The Life of John Wesley: A Brand from the Burning [Hardcover]

Roy Hattersley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 24, 2003

The Life of John Wesley portrays the founder of Methodism against a vividly rendered backdrop of the religious, social, and political landscape of eighteenth-century England. Through the power of his personality and the strength of his faith, Wesley became the leader of the English religious revival that arose in opposition to the established Anglican Church, and his theology continues to have an impact on religions worldwide.
Roy Hattersley follows Wesley’s spiritual journey, tracing his constant, often agonizing attempts to define the nature of virtue as well as the path to sanctity. The story of Wesley’s theological progress is vastly enriched by Hattersley’s revealing portrait of Wesley’s complex personality. A genuine scholar, Wesley published more work than any other author of the eighteenth century. He possessed phenomenal energy, traveling huge distances to preach and proselytize. Wesley practiced, as Hattersley writes, “every form of personal discipline (diet, exercise, carefully planned day) except emotional restraint.” This candid account of Wesley’s relationship with women—falling desperately in love three times in his life, each time failing to make his intentions clear, and eventually ending up in a disastrous marriage—brilliantly brings to life Wesley’s human side, largely ignored in previous reverential biographies.
A wonderful synthesis of personal, social, and spiritual biography, The Life of John Wesley sheds new light on the variety of things that motivated one of the most interesting and significant figures in religious history.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

From his childhood, John Wesley seemed destined to be a religious figure. When he was six, the rectory in which his family lived caught fire. When his family realized that little John was still asleep in the inferno, his father, Samuel, prayed for a miracle and John was rescued dramatically before the roof collapsed. In his fast-paced and detailed biography, Hattersley (Fifth Year On) chronicles Wesley's life from his childhood to his early years as an evangelist in the colony of Georgia and his later struggles to establish Methodism to counter the sterility of the Anglican communion. From an early age, Wesley practiced self-discipline in his devotions and in his quest for Christian holiness and perfection. His emphasis on combining the inner warming of the heart with the elements of Scripture, reason and tradition challenged the Anglican Church in England and was responsible for the rise of Methodism. But because he lacked emotional self-restraint, as Hattersley observes, Wesley constantly questioned his salvation and his worthiness. Hattersley captures nicely Wesley's superstitious nature-he often drew lots to determine the answer to a question, including whether or not he should marry a particular woman-his indecisiveness, and his deep attraction to women. Like no other Wesley biographer, Hattersley provides the details of Wesley's failed love affairs and his unfortunate marriage. Lively, engaging and well told, Hattersley's biography gives us an unvarnished, warts-and-all glimpse at the life and work of one of Christianity's great preachers and writers.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

A man who could kindle religious faith in thousands yet could not fathom the mysteries of a single woman's heart, the founder of Methodism emerges in the pages of this biography--the first full treatment of his life in decades--as a puzzling cleric. Drawing extensively on Wesley's voluminous journals and diaries, Hattersley depicts a man consumed by a divine passion yet never delivered from his personal perplexities. As in his Blood and Fire (2000), about the founders of the Salvation Army, Hattersley illuminates the tensions between heavenly doctrines and earthly psychology. Considerable interest will attach to the detailed chronicle of Wesley's repeated failures in romance, but his theological pilgrimage, as tortured and hard to understand as his love life, also proves surprisingly compelling. Hattersley convincingly portrays Wesley as a reluctant revolutionary, loathe to leave the Church of England but ultimately doing so and succeeding in initiating a moral renewal that profoundly shaped Great Britain in the century after his death. A nuanced and satisfying portrait. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1 edition (June 24, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385503342
• ISBN-13: 978-0385503341
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,713,278 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A socialist's view of a Victorian-era religious reformer, October 3, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Life of John Wesley: A Brand from the Burning (Hardcover)

Hattersley, author of "Choose freedom: the future for democratic socialism" smears this colossus of Victorian reform, John Wesley, from the standpoint of a 21st century secularist. This is just more sanctimonious blather disguised as impartial scholarship that belittles the great men of a much harder time than ours. Britain's best thinkers, like Wesley, used to help make the world a better place in which to live, whereas the present-day elites' shallow, smirking arrogance perpetrates only self-reinforcing misery for those who fall prey to their humbug. No surprise that other readers find the subject, as (mis-)represented here, difficult to like. By focusing on what is least meaningful about Wesley (his women), Hattersley trivializes a subject that deserved genuine sopistication, not cheap sophistry.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Humane And Compassionate John Wesley, April 12, 2006

By 

Brien Comerford (Glenview, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Life of John Wesley: A Brand from the Burning (Hardcover)

After I read this brilliantly written book, I fell in love with the enigmatic John Wesley. He may have been eccentric, driven and rigid, but he also had a heart of gold evidenced by his compassion for animals and for turning vegetarian for ethical reasons. John Wesley was too vexed for marraige but his mystical Sermon entitled "The General Resurrection" envisioned an idyllic afterlife for all God's children and creatures. John Wesley was a valiant, charismatic and compelling Christian leader. Thank God for John Wesley, and Roy Hattersley merits accolades for writing such a poignant, informative and comprehensive biography detailing the tribulations and triumphs of a paramount Christian !

8 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The Belittling of John Wesley, May 31, 2004

By 

John P. Wheeler (Birmingham, Alabama United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Life of John Wesley: A Brand from the Burning (Hardcover)

John Wesley, outside of biblical characters, is my hero of the faith. From page 1 Hattersley, sarcastically belittles this great man of faith. After having read many works by other authors about Wesley as well as Wesley's journals and sermons, it is impossible to imagine that this is the same Wesley I have grown to deeply admire. Hattersley writes with an attitude that will be obvious to readers familiar with Wesley's tremendous legacy. Reading Hattersley's work about Wesley's life is comparable to reading a book about the Bible written by one of the fallen angels. I cannot in good conscience recommend such a distorted view of this giant in the faith.