Announced by Trumpets and Drums

In all my years of sifting through old newspapers, looking for information about Methodism, I have never come across one single article like the one, published in late June 1922. It’s there in at least 50 different New Zealand dailies - that's just about every newspaper in the country. It had come via the Press Association from London and recorded a visit the English Prime Minister had made to Wesley’s Chapel in London to offer support for their proposed rebuilding programme.

“Mr Lloyd George, speaking at a Wesleyan luncheon, in connection with the restoration of Wesley's Chapel in City Road, paid a glowing tribute to the great prophet of Methodism. He contrasted the state of the people before the revival movement with their present condition, declaring that the impression then created was still undiminished. Wesley, he says, undoubtedly was the greatest religious leader the Anglo-Saxon race had ever produced, and the movement of which he was leader was probably the greatest movement over the past 250 years. It re-energised and revitalised every religious community throughout the Anglo-Saxon world.”

He even went on to assert that it was the Methodist spirit that had enabled Britain and the United States to achieve victory in the Great War. Dr C H Laws, a leader in NZ Methodism, was quoted as supporting this view – what Wesley preached, he said, was “of more far-reaching effect than the victories of British arms under the leadership of [William] Pitt.” That sounds like drums and trumpets to me!

What you are now reading may seem somewhat out of place in what is normally a tribute to former leaders of New Zealand Methodism. It is written, however, not too long after our own time of remembrance, ANZAC Day, when we recalled and named loved ones who lost their lives or suffered in other ways during two world wars. It is being written at a time of war, with Russian troops marching and engines of war rumbling to celebrate their victory through arms nearly 80 years ago - the annual May Day parade in Moscow celebrates victory over Naziism. The irony is that Putin believes he is now fighting a battle against Naziism, in Ukraine. It is written while the same Russian troops are engaged in a genocidal war in Ukraine.

I have very recently finished reading Vincent O’Malley’s Voices from the New Zealand Wars – He Reo Nō Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa. This is an outstanding contribution to our understanding of the authentic history of the Land Wars of 19th century New Zealand. It has a touch of reality that other histories do not have, in that it records the actual voices of those who fought in the Land Wars – on both sides. History when written by active participants – whether it’s war or social change or notable events of every sort - claims our attention. It is an insult to the people of the past to romanticise, exaggerate and filter the truth. The truth deserves to be heard in the histories of armed conflict. We might well recall the words of an ancient Greek poet, Pindar, who lived 2,500 years ago: “Sweet is war to them that know it not.”

Of course, we must never forget our heroes nor the ordinary tragedies of human conflict. However, war in the mid-18th century was utterly unlike what we experience today. Battles, then, were localised affairs – the battlefield was an identifiable piece of land. Nuclear warfare knows no boundaries and casualties are on a scale John Wesley could not have imagined. The price of peace today is not the recapturing of some forgotten war-like spirit. And the spirit of Methodism is not the same thing at all. How would you describe it?