In 1738, John Wesley went to a meeting and came out saying his heart had been “strangely warmed.” My guest, Ngofeen Mputubwele, puts it best: “So he had a feeling…” And that experience was enough to start a massive religious movement that still impacts us today. Today Ngofeen and I are taking another run at 1700s. On the one hand, yes, this is the century where the European elite were obsessively perfecting how they held and moved their bodies (with grace!). But there’s another 1700s: the one where thousands of people were falling on the ground, weeping, and in some cases barking like dogs… Last episode Ngofeen and I were in pre-revolutionary France, looking at the nobility and the body. Then it dawned on me: the 1700s is also the century of the first evangelical revivals! So, this time around we put the two side by side to see what happens. We go through the Moravians, Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, and the Puritan conversion experience, and we find a locate polarity flip: Augustine read the body's involuntary acts as proof of sin, while revivalism read the exact same acts as proof of the Spirit. Somewhere in the middle of the conversation it turns personal. Ngofeen and I both spent our twenties deep in the Reformed Christian world, though neither of us was raised in it. We get into our thoughts on Christian “worldview” philosophy, why phrases like "the Lord" and "a season of" make us both cringe, and why I talk about my faith decomposing rather than deconstructing. And then at the end we land it. The civilizing mission is a panopticon of the body. But Puritanism is a panopticon of the soul. Same century, same obsession with the self, two different targets. In this episode How Pietism started as a complaint that Protestant orthodoxy was doctrinally correct but spiritually deadThe Moravians, a revival in East Germany in 1727, and the first Protestant missionary movementWesley's strangely warmed heart, and Methodism as a system for channeling revival energyJonathan Edwards was not the charismatic one. George Whitefield wasThe polarity flip: Augustine and revivalism reading the same convulsing body two opposite waysWhy the Puritan path to conversion required you to first become terrified of yourselfA real Puritan prayer read aloud, and why Ngofeen calls Protestantism a “literary religion”New England’s Halfway Covenant, and the oldest evangelical problem: you can teach the catechism, but you can't teach authentic conversationWhy "the Lord" and "a season of" set off alarm bells for both of usReformed worldview thinking as a machine for neutralizing every other belief, including your own internal doubtsHow colonial soldiers and a priests overrode the part of the body that says “This is wrong.”Two different panopticons, one centuryChapters [0:08] — Intro (and I need a new catchphrase, send me one!) [2:55] — The 1700s is also the century of the revivals [4:37] — Why this is an Anglo story, not a Catholic one [5:06] — Westphalia, state confessions, and a faith that's correct but dead [7:55] — Did you know Black people in Texas speak Czech? [8:37] — Pietism, Jan Hus, and an underground Christianity [9:25] — Zinzendorf, Herrnhut, and looking back at communities through the cult lens [10:54] — 1727: the spirit falls in East Germany [12:16] — John Wesley and the invention of the method [13:36] — "My heart was strangely warmed," or, I had a feeling [14:52] — New England, 1730s: the nervous system on high activation [16:07] — George Whitefield, the first evangelical celebrity [16:53] — Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God [17:40] — The polarity flip: the same body, read two opposite ways [18:05] — Who actually got swept into the First Great Awakening [20:49] — Acquire the Fire, and what happens the next morning [22:29] — A Pentecostal Bible college and a very nice website [23:45] — The Toronto Blessing: some of it demonic, some human, some of the Spirit [25:00] — Edwards tries to sort out what counts as the Spirit [25:49] — Lord Chesterfield, and France as the center of the world [27:40] — Coastal elites and middle America, 1740s edition [29:21] — Freedom and order, the tension that never resolves [30:07] — This wasn't revelry. This was crisis [30:56] — What the civilized class thought when they read the revival reports [31:47] — Backwater Puritan nonsense [32:45] — Witch trials, Cromwell, and the decades England had no Christmas [34:40] — The conviction: becoming terrifyingly aware you can't save yourself [35:42] — So the premise is that you need an anxiety attack [37:21] — The Valley of Vision [38:28] — Reading "The Awakened Sinner" aloud [40:25] — Protestantism as a literary religion [42:15] — That person hasn't been converted yet [44:50] — The halfway covenant, and a community already in crisis [45:55] — Why "the Lord" grates on me [46:54] — Father, we just, father [49:03] — Performative faith, fishing for safety, and Christians scanning for danger [50:23] — A season of [51:21] — How we both ended up reformed in our twenties [52:10] — Worldview thinking, and how intoxicating it is to neutralize anything [54:24] — Reagan, Congo, and everyone picking their own dirty deal [56:32] — Your doctrinal statement says everything is corrupt. I don't think that's what corrupt means [57:23] — The genocide class, and the fall as a frame that still works [58:34] — "Better than I deserve," and why God can hold a terrible day [1:00:43] — Augustine's unbaptized babies and the age of accountability [1:02:30] — Brokenness as an operating system, and the relief of "life matters to God" [1:03:05] — Decomposing, not deconstructing [1:04:50] — Immigration, and math that looks like the 1800s [1:06:00] — How does the soldier override the alarm system in his body? [1:07:30] — The panopticon of the body [1:08:39] — What do you do when you get home from Joshua Tree? [1:09:12] — The panopticon of the soul [1:10:46] — Nobody wakes up in 1789 and decides they're done [1:11:43] — Grace at the top, hunger at the bottom, and a system that can't hold [1:12:52] — Four centuries in four sentences [1:14:14] — Next time: the Thirty Years' War, and the century of science [1:18:47] — Outro Mentioned The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God and Religious Affections George Whitefield and John Wesley Jan Hus and the Moravians Count Zinzendorf and Herrnhut Lord Chesterfield's letters to his son and godson The Treaty of Westphalia The Toronto Blessing Acquire the Fire My course, The Body of Christ Keeps the Score Last week's episode: Let's Talk About: Unearned Grace, Unearned Power Free course: Ancestral Trauma in the Church, at bradleymelle.com/free Freestyle Theology is a podcast about Christian history, psychology, and the body, exploring power, grief, colonialism, and the faith people inherit.
