Freedom For All

Ransom United Methodist Church, July 4, 2021

Replica of the Liberty Bell at Discovery Park of America in Union City, Tennessee. Photo by me.

This morning’s message is going to be a little different, and I ask you to bear with me. There will be a scripture, but I’ll read it near the end of the message.

Today is the fourth day of July, the day on which we celebrate American independence, the American Revolution, and — most specifically — the signing of the Declaration of Independence in July 1776. Thinking about this holiday, and about it falling on a Sunday, I wanted to tell you about the role that the American Revolution played in the establishment of the Methodist church. One might never have happened without the other.

I don’t know how much you already know about the story of John Wesley, and of Methodism, so I apologize to those of you for whom some of this is old news. I’m going to back up a bit and give you a brief history of how John Wesley came to be the father of Methodism. One of my key sources for a lot of the material in this message is a fantastic book, “Wesley and the People Called Methodists,” by Richard P. Heitzenrater.

John Wesley, and especially his brother Charles Wesley, were born into, were lifelong members of, and…