What happens when you discover that a significant portion of the religious real estate that made up your early devotional life, that still informs the language of your worship, that still speaks in your heart, can be collected together into a movement? A movement, not a Reformation, not a return ad fontes to the original sources of Scripture, but a movement of sometimes anti-intellectual piety, a movement whose philosophical basis is easily derived from the everyman pragmatism of the early-industrial West. It is like coming to the edge of some vast, familiar something and looking out into the unknown of the other side.
That said, the following are a list of persons associated with the nineteenth century Wesleyan-Revivalist movement known in America as the Holiness Movement, and in Europe and other parts of the English-speaking world as the Higher Life Movement. Other descriptive terms used by its members are "the Deeper Christian Life" and "the Victorious Christian Life." Some were not directly part of this movement, but have associated themselves with it. This revivalist movement took its roots from Wesleyan perfectionism and grew into the Pentecostal movement beginning in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many of those listed were intimately connected via the Keswick /KES-sik/ Convention, (1875-present.)
D.L.Moody, F.B. Meyer, Amy Carmichael, Hannah Whitehall Smith (a Quaker), Watchman Nee, Andrew Murray, Hudson Taylor, R. A. Torrey, Charles Finney, A B Simpson, C. I. Scofield, A. W. Tozer, Lewis Sperry Chafer, Henry Drummond, Oswald Chambers, Moody Bible Institute, Foursquare and Open Bible/Gospel Lighthouse churches, the Assemblies of God.
Thom,
ReplyDeleteI think a good argument can be made for analysing these diverse leaders and strands as a "movement." Yet what exactly pulls them together in your view? Can you be more specific?
Would you include Ellen White (Adventism) in this group, or Phoebe Palmer (Holiness/Nazarene)? What about Samuel Chadwick (Methodist), G. Campbell Morgan (Congregational), or Handley Moule (Calvinist Evangelical Anglican and regular speaker at Keswick in the 19th century)? Many of the people you and I mention would not want to be the same bedfellows. It was G. Campbell Morgan who labelled Four-Square Pentecostalism the "vomit of Satan!" What leads you to assemble these disparate figures together into a movement?
(I'm curious, too.)
ReplyDeletePaul, excellent comments. I think you probably know a lot more about this than I do. The names I've listed are commonly referenced in articles about the Holiness Movement. The unifying center seems to be a turn toward experience along with an intense desire to raise the "spirit" and put aside (and some were more or less Wesleyan perfectionists on this) the flesh through spiritual discipline and especially through prayer and surrender. Surrender was the key emphasis of the Keswick convention. The general teaching carried aloft by this worldwide phenomena was that conversion should be followed by a second work of God in the life, a work known as "entire sanctification" or the "second blessing" or even "being filled with the Holy Spirit." I neglected to mention Phoebe Palmer, but she figures prominently in the literature. The influence and geographic spread of these teachings is amazing, sweeping in many who formerly didn't have anything to do with the national conventions. Samuel Chadwick (1860-1932), a Methodist, who wrote in his book _The Way of Pentecost_ "Destitute of the Fire of God, nothing else counts; possessing Fire, nothing else matters." seems to fall squarely in line with the emphases of the movement, though he does not seem to have been involved with the principle figureheads. G. Campbell Morgan worked with and was deeply influenced by Moody and Sankey, but his temperment seems to have put him in his own, unique place. Remember, too, he was born a baptist, was rejected by Methodism and wound up Congregationalist. Handley Moule (1901-1920) was an Anglican and the Bishop of Durham. Though one of Keswick's leading lights, he seems to have provided the historical grounding and depth of teaching that made Keswick a better portion of the movement as a whole. You will have to tell me how influenced he was by these emphases, as I don't know much about him. His principle book, Outlines of Christian Doctrine_ may be read here: http://www.anglicanlibrary.org/moule_h/outlines/index.htm. Finally, there is always such a variety of emphasis and personality in revivalist emotionalism. The pentecostal movement is always chewing and arguing on itself, excommunicating this one and fawning over that one. I can't see that the Holiness Movement 75-100 years earlier was any different.
ReplyDeletePaul, please continue to critique me on this. I am really trying to come to a clearer understanding in my own mind. These people, until quite recently, mapped the geography of my spiritual life, and though I am moving in a different direction, the echoes of their influence still reverberate in many inner chambers. Further, most of the evangelical pastors I meet seem to embrace the emphases of this movement, as do many spiritually-interested parishioners. The man who pastored my church last year actually taught a class on revivals, showing films taken from all over the world and urging us to adopt the method/ideology and to "see revival in New England!" The whole thing felt like a stinking paddy of law to me, and still does. Nevertheless, it is my mother's milk, and I am trying to grow up and re-evaluate, to put things in their proper places and give to each its proper weight. Any insight or help you can bring through questions or even criticism, is welcome.
ReplyDeleteOne last thing. It seems to me that those individuals associated with a creedal tradition, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, etc., were to some degree innoculated against the excesses of the Holiness/Higher Life movements. Though benefitting from its heat, they were not overwhelmed by its enthusiasms and personalities. Non-creedal traditions, however, Methodists, Baptists, Independents, Christian Churches, Adventists, seem much more vulnerable to the same. Question: does this still hold true? Do we see fads like Purpose Driven Life carry non-creedals to a much greater degree than creedals (or has liberalism destroyed creedal traditions? Hmmmm...are creedals more subject to rationalism and non-creedals to emototionalism? Is this just a caricature? I'm going to stop writing.)
ReplyDeleteThom,
ReplyDeleteWith the "movement" that you identify I think you also need to factor into your emerging description of it that it is prone to (for want of better terms) evidentialism and rationalism. For example, I suggest that someone like Josh McDowell stands in the movement you identify, as do Pentecostals like Winkey Pratney (who is very much influenced by Finney).
Although the boundaries here are very porous ones, I further suggest it is helpful to distinguish between this movement and (again for want of a better term) confessional Wesleyanism, as you find in writers like Samuel Chadwick, W. G. Sangster and the Australian Alan Walker (I wonder if this may apply to Nazarenes too?). Methodists like Chadwick and Walker were pragmatist and activist, but in the end the theology of Wesley won out over the pure instrumentalism you identify in this movement.
In Chadwick and Walker too, an emphasis on the Wesleyan teaching on Christian perfection was always combined with works of mercy and a "social gospel" being an intrinsic part of the gospel. You simply don't find this in Torrey or Moody.
As far as _The Purpose Driven Life_ phenomenon goes, it swept through Adventism in NZ and overviews. I even know one Adventist church gained permission to modify Warren's material when it came his dualistic anthropology!
ReplyDeleteIn NZ, it was popular Pentecostals, Charismatics and Baptists too. I found PDL very tedious, and I am convinced my church would have better to develop its own local program rather than get in this bland, McDonaldised product.