Recapturing the Wesleys' Vision: An Introduction to the Faith of John and Charles Wesley

Scholar and teacher Paul Wesley Chilcote provides a full and clear introduction to the dynamic faith of John and Charles Wesley. The vital theology of John is skillfully gleaned from his voluminous writings. The corresponding faith of Charles is culled from his enduring hymns. For students and general readers this book illuminates the vital balance the Wesleys found in Christian teaching that overcomes the often mutually exclusive options presented in other theological traditions. Chilcote shows that such a synthetic faith is not boring or irrelevant but transforming and life-giving, bringing together faith and works, Word and Spirit, the personal and the social, the head and the heart, mission and service.

Paul Wesley Chilcote (M.Div., Ph.D., Duke University) is Visiting Professor of the Practice of Evangelism at Duke University. He previously taught at Africa University (Mutare, Africa), Asbury Theological Seminary (Florida), Wesley College (Bristol, UK) and the Methodist Theological School (Ohio).

A clergy member of the North Indiana Methodist Church Conference, Chilcote has served parishes in both North Carolina and Indiana and has been active in global Methodism through his work with the World Methodist Council sponsored Oxford Institute of Methodist Theological Studies and the global Theological Education Committee. With his wife he served as a United Methodist missionary in Limuru, Kenya. He co-chairs the World Methodist Council/Salvation Army Dialogue, serves on the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America/United Methodist Church Bilateral Dialogue and is a Benedictine Oblate of Mt. Angel Abbey in Oregon. He serves as president of The Charles Wesley Society.

Chilcote is the author of Praying in the Wesleyan Spirit (Upper Room Books, 2001), Her Own Story: Autobiographical Portraits of Early Methodist Women (Abingdon, 2002), Recapturing the Wesleys' Vision (IVP, 2004), Changed from Glory into Glory: Wesleyan Prayer for Transformation (Upper Room Books, 2005), Wesley Speaks on Christian Vocation (Discipleship Resources, 1986), John Wesley and the Women Preachers of Early Methodism (Scarecrow Press, 1991), She Offered Them Christ (Abingdon, 1993; Spanish translation, 1995) and An African Journal of Hope (GBGM, 1998). Chilcote also serves as a unit editor for the definitive edition of The Works of John Wesley, having responsibility (with Randy Maddox) for volumes 12 and 13 on doctrine and theology.