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Original Sin: Wesleyan/Methodist Insights for Women
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Original Sin: Wesleyan/Methodist Insights for Women

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2023) | Viewed by 4901

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Sarah Heaner Lancaster

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Methodist Theological School in Ohio, Delaware, OH 43015, USA
Interests: Wesleyan theology; theological anthropology; authority of scripture

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This special issue will focus on the idea of original sin in the Wesleyan/Methodist tradition. It will do so especially with a concern to highlight the effects of the doctrine on women. Christian faith depends on some articulation of the human predicament in order to express the significance of Jesus Christ. The doctrine of original sin, though, with its fall, generational transmission, and universal condemnation, seems an unlikely prelude to the love of Christ, especially for women who are seen as temptresses like Eve.

Even though the Enlightenment challenged the doctrine of original sin, John Wesley did not give up the idea. He understood there was a serious human problem that needed to be overcome by Jesus Christ. He described what Jesus Christ does for us not only as removing guilt but also healing. His thinking, then, was shaped by both forensic and therapeutic contours. Wesley sometimes used the terminology “inbeing sin” rather than “original sin.” He was less interested in origin and transmission than in what drew us away from God so that we failed to be who God created us to be. Studies of original sin often use Luther and Calvin as the exemplars for Protestant understanding of original sin. Wesley’s theology takes the human problem seriously, but presents some different avenues for reflection.

As central as it is for Christian faith, the human problem has too often been understood in terms of male experience. This one-sided view has often had detrimental effect on women: exacerbating women’s low sense of self-worth by centering pride as the basic sin, missing the different ways that sin affects women, and branding all women with Eve’s guilt.

As problematic as the doctrine has been for women, it expresses human brokenness and human need for grace. Women were actively preaching, teaching, and writing in the Methodist movement. How did they understand brokenness and need for God? How could women’s reflection expand our way of thinking about original sin? Did Wesley’s manner of talking about original sin offer ways for women to connect with the doctrine?

In the past twenty years, a number of books have taken original sin seriously theologically, many looking for a way to describe the depth of the human problem without the detrimental effects the doctrine has had. This special issue will explore historically and constructively the doctrine of original sin in the Wesleyan tradition in order to uncover contributions Wesley and Methodist women may make to ongoing reflection about the human problem.

Prof. Dr. Sarah Heaner Lancaster
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Methodism/Methodist
  • Holiness
  • Eve
  • Original sin
  • Original righteousness
  • Moral image of God
  • Sin
  • Desire
  • John Wesley

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

10 pages, 225 KiB  
Article
“The Melancholy Dames”: Soren Kierkegaard’s Despairing Women and Wesley’s Empowering Cure
by Diane Leclerc
Religions 2023, 14(2), 144; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14020144 - 25 Jan 2023
Viewed by 2101
Abstract
This article will bring together the work of Soren Kierkegaard and John Wesley for the purpose of showing the relevance of their theologies for the empowerment of women. The particular focus will be on the doctrine of original sin. The paper will first [...] Read more.
This article will bring together the work of Soren Kierkegaard and John Wesley for the purpose of showing the relevance of their theologies for the empowerment of women. The particular focus will be on the doctrine of original sin. The paper will first address the question of why Augustine’s novel doctrine became the orthodox position and why his construction restricts its applicability to women. It will then move to Soren Kierkegaard’s understanding of anxiety and despair in his treatise, The Sickness Unto Death. In the theology of Soren Kierkegaard, there is room to interpret his understanding of original sin as “gendered”. For him, despair is the counterpart of original sin. It finds two forms: 1. despair is willing to be a self apart from the Power (God) that constitutes the self, and 2. despair is not willing to be a self at all. Feminists have questioned the legitimacy of original sin in its traditional form, and a few have even used Kierkegaard on the way to offering an alternative to pride. One method used here is to explicate this insight further. Another method is to put Kierkegaard and John Wesley in dialogue for the purpose of imagining selfhood for women more hopefully. If “despair” can be imagined as a wounding of the self, Wesley’s therapeutic model—seeing original sin as a disease and sanctification as its cure—has much to offer the conversation on personhood and empowered subjectivity, particularly for women. The primary research question investigated here is how a conversation between feminism, Kierkegaard, and Wesley offers an alternative to Augustine’s “orthodoxy” without rendering the idea of original sin completely untenable and useless for women within Christianity. Even though Wesley’s curative paradigm has been highlighted in more recent years, its particular strength to speak into the lives of those who do not/cannot will to be a self has perhaps yet to be fully mined. It reveals itself in the entire Wesleyan history of affirming women. However, the author believes the potential power of Wesley’s theology can be further unleashed by examining its mechanism’s in countering “female despair”. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Original Sin: Wesleyan/Methodist Insights for Women)
13 pages, 268 KiB  
Article
Original Sin, or Other Opposition to Optimism? How Harkness Differs from Wesley in the Face of Human Depravity
by Natalya A. Cherry
Religions 2022, 13(12), 1209; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13121209 - 12 Dec 2022
Viewed by 1954
Abstract
Responding to the too-optimistic theology of fellow Arminian, John Taylor, John Wesley wrote his lengthy treatise on the doctrine of original sin. In an optimistic effort to make fellow personalist theologians’ works accessible, Methodist theologian Georgia Harkness tersely disdained the same doctrine in [...] Read more.
Responding to the too-optimistic theology of fellow Arminian, John Taylor, John Wesley wrote his lengthy treatise on the doctrine of original sin. In an optimistic effort to make fellow personalist theologians’ works accessible, Methodist theologian Georgia Harkness tersely disdained the same doctrine in her first major book. She soon found her liberal theology “chastened” by interactions with neo-orthodox opponents and experiences of depravity—in world events and gender-based discrimination reflecting systemic sin. This article examines her later works for evidence of whether Harkness modified her attitude toward original sin and innovations she made to accommodate both her disdain for the doctrine and the realities of depravity. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Original Sin: Wesleyan/Methodist Insights for Women)
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