Politics Strangely Warmed

For centuries, Christians have wrestled with how to witness faithfully to the peaceable kingdom of God, while also living as citizens within an earthly nation-state. Differing theological traditions have offered wide-ranging contributions to the field of political theology, yet the Wesleyan tradition has too often remained largely silent. In this volume, Coates turns to two key figures within his own Wesleyan tradition-John Wesley and B. T. Roberts-in order to construct a distinctively Wesleyan political theology. He argues that embedded within Wesley's theology were the seeds of a radically people-centered, egalitarian politic, despite the fact that Wesley himself never fully realized these implications himself. Ultimately, however, the populism of B. T. Roberts and his work to organize the Farmer's Alliance of the late-nineteenth century would come to represent one concrete, historical manifestation of Wesley's theology in the public sphere. Here is a book not merely for academics interested in the Wesleyan tradition or political theology, but also for all followers of Christ who desire to see the church model the ethic of Christ before the worldly powers in the midst of this saeculum.

Gregory R. Coates, an ordained elder in the Free Methodist Church, is a graduate of Asbury Theological Seminary (MDiv) and Duke Divinity School (ThM). He is currently a PhD student at Garrett-Evangelical Seminary in Evanston, IL. He is married to Courtney C. Coates, a far better writer than himself.