WESLEYAN HOLINESS MOVEMENT

The Wesleyan Holiness Movement rose out of a renewed concern for

the promotion of Christian holiness and social righteousness in the
revivalism of the early decades of the nineteenth century.
METHODISM’S doctrine of Christian perfection as taught by JOHN
WESLEY became the theological and experiential focus of the
movement. It called all Christian believers to consecrate themselves
wholly to God and, through FAITH, to seek a second crisis of God’s
GRACE in their hearts that would cleanse them from their innate bent
toward SIN and fill them with a whole-hearted love for God and
others by the power of the Holy Spirit. This call to “Christianize
Christianity” quickly spread throughout revivalistic Protestantism.
Many anticipated a new Pentecostal baptism and dispensation of the
Holy Spirit. Toward the end of the century many holiness adherents
left their churches to organize new churches and agencies more
favorable to the movement’s concerns. The continuing growth of these
Wesleyan Holiness churches, and other movements rooted in the
holiness revival, such as the HIGHER LIFE MOVEMENT, the
Pentecostal, and the Charismatic movements, have significantly
changed evangelical Protestantism’s demographics, theology, and
praxis.

History

Through her energetic lay EVANGELISM in parlor meetings, CAMP

MEETINGS, and publications throughout the Northeast and Canada,
Methodist PHOEBE WORRALL PALMER became the leading voice in
the pre-Civil War REVIVALS. By 1839 believers in Congregational,
Presbyterian, Baptist, Episcopalian, Quaker, Mennonite, and other
churches also professed to be sanctified wholly. Oberlin College’s
CHARLES G.FINNEY and Asa Mahan accommodated the Methodist
movement’s Wesleyan/Arminian understanding of a “second
blessing” to their New School CALVINISM and SCOTTISH COMMON
SENSE REALISM to form a companion HOLINESS MOVEMENT. In 1867
a group of Methodist pastors under John Inskip gave more organized
leadership to the movement. Their National Camp Meeting Association
for the Promotion of Holiness garnered thousands of supporters for
the hundreds of local holiness associations and the flood of holiness
publications that kept the revival flourishing throughout the century.

The Holiness Churches

By the closing decades of the nineteenth century, denominational

disciplinary restrictions on holiness CLERGY became more common. In
response large numbers of pastors and laypersons who supported the
revival joined thousands of its unchurched converts to organize more
than a dozen new Wesleyan/Holiness denominations and agencies,
including several black denominations, whereas other adherents
maintained their membership in the older churches but still supported
the movement. Out of a series of realignments and mergers the larger
of the holiness organizations and agencies are: the SALVATION ARMY,
the CHURCH OF THE NAZARENE, the CHURCH OF GOD (ANDERSON,
INDIANA), the WESLEYAN CHURCH, the FREE METHODIST CHURCH, the
Evangelical Friends Church, and the BRETHREN IN CHRIST CHURCH.
The latter two accommodated the theology and spirituality of the
holiness movement revival to their respective Quaker (see FRIENDS,
SOCIETY OF) and Anabaptist traditions (see ANABAPTISM) as
A.T.Pierson, A.J.Gordon, and A.B. Simpson did to their revivalistic
Calvinism. The revival became especially formative in the new
Pentecostal and the subsequent Charismatic traditions. In spite of
often severe tensions among these children of the revival as they
brought the diverse forces of the revival into organized Protestantism,
their historic roots in the antecedent ecumenical holiness associations
that nurtured and shaped them facilitated their later cooperation in the
renewal of twentieth-century EVANGELICALISM. Churches related to
the Wesleyan Holiness movement, the Higher Life Movement, and
PENTECOSTALISM played a significant role in the organization of the
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF EVANGELICALS. The Wesleyan Holiness
churches continue to cooperate with one another by their participation
in the Christian Holiness Partnership and The Wesleyan Theological
Society. Most of them also associate with the National Association of
Evangelicals and some with the WORLD METHODIST COUNCIL.

Influence of the Movement

The revival not only both expanded and divided the American
churches that gave it birth, but significantly influenced the churches of
ENGLAND and Europe through the ministry of Robert Pearsall and
HANNAH WHITALL SMITH, prominent in the KESWICK MOVEMENT.
They inspired the organization of the Keswick (England) Convention for
the Promotion of Holiness, which became a center for holiness
adherents in both the established and free churches to reinvigorate
evangelical mission agencies and student movements around the
world. In GERMANY the Wesleyan holiness message revived the old
pietistic centers of the REFORMATION churches and the social
concerns of the Inner City Movement. Although the Wesleyan Holiness
Movement has always been theologically orthodox and conservative,
significant segments within it were persistent advocates for some of
the more radical changes that came to the fore only much later in
Protestantism in general. Two of the earliest holiness churches, the
Wesleyan Methodist Church and the Free Methodist Church, wedded
their perfectionism to their call for the immediate abolition of slavery
(see SLAVERY, ABOLITION OF). The growing significance of the
Pentecost event within the movement supported the public ministry
and leadership of WOMEN such as FRANCES WILLARD, CATHERINE
BOOTH, and black evangelist Amanda Smith, as well as Palmer, more
than half a century before established Protestantism accepted such
innovations. The movement also challenged Protestantism to
reconsider its theologies of spiritual gifts and of divine healing. Its
focus on life in the Spirit and personal and social holiness strongly
influenced the spirituality of evangelical Protestantism. The hymns
and gospel songs of FANNY CROSBY and other composers within the
movement constitute a major segment of evangelical hymnody (see
HYMNS AND HYMNALS). Wesleyan/Holiness devotional works such as
Hannah Whitall Smith’s The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life and
Oswald Chamber’s My Utmost for His Highest have become classics in
Protestantism.

References and Further Reading

Dayton, Donald Wilber. Discovering an Evangelical Heritage. New York:

Harper and Rowe, 1976.

Dieter, Melvin Easterday. The Holiness Revival of the Nineteenth

Century. 2nd ed. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 1995.

Jones, Charles Edwin. Guide to the Study of the Holiness Movement.

Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, 1974.
Kostlevy, William. A Guide to the Sources of the Wesleyan Holiness
Movement in the United States and Canada. Metuchen, NJ: The
Scarecrow Press, 1994.

Smith, Timothy Lawrence. Revivalism and Reform in MidNineteenth

Century America. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1957.

MELVIN E.DIETER