Buddy Smith
AFA senior vice-president
September 2011 – From its beginning, the goal of AFA has not been only about success or failure in the culture war or conceiving campaigns or establishing an institution. The implicit goal of every project of AFA has been about faithfulness to a message.
In order to understand the AFA message, it is instructive to explore the theology that shaped the worldview of founder Don Wildmon. One helpful insight is seen through a recent gift by AFA staff and board to furnish the board room in his honor at the new Francis Asbury Society Ministry Center in Wilmore, Kentucky.
FAS and Wilmore are appropriate places to honor Don. First, Wilmore is the home of Asbury University and Asbury Theological Seminary. The two campuses are arguably the nation’s best stronghold of biblical Wesleyan thought and teaching. Asbury University recognized Don’s Christian activist leadership 20 years ago by awarding him an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.
Second, Francis Asbury was a Methodist bishop who came to Colonial America in 1771, at the age of 26. For 44 years, until his death in 1816, he did more to lay the spiritual foundation for America than any other single figure. Commissioned by John Wesley, Asbury rode 225,000 miles on horseback and preached 16,500 sermons across the new nation. Don Wildmon’s own itinerant preaching goes back to one early pastorate, when he pastored five Methodist churches simultaneously.
Dr. Dennis Kinlaw, co-founder of FAS, tells a story about Asbury that reveals what kind of man he was. One day, while riding through Wilmington, North Carolina, he passed a slave. He said, “Good day, Sir,” and the slave responded. Asbury rode on, but was impressed by the Holy Spirit that he should witness to the man, so he turned back to find the slave.
“Sir, what is your name?” Asbury asked.
“I’m a slave. They all call me Punch, because I fight so much.”
Then Asbury opened the Scripture and told Punch about Christ, about the power of God to save. After praying with him, he went on his way. Twenty years later, Asbury was back in that community preaching. At the end of the service, a man approached and said, “Bishop, I’m Punch. … You know, you talked to me about Jesus, prayed with me. I went to my room, got down on my knees, confessed my sins, asked Him to forgive me, and my room was filled with an incredible light. And, you know, I’ve never fought or cursed or played cards since. And I’ve got 300 people out there who call me their pastor.”
Now that’s the kind of man Francis Asbury was, and the kind of gospel that shaped the person, theology and worldview of Don Wildmon, and it provides the framework of his message.
What is that message? God so loved the world, that He offered the complete gospel of forgiveness and transformation in Jesus Christ, and He said His disciples were to be the salt of the earth.
They were, through His grace within them, to be the counter force to the corruption perpetually at work in our fallen world. This is the message of full salvation that Don Wildmon has lived, and his faithfulness to that message has been the distinguishing force of AFA. 
