In the Wesleyan traditions, social religion is more interesting and more
challenging. Social religion is a matter of being in relationship with God and
with others, and it is a public matter, as religion, in John Wesley's words,
“cannot subsist at all without society, without living and conversing” with
other people.3
These others—and this is crucial—include not only other
Christians but also those whom most Christians would rather avoid, like
people who, according to Wesley, «do not obey, perhaps do not believe,
the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ» and others who are hungry and naked.4
This insight is a major contribution of Wesleyan theology picked up by liberation
theologies (many of them Wesleyan, as we shall see), and it turns
many dominant understandings of the church upside down.5
Without such
relationships there would be no real religion, and the gospel would make
no difference.
Pulling all stops, Wesley concludes that those who do not care about
others “shall go away into everlasting fire.”
