow in distress,
of the poor, the shelterless:

Raiment thou to all that need,
to the hungry dealest bread,
to the sick givest relief,
soothest hapless prisoner's grief:

Love, which willest all should live,
Love, which all to all would give,
Love, that over all prevails,
Love, that never, never fails.
Love immense, and unconfined,
Love to all of humankind.

(From Hymns and Sacred Poems (1749),
No. 8, "The Beatitudes")

Notice in particular Wesley's language of "active love." A disciple with a living faith is the one whose whole heart has been renewed, who longs to radiate the whole image of God in his or her life and therefore hears the cry of the poor and wills, with God, that all should truly live! The Wesleyan vision of social holiness, thus understood, is a life that unites piety and mercy, worship and compassion, prayer and justice. It involves a humble walk with the Lord that is lived out daily in kindness and justice. Those who are truly servants of Christ in the world empty themselves of all but love and find their greatest reward in the realization of God's dream of shalom for all. Could there possibly be a more glorious challenge, a more thrilling adventure in life?

Paul W. Chilcote is Associate Dean and Professor of Historical Theology
and Wesleyan Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary, Florida Campus.