Social Holiness?

John Wesley once said something like, “there is no holiness but social holiness, no gospel but social gospel.”

This has been so badly misused by Methodists. We hear the phrases “social holiness” and “social gospel” and assume it means some program of activism. What he meant was that we are not individual Christians. It's the basis of the small-group discipleship the early Methodists emphasized: our holiness is among us, and so is our gospel. We grow in grace as we meet together and hold each other accountable.