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Duke professor in demand for celebrating John Wesley

4/30/2003 News media contact: Linda Green · (615) 742-5470 · Nashville, Tenn

NOTE: A photo of Heitzenrater is available.

By David Reid*

DURHAM, N.C. (UMNS)-The Rev. Richard P. Heitzenrater probably knows more about the founder of the Methodist movement than anyone in the world, which may be why he is celebrating John Wesley's 300th birthday at least 17 times this year.

Wesley tercentenary events are being held in Manchester, England; Oxford, England; and Llandudno, Wales. Lectures, conferences and courses on Wesley will take place in Atlanta, Buffalo, Dallas, Toronto and points in between. Heitzenrater, the Rev. William Kellon Quick professor of church history and Wesley studies at Duke Divinity School, Durham, N.C., has been invited to participate in all of them.

In addition, Heitzenrater has organized an event at United Methodist-related Duke for June 27-29, which will feature six pairs of scholars facing off in debate and discussion on Wesley-related issues relevant to the contemporary church. Divinity school faculty will serve as moderators; Heitzenrater will deliver the opening address.

"Instead of offering the typical academic papers, sessions will consist of two leaders with differing opinions hashing out points of controversy in their fields of expertise, looking for areas of consensus, and then responding to questions from the audience," Heitzenrater said. "The focus will be on issues that are of concern in the life of the church today and the ways in which our Wesleyan heritage can help the church meet the challenges of the 21st century."

Topics include Wesley's views on sacraments, Scripture, music, ethics, women in the church, and theology. Featured speakers include: the Rev. Theodore W. Jennings Jr. of Chicago Theological Seminary; Amy G. Oden of Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington; the Rev. Kenneth J. Collins of Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Ky., and the Rev. Randy L. Maddox of Seattle Pacific University.

The conference will coincide with an exhibition of rare books and manuscripts in the Baker Room of the divinity school library from June 2-July 11. The "Wesley in America" exhibition had its debut at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University, Dallas. From Duke, it will move to Drew University, Madison, N.J. Heitzenrater and Peter S. Forsaith of Brooks University of Oxford, England, curated the show.

Heitzenrater has been investigating Wesley since 1968, when the Rev. Frank Baker, a Duke Divinity School professor, suggested he try to decipher Wesley's diaries. A meticulous and fastidious Oxford scholar, Wesley developed a form of code or cipher that grew ever more cryptic as a way to keep secret the most personal entries.

Here was the opportunity to uncover the stories behind Wesley's romantic involvement with 18-year-old Sophy Hopkey, his amateur attempts to cure medical maladies, and the legendary disputes with his own followers. Heitzenrater was immediately taken with the task and worked until 4 a.m. that first night.

Now, 35 years later, he estimates that he has transliterated 99.6 percent of Wesley's diaries and doubts that the small portion he continues to puzzle over will ever yield its secrets.

"I think that if Wesley came back and looked at the diaries, even he wouldn't be able to figure some of it out," said Heitzenrater.

One mystery entailed six rows of numbers that ran across the bottom of several diary pages under strange headings assumed to be abbreviations of students' names. When Heitzenrater tied the notations to Wesley's laundress, he realized that the headings referred to articles of clothing and the numbers indicated how many of each he had sent out for cleaning. Wesley was making sure that all of his laundry was being returned.

Heitzenrater's study of Wesley blossomed during the years he spent working with two of the major Wesley scholars of the 20th century -- Baker of Duke, and the Rev. Albert Outler, who spent the majority of his career at Southern Methodist University.

"The two of them are really responsible for the Wesley Works Project," said Heitzenrater, who now directs the project. But their different approaches led to bitter disputes.

"Unfortunately, Albert lost some battles early in the game and moved off to the side of the leadership team. He was more a modernist and wanted to see Wesley's theology tied to the life of the church," Heitzenrater said. "Frank Baker was an antiquarian historian who wanted to see what Wesley looked like in his own day. Even on matters such as punctuation of texts in the Works, there were differences of opinion. I got caught in the middle when there were knock down battles."

Their differences began in 1960 when Outler published a volume of Wesley's writings with little reflection and critique from colleagues prior to publication.

When Baker saw the book, he wrote Outler a letter. "As I recall," said Heitzenrater, "it was eight pages, single spaced, explaining all the mistakes that Albert had made."

Not fully swayed by either man's methods, Heitzenrater has pursued a balanced approach to scholarship because "that's the Wesleyan-Anglican traditional way."

Wesleyan studies is a narrow field, and Heitzenrater has worked within that reality. In a decade at Duke, he has mentored only one doctoral student who positioned himself specifically as a Wesleyan scholar. Because of a paucity of positions in the field, he has counseled others to do a dissertation or special study on Wesley or to train as a theologian, ethicist, patristic scholar, or almost anything else.

What's left to accomplish for the leading Wesleyan scholar of his time? Heitzenrater is using his Luce Foundation fellowship to work on a book of Wesley's utterances, such as "I felt my heart strangely warmed" and "The world is my parish."

The latter phrase is widely interpreted as a call to global evangelism. However, Heitzenrater posits that Wesley was laying out the justification for preaching in another person's territory, a concept that broke down established barriers and encouraged revivalist preaching in both England and the American colonies. Once again, his detective work will help set the record straight.

For more information or to register for Wesley at 300, go to www.divinity.duke.edu/learningforlife/Events/wesley.htm.)

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*Reid is the director of communications at Duke Divinity School.

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