REMINGTON RIFLES OR BOWS AND
ARROWS?
THE POST-BELLUM WESLEYAN QUEST FOR THE TRANSFORMATION OF SOCIETY
by
Leon Orville Hynson
SCOPE
The scope of this analysis is generally that period from
the Civil War to the end of the century. The primary focus is the intellectual insight and
assessments of several Christian thinkers, Wesleyan in their historic perspectives, whose
lives were influential during this period. With one exception, they were significant
figures before, during, and after the Civil War. (Daniel Steele is the exception.) Jesse
Truesdell Peck occupied a strategic position in these troubled years, from his dynamic
anti-slavery oration at the General Conference of 1844, to his presidency at Dickinson
College (1848-52), to his preaching and writing, to his share in the founding of Syracuse
University in 1871, and finally in his service in the Methodist Episcopal episcopacy to
which he was elected in 1872.
Daniel Steele, his contemporary, taught at Syracuse,
then Boston University, becoming a colleague of Borden Parker Bowne, and a writer of
significant essays on the Wesleyan theology of sanctification. He, as well as others,
criticized the rising pre-millennialism and touted post-millennialism.
Peck and Steele would become two of the mentors of the
nascent Holiness movement in America Through The Central Idea of Christianity, Peck
would inform several generations of preachers and scholars concerning Christian
perfection.1 The common thread which joins these leaders is the confession of faith in
God's unfailing promise to mark them with His holy image.
A third member of this company was Gilbert Haven,
described by his colleague, Bishop Randolph Foster, as a "radical of the
radicals."2 As dedicated as thoroughly to the extirpation of slavery as William Lloyd
Garrison,
Haven attributed the inspiration for his social reform
principles to his home life, where his mother held devoutly perfectionist views, and to
Wesley from whom he once grandly traced his approach to social reform. His National
Sermons {1850's and 60's} were expressive of the lofty dream of freedom for the slave
even at the cost of civil disobedience. Within the ethical framework of hierarchalism, he
argued for the divine priority of freedom over the misguided political prudence of Dred
Scott and the Missouri compromise. Haven became a bishop in the Methodist Episcopal
Church in 1872 (with Peck and Randolph Foster}. Appointed to Atlanta, an intruding
Northern bishop in M. E. (South) territory, he continued his quest for justice even while
other abolitionists, their great struggle ended, declined to continue the cause for
justice which freedmen sought in Reconstruction. The northern Methodists were not the only
ones to abandon the cause. As Lee Haines points out in History of the Wesleyan Church,
after the war the Wesleyan Methodists turned their attention to other questions,
especially toward a more inner-directed search for holiness of heart and life.3
William Arthur, an English clergyman, whose Tongue of
Fire was particularly influential in the development of American pneumatological
thought, proposed a concept of serial reformation grounded upon the work of the Holy
Spirit. His work was evangelical, emphasizing the conversion of the world as the goal
toward which the church should strive. The promise of world reconstruction was given in
the purpose of Jesus end the power of the Spirit. Arthur would declare his confident hope
for renewal "because I believe in the Holy Ghost."4
PURPOSE
The purpose of this essay is the search for
understanding the sources and influence of Wesleyan/Holiness thought and action regarding
serial reconstruction in America Working within the context of a post-Civil War
Wesleyan/Methodist milieu, from 1865-1900, the study researches questions relating to the
tranformist principles of Wesleyanism which Halevy end H. Richard Niebuhr have indicated
resulted in social change within England. In its reflections on the American scene, it
draws upon Timothy L. Smith's scholarship which has set forth the patterns of American
social reform in terms that clearly show a society energized by the Wesleyan/Holiness
spirit and message.
A number of questions provide the structure and
configurations of this paper. Was there a persuasion {whether submerged in the rhetoric,
or a highly. conscious enunciation) that the Methodist/Wesleyan message leads ineluctably
to social reform? Did the exponents of Wesleyan/Holiness theology possess a guiding
awareness of their reason for ministry? (E.g., "To reform the continent and to spread
scriptural holiness over these lands," the reason for being which Methodists had
declared at the Christmas Conference in 1784) Are there inherent dynamics in Wesleyan
theology and revival which press toward the conversion of the social order?. Were
exponents of Wesleyan/Holiness theology exponents of the correlation of Wesleyan/Holiness
evangelism and ethics? How did they flesh out the connective tissues of preaching holiness
and practicing social reconstruction?
Did the post-War cleavage over the Holiness message
energize or diminish the interest of the "Holiness people" in social
transformation? To what influences may we attribute the "Great reversal" in
Wesleyan/Holiness sectors, the shift from the correlation of holiness and ethics to a
sectarian compartmentalization of internal and external religion? What caused the Holiness
churches to take the course which concentrated the sanctified life in the narrowed walls
of inner cleansing and perfectionist lifestyle, leaving social ethics largely to others?
Was American Fundamentalism a primary or a secondary cause? Was belief in the imminent
return of Christ a limiting influence in social reformation (as it had earlier been for
Luther)?
The major figures studied here developed an evangelical
ethics which offered the groundwork for an expanded perfectionist ethic of social
reconstruction. They worked with the premise that the world is transformable. Their
particular confidence for social change was grounded in hope. While their theology of the
Spirit was less fully developed than that of later "Pentecostal" spokesmen and
women, they were more conscious of and committed to espousing the moral force of the
Spirit in the world than the later group was.
Others in the Wesleyan/Holiness heritage (Seth Rees,
Martin Wells Knapp, Joseph Smith, and Charles Fowler, for example) may represent a more
focused pneumatology, but seem to have made social change either a minor theme or even to
have seen it as a threat to the theology of holiness. Hope was a powerful persuasive to
holy living, but not to social transformation. This retreat or "reversal" from
the social concern of earlier Wesleyan/Holiness leaders may have been explained as the
subjectivism of faith and ethics. It may have developed as a reaction to the "Social
Gospel," which was increasingly seized upon by religious liberalism to the neglect of
personal regeneration. Certainly there is a growth in belief in the imminence of the
Second Coming, but the ethical power of that "blessed hope" is driven inward to
the heart, not outward to social change. Social disillusionment is evident.
The earlier Wesleyan/Holiness thinkers seem to have
linked personal and social holiness, using the idea of progress as a conceptual bridge. On
the other hand, for some Wesleyan/Holiness adherents, Peck among them, the dominance of a
progress philosophy seems to result in an attenuated evangelical ethics. While Arthur,
Peck, Steele and Haven clearly demonstrated the importance of the Gospel in the
progressive improvement of humankind, they were probably in step with current progress
themes more than they knew. These themes were subtly secularizing, moving toward a period
in which the idea of progress is surgically snipped from its evangelical (and
pneumatological) womb and its life becomes secularized and dehumanized (in the best sense
of the Christian meaning of "human").
The heart of the essay centers upon several key concepts
discovered in ,the writings of these figures. These principles respond, first, to the
question of whether Christians ought to be involved in social conflict and change (they
answer affirmatively); second, to the question of the larger strategy for social
reconstruction, one which assesses the relationship between human agency in preaching, the
confident expectation of movement toward salvation for humankind, and the "superhuman
power" of the gracious Spirit who is the only efficient catalyst in effecting social
regeneration. Thirdly, they respond to the question of the reversal from social to
personal holiness in the Holiness movement.
I. BASIC THEOLOGICAL COMMITMENTS
A. Evangelical Perfectionism
H. Richard Niebuhr has proposed a definition of
evangelical ethics which I take to be fundamental to our analysis. Writing in The
Heritage of the Reformation, he argues:
"Evangelical ethics is God-centered, not
sin-centered. When our fundamental orientation in life is that of persons who live
vis-a-vis God, the spirit of evangelical ethics takes flight no less surely than when we
live in the contemplation of our own righteousness." 5
Niebuhr's focus expresses the framework within which the
leaders we analyze built an idea of personal and social regeneration.
Fully aware of the selfishness which shapes human action
and response, they were bold in their faith that God works in human society through the
proclamation of the Gospel. Certain that the good news of God was more powerful than human
intransigence, they believed that the world was being regenerated, and that evil would be
overcome by good. Perhaps the Civil War was the great catalyst for this sense of the
ultimate triumph of God and righteousness. Considered an atonement for the sins of the
nation, it was also a clear illustration of the divine motion in regenerating not only
individuals but society as well.
The hope for change and improvement in society seems to
have been a pervasive human experience in post-bellum America. Social strategists,
politicians, and preachers held some hope that society would experience some form of
reconstruction. Even those who virtually yielded to despair retained a slender vein of
hope By a radical separation from the world, they sought, often in small communities of
hope, for a safe haven in which to live out their pilgrimage.
In general, the world of post-bellum America was a world
of optimism. The society of the American South found itself under serious financial and
psychological constraints. While much study of this sector of post-bellum America is
needed, it seems logical that here may have been a fertile field for planting the
pre-millennialism of Darby, Moody, and others.
Peck, Haven, Steele et al, held to the view that
society may be and would be transformed. Their vision of that transformed society was
perfectionist.
Gerald Sorbin, author of Abolitionism: A New
Perspective, has asserted that the doctrine of perfection offered a resource to
ante-bellum revivalists such as Finney, and to others, such as the eight black
abolitionists in the
American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society at its
founding in 1840, by which they could assault slavery. (Each of the black clergy mentioned
was educated in the context of American perfectionism.)
Their thinking [the abolitionists he describes] was
rooted in the principles of evangelical perfectionist Christianity, a Christianity that
was moving away from the concept of original sin . . . to the idea of sin as the . . .
repressive temporal force blocking the path to the millennium.6
According to Sobrin, the idea of "immediatism"
in abolitionism was the product of an emphasis on perfectibility rather than inability.
Further, "By emphasizing the possibility of human perfection through choice, while .
. . focusing on the sin of slavery, evangelism engendered personal commitment to
abolitionism and to an immediate approach to reform." Richard Cameron has said that
two doctrines "bore most closely on Methodism's social outlook . . . free grace and .
. . the possibility of Christian perfection.7
B. Sin As Moral and Social
Sorbin's analysis of the movement of "perfectionist
Christianity" away from the concept of original sin is generally not separated by the
usual view of sin found in Wesleyan/Holiness sources. Robert Chiles has traced the
transition from "sinful man to moral man" in stages from Wesley through Richard
Watson to Miley and Knudson. Watson, following James Arminius, had enunciated a theory of
deprivation rather than one of depravity, and was followed by Thomas Ralston, and several
others.8 It is this stance which leads Chiles to lament some departure from Wesley's
Reformation theology of original sin. But it is a long way, theologically, from Watson to
Knudson. Wesleyan/Holiness thought, which is thoroughly perfectionist, simply does not
follow the entire route.
While there are indications of the "moral man"
theology in Wesleyan/Holiness sources, standard evangelical definitions are prevalent. Sin
is a state of being which evokes wrong attitudes, intentions and actions, leading to
transgressions and guilt. Sin is also antagonism, the antithesis of love and holiness.
"So long as sin is in the world love must make war against it."9 the Gospel of
Christ promises the "extirpation of all antagonism to Christ with the believing
soul," Steele affirmed. Peck defined sin primarily as selfishness and declared
"Let now this unholy love of the Creature, self, and the world, be utterly
eradicated." Sin is weakness, "resulting in a diminished moral capacity."
But holiness is strength.l0 When one becomes a believer in Christ, a "new and
dominant motive, antagonistic to sin, [has been admitted] to take up its permanent abode
behind his will...."11
William Arthur expressed sin in moral terms, as
corruption rooted in human nature and extended to social evil.
Human nature is said by many to be good; if so where
have social evils come from? For human nature is the only moral nature in that corrupting
thing called "society." Every evil example set before the child of today is the
fruit of human nature. It has ... without once failing, brought forth a crop of sins....
This is . . . proof that human nature, in the aggregate, is a seed which produces sins and
troubles.l2
C. From Individual to Institutional Sin
As clearly as our sources conceived sin to be a matter
of the moral choices of the individual, they also said that it is more. Human nature is
not construed by Arthur to be simply unitary. Human nature whether individual or social is
moral nature Arthur still assumes that the individual is the fundamental center of moral
power, but he recognizes that social or institutional sins are the channeling of a
"society" or "world" of sins, "sin against God, sin against their
neighbor, sin against themselves, sins of self-interest and sins against self-interest,
sins for happiness and sins that wreck happiness...."13
And sin which flows from the misuse of the moral power
in individual life compounds itself in the autonomous will of societies or institutions.
Social sin is more than the sum of personal sins. Arthur says:
On the other hand, have not those who see and feel the
importance of first seeking the regeneration of individuals, too often insufficiently
studied the application of Christianity to social evils? When the result of Christian
teaching long addressed to a people has raised the tone of conscience, when a large number
of persons embodying true Christianity in their own lives are diffused among all ranks, a
foundation is laid for social advancement; but it does not follow that, by spontaneous
development, the principles implanted in the minds of the people make to themselves the
most fitting and Christian embodiment. Fearful social evils may co-exist with a state of
society wherein many are holy, and all have a large amount of Christian light. The most
disgusting slave-system, basest usages fostering intemperance, alienation of class from
class in feeling and interests, systematic frauds in commerce, neglect of workmen by
masters, neglect of children by their own parents, whole classes living by sin, usages
checking marriage and encouraging licentiousness, human dwellings which make the idea of
home odious, and the existence of modesty impossible, are but specimens of the evils which
may be left age after age, cursing a people among whom Christianity is the recognized
standard of society. To be indifferent to these things is as unfaithful to Christian
morals on the one hand, as hoping to remedy them without spreading practical holiness
among individuals is astray from truth on the other.
The most dangerous perversion of the Gospel, viewed as
affecting individuals, is, when it is looked upon as a salvation for the soul after it
leaves the body, but no salvation from sin while here. The most dangerous perversion of
it, viewed as affecting the community, is, when it is looked upon as a means of forming a
holy community in the world to come, but never in this. Nothing short of the general
renewal of society ought to satisfy any soldier of Christ; and all who aim at that triumph
should draw much inspiration from the King's own words: "All power is given unto Me
in heaven and in earth." Much as Satan glories in his power over an individual, how
much greater must be his glorying over a nation embodying, in its laws and usages
disobedience to God, wrong to man, and contamination to morals! To destroy all national
holds of evil, to root sin out of institutions, to hold up to view the Gospel ideal of a
righteous nation, to confront all unwholesome public usages with mild, genial, and ardent
advocacy of what is purer, is one of the first duties of those whose position or mode of
thought gives them an influence on general questions. In so doing they are at once
glorifying the Redeemer by displaying the benignity of His influence over human society-
and removing hindrances to individual conversion, some of which act by direct incentive to
vice, others by upholding a state of things the acknowledged basis of which is,
"Forget God."
Satan might be content to let Christianity turn over the
subsoil, if he is in perpetuity to sow the surface with thorns and briers; but the Gospel
is come to renew the face of the earth. Among the wheat, the tares, barely distinguishable
from it, may be permitted to grow to the last: but the field is to be wheat, not tares;
wheat, not briers; a fair fenced, plowed, sowed, and fruitful field, albeit weeds,
resembling the crop, be interspersed.l4
Social and institutional sins are not simply cancelled
and societies reborn when many Christians are part of society: "Fearful social evils
may co-exist with a state of society wherein many are holy, and all have a large amount of
Christian light." If that is the case, how is social reconstruction to proceed?
Arthur envisions "the general renewal of
society" and the conversion of the world. He appeals to Jesus' own words: "All
power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." Sure of the might of the Gospel,
preached in the
Spirit's power, he rejects pessimism: "Are we to
conclude, that the power of the animating Spirit is spent, and that an age of feebleness
must succeed to one of power? To do so is fearfully to disbelieve at once the goodness and
the faithfulness of our God.''l5
Haven believed that society, including family and
government, is inherent in God's creative acts. Still, society may become perverse. The
moral nature of persons in society must be refined to the need for righteousness.
If society can become corrupt it can also return to
righteousness. "Society," as well as the individual, "is wicked inwardly
before it is formally." When its laws are evil it must repeal them and "make
them conformable to the law of God."'16 Peck construed the Civil War as an atonement
in blood for the sin of slavery.17 Haven prayed that "Church, State and Society in
all their life [may], speedily reveal the perfect cleansing of the American heart from the
unbrotherly distinction of man from man.''18
II. THE CHURCH AND THE REFORMATION OF SOCIETY:
DRAGGING HOLY VESTMENTS INTO SOCIAL STRIFE
"The hour is propitious. The great deeps of social
pride are breaking up. The Church can take the lead in these divine movements if she will.
She can drive this spirit of caste from the Temple of Christ. "19
"Some may yet complain that we drag the holy
vestments of the altar in this mire of social strife. If Christ showed that the zeal of
the house of the Lord had eaten him up, by scourging from the temple, the seat of civil as
well as religious authority, those that sold doves, what of those that sell MEN? The
temple of our national life has become defiled."20
So wrote Gilbert Haven in the decade of the Civil War.
His "Dragging holy vestments in this mire of civil strife" is a statement
concerning the church's participation in social reform. The answer of Haven, Peck, Stele,
Arthur, et al., to the question whether the
church should participate in such reform was a resounding affirmation. Society needs to be
reformed; it is capable of being reformed. However long and vexed may be the struggle,21
the nation will be regenerated, cleansed of social sins. The progress of the Gospel is
sure and the world's conversion envisioned.
The power of the Spirit is fundamental to the preaching
of the Gospel and to human reconstruction. Steele commented:
"The minister of Jesus Christ divests himself of a
large element of influence when he lays aside philanthropy in its common acceptation; and
he puts a powerful weapon into the hand of his adversary, when through his neglect, he
allows the enemy of the cross of Christ to assume the championship of any humane
enterprise."22
A. The Sin of Caste: Uprooting Prejudice
The great Cause in which the Church was obligated to
employ its empowered arm to conquer was the anti-slavery crusade. At the root of the slave
system was a spirit of prejudice, a "spirit of caste . . . more mean and sinful than
that which He [Christ] scourged from His Father's house." In 1854 and in 1858, Haven
preached the sermon: "Caste, the Corner-Stone of American Slavery." In it he
declared that using Scripture to condone slavery, "is a new argument for an old
sin...." "Scripture is stolen to deck a false idol."23
At the age of ten, Haven had defended a black girl
against the severity of a white schoolmaster, insisting that the schoolmaster's attitude
was a matter of color. In college he wrote home intimating that he might marry a black
girl.24 "My mother and the Bible made me an abolitionist."25 He saw the day
coming when the Church of Christ would overcome the shame of prejudice, when "in its
walls, without distinction of color or condition, without negro pews, or negro galleries,
or negro corners, all souls shall bow in the loving unity of 'one Lord, one faith, one
baptism.... "26
When the War ended, Haven rejoiced that "chattel
slavery" was dead, but, he observed, "Social slavery still prevails...."
Slavery was an institutional sin. "The Southern
mind felt this as keenly as the Northern, that slavery was a sin." But economic
interests prevented the attack on slavery. The South "resisted the Spirit of God.
They trampled under feet the national life principle. They counted the revolutionary [War]
blood shed for them an unholy thing...."
But the conscience of the North began to be moved and
the "constitutional and moral power" of the people was expressed. And the cause
of all this, the empowerment, was "the Spirit of God moving on the hearts of the
children of men...." The horse and his rider, the Northern political slave and his
Southern political master, "hath He cast into the sea!"
Haven perceived a direct link between the reform of
society and the Wesleyan message: "All the agencies for the renewal of society have
been touched to their issues by this man. Not a slave has been liberated, not a prisoner
relieved, not a barbarian in warfare abolished, . . . but that it can be traced to John
Wesley as the rays in the sky can be traced to the sun."27
To overcome the severest problems that would be created
by immediate abolition, Haven proposed the economic relief of slave owners "out of
the abundant wealth of the North," and the support of freed men in securing homes on
free soil. "We must bring our money to bear upon this sin, if we would see it die. 28
Peck's greatest oration concerning the end of slavery,
written retrospectively in 1868, described the "victories of blood and of
truth."
Great was our anguish, and great had been our crime; but
God's purposes in regard to the United States were now becoming more
evident, and men were awed before the majesty of His power. We began to realize "the
mission of great suffering." Our victories were not merely over the embattled hosts
of rebellion, but over the prejudices of ages. We had conquered ourselves. See what
opinions had gone down in this struggle, and what truths had taken their place! We thought
slavery was chiefly a misfortune: we had learned that it was an enormous individual and
national crime. We thought it could be met by concessions, but learned that it must be
destroyed. We thought it could be eradicated by truth, but learned that it could go out
only in blood. We thought the war must be one of white men, but learned that the slaves
were to have place and rank in the battle for freedom. We thought we could save the Union,
and concede "the right" of property in man; but we learned that liberty and
Union must stand or fall together. We thought we were fighting for the sovereignty of the
government, but learned that we were fighting to emancipate the negroes and the nation. We
thought, when the war was over, we must then deal with slavery as we might be able, but
learned that the war could not be ended until we had "proclaimed liberty throughout
the land to all the inhabitants thereof" We thought the manhood of slaves must be the
result of long and almost impossible culture; but we learned that it was in their very
being, and must have recognition and justice before the era of education could begin.
Finally, we had learned that God had determined to extend to the nation the regeneration
which had long been recognized as the privilege of the individual only.29
B. Other Social Concerns
These reformers were not content to deal only with
slavery, although most of the other problems pale alongside that gigantic effort. The
victory over slavery gave tremendous impetus and hope for ultimate victory over all evil.
C. Education
If, in some sectors of Wesleyan heritage,
anti-intellectualism reared its eccentric head, this was not true of these
Wesleyan/Holiness teachers. Haven's great sermon anticipated the integration of blacks and
whites in schools small or great, "unconscious of difference or prejudice."
Jesse Peck devoted part of his life to Dickinson College and Syracuse University, and
stressed the servant role of education in the life of faith and work. At Syracuse, as one
of the founders and a member of the original corporation, he devoted himself to the Board
of Trustees as president (1870-73) and subscribed $25,000 towards the school's needs. At
Dickinson, he lamented the annual $2,500 cost of one and a half professorships.
His special concern was in character formation as the
basis of all human activity. "Purity is a fundamental principle of a correct
character," he affirmed in his final baccalaureate to Dickinson graduates in 1852.
Education has "waited for its young men to come forth with sagacity to see, and power
to remedy the evils of the social state; but alas! how frequently have they emerged from
the halls of learning only charged with the terrible energy of invigorated and
concentrated selfishness...."30
The educational qualifications of Haven and his
colleagues were impressive. Haven and Steele graduated from Wesleyan Academy (Willbraham,
Mass.), and Wesleyan University. Haven ranked near the top of his class and for five years
taught at Amenia (N.Y.) Seminary, an academy. Steele taught at Genesee (Syracuse) then
Boston. Foster attended Augusta College in Kentucky, leaving upon advice at age seventeen
to enter the ministry. While he regretted this step later, he became thoroughly trained,
was president of North-Western (1857-60), labored at Drew as professor of theology, then
as president (1868-72), and was elected bishop in 1872. Late in life, he published a six
volume Christian theology, which was to be his unfinished final effort. He died in 1903.
Peck believed that the regenerative influence of the
churches would lead to the "re-organizing of civil society," with the
consequence of universal education and impartial suffrage.31 The "true manhood"
of the nation was being advanced, under the beneficent influence of Christianity, and the
religion of love. Asylums for the deaf and blind, hospitals for the insane and treatment
for alcoholics were concomitants of a nation rising in character and moral power.32
"The nations are to be gathered to the redeemer by the church's instrumentality . . .
hence her missions to foreign lands, her Bible and tract and educational efforts."33
Daniel Steele was probably the most distinguished
classical scholar among his peers. Described by George Steele (no relation) as a
hard-working, plodding student, "never brilliant and seldom witty," Daniel
shared with Haven and George Steele, and another, in a Bible reading group, which worked
from Greek and Hebrew texts. This "Triangle" (begun 1854, joined by Daniel in
1856 as fourth member) engaged in "animated discussion or hot debate, . . . sarcasm,
brilliant repartee, sharp rejoinder . . . where the most savage criticism of one's
favorite views was likely to be exercised...."34
Daniel became a teacher of exceptional merit,
particularly in the Greek classics. Frederick T. Persons claims that Steele possessed a
broad outlook and "was in full sympathy with the liberal scientific and theological
opinion of his time."35 In the Holiness movement of the present century, Steele's
interpretations of the punctiliar character of sanctification, expressed in the Greek
aorist tense, would assume almost conciliar status.36
D. Economic Interpretations
Daniel Steele was persuaded that money poses both a
danger and an opportunity to the church. Echoing Wesley's fear that Methodism, "God's
mission to the poor," might stray from her historic purpose through the accumulation
of wealth, Steele addressed the Christ culture issue which would be so eloquently
presented by H. Richard Niebuhr sixty years later. Assuming that the Gospel is the
"only true source of culture" he asked how the Gospel could proscribe what it
had created, "starve its own offspring" The answer was in self-discipline, not
denial or radical separation. "The consecration of property is . . . the abandonment
of its use as an instrument of self-aggrandizement,"38 he wrote in "Property and
Purity" (1889).
Under the editorial banner of Haven, in Zion's Herald,
James Redpath wrote a series of articles on "Christian Social Reconstruction."
The antagonism of labor and capital must be overcome. Their interests are one.
Christianity must not be excluded from politics or
economics. Christian ethics criticizes unfair practices. Redpath attacked the
disproportionate income of the distributor, and urged citizens to fight governmental
extravagance.39
In 1867, Phoebe Palmer praised Daniel Drew as the
example of "rich men, [who] when true to their responsibility as stewards, do much
for humanity; and perhaps there are not many such more disposed to live for public good by
honoring God with their substance than [Drew].... May the Lord preserve him amid all the
perils that wealth imposes, and enable him to abound yet more and more in every good
work."40
Editor Haven's paper, Zion Herald, recorded the adoption
of the eight hour work day without comment in 1867.41 Steele felt that union membership
was appropriate if the union could conduct its affairs along the lines of the Golden Rule.
He resisted the "closed shop" on the ground that it created a labor monopoly.
III. THE REGENERATION OF SOCIETY
With differing nuances of analysis, each of these
Methodist leaders expressed faith in the transforming possibilities of the Gospel,
proclaimed by the Church. Peck spoke glowingly concerning the "regeneration of the
nation" and the "regeneration of society." In "The Triumph of
Liberty" in his History, Peck proclaimed that the war had been highly
educative: "Finally we had learned that God had determined to extend to the nation
the regeneration which had long been recognized as the privilege of the individual. So
grandly rose truth in its new incarnation to enter upon its broader, mightier
mission to the world."43
Consider the key concepts in Peck's assessment:
regeneration of individuals, the extension of regeneration to nations, the "broader,
mightier mission" of "truth in its new incarnation" to change the world. As
in so much of Peck's Christian philosophy of history, the notion of social progress is
evident. For Peck, the church is the medium of social change in the nation. The "free
spirit of true Christianity" is the driving force.
"Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has
made you free...." If these orders are heard and obeyed, the new American Church will
be a living, united, free, evangelical Church, the vital force and grand working
power of the new nation.
The church would possess unity, not by dictate from
above but by development. "True Christianity works out the problem of soul-liberty,
and tends to universal emancipation. The great fact of the mission of progress is that it
is the mission of peace, and not of war, of love and not of blood." Peck concludes
his History in supreme optimism, affirming that Christianity will become "the
grandest missionary of progress ever known among men."44
Like Peck, Gilbert Haven affirmed the place of the
church and the Gospel in producing social reconstruction. In "The Mission of
America," a sermon from 1863, Haven set the ministry in the center of all human
affairs.
He scorned the challenge to ministers to stay away from
politics. To shut ministers away in the house of God while giving politicians the open
fields of human endeavor was contrary to Christ's lordship. The kingdoms of this world
belong to Him "who demands that they and all their subjects conform in all things to
the kingdom of heaven."45
The Gospel is not confined to a repentance and faith
that have no connection with social or civil duties.... The Cross is the center of the
spiritual and material universe.
It is the work of this full Gospel to produce the
renewal which makes this a better world.
Will a wicked system of government imperil the spiritual
welfare of its subjects? Will social vices tend to their corruption? They must be ...
overthrown.... Would not a holy society, a correct system of government, correctly
administered, a pure and lofty literature, in fine, a virtuous civil and social
organization, tend to the salvation of more souls than corrupted morals, despotic
government. . . ?
Christ crucified is the grand banner of the Church....
But to come and hug that flag-staff with apparent fondness, while the enemy is plowing the
outer lines with his diabolic artillery, is not affection, it is cowardice."46
Haven's commitment is precise. The world may and must be
changed. Transformation is achieved through a Gospel that addresses the full range of
human sin. When the social order is renewed the prospect of personal restoration is
enhanced. To preach Christ in a community pervaded with gross evil was nearly as
unfruitful as preaching in Hell.
After the War, Haven's faith was raised to its zenith.
On the occasion of Grant's election to the presidency, Haven, now editor of Zion's
Herald (1868), expressed the belief that great strides were being made toward the
"millennial year." Christians should labor "to bring the laws of society
into his control." The "Grand Sabbatic Year" was coming when "the
regeneration of the lands would be perfected."47 Observe the progress motif at work.
William Arthur's Tongue of Fire argues that the
church empowered by the Holy Spirit is the source of conversion and renewal of this world.
"It is an agency raised up to carry out the great work of conversion which the Lord
has begun within . . . Christendom, and then bear outward the banner until every nation
under heaven bows under it."
Arthur echoes the theme of progress through evangelical
means. "What an advance has Christianity made; as to the impress upon our national
manners, within the last century! On . . . those who love God and those who love
Him not, she has imposed many restraints.... How
different the spiritual condition of many of our rural and manufacturing districts from
what they were a century ago" (An evident allusion to the reforming work of Wesley
and Methodism).48
Arthur was convinced that this converting word of the
Gospel would, by the power of the Spirit, reach the ends of the earth. Like Peck and
Haven, he was a thoroughgoing transformist. How could he hold this position? Arthur
understood that Christ the Lord intended "to renew the earth, as a whole, in
righteousness."
We do not mean to hold any controversy with those who
have . . . the view, that the Christian dispensation is a kind of interlude between the
Lord's lifetime upon earth, and a future earthly reign, meanwhile bearing witness to His
name; a witness for the conversion of a few, and the condemnation of the many. We leave
them with the praise of being perfectly consistent, in expecting small results from the
preaching of the Gospel; and . . . looking on that Gospel in a light which warrants little
faith.49
Without the Holy Spirit, the church was merely a
"natural agency for social improvement," blessed with superhuman doctrines, but
destitute of a superhuman power." Believing in the power of the Holy Ghost, Arthur
expected world transformation:
In this age of faith in the natural, and disinclination
to the supernatural, we want especially to meet the whole world with this credo, "I
believe in the Holy Ghost." I expect to see saints as lovely as any that are written
of in the Scriptures-because I believe in the Holy Ghost. I expect to see preachers as
powerful to set forth Christ, evidently crucified before the eyes of men, as powerful to
pierce the conscience, to persuade, to convince, to convert, as any that ever shook the
multitudes of Jerusalem, or Corinth, or Rome-because I believe in the Holy Ghost. I expect
to see Churches, the members of which shall be severally endued with spiritual gifts, and
every one moving in spiritual activity, animating and edifying one another, commending
themselves to the conscience of the world by their good works, commending their Savior to
it by a heart-engaging testimony-because I believe all in the Holy Ghost. I expect to see
villages where the respectable people are now opposed to religion, the proprietor ungodly,
the nominal pastor worldly, all that take a lead set against living Christianity-to see
such villages summoned, disturbed, divided, and then re-united, by the subduing of the
whole population to Christ-because I believe in the Holy Ghost. I expect to see cities
swept from end to end, their manners elevated, their commerce purified, their politics
Christianized, their criminal population reformed, their poor made to feel that they dwell
among brethren-righteousness in the streets, peace in the homes, an altar at every
fireside-because I believe in the Holy Ghost. I expect the world to be overflowed with the
knowledge of God; the day to come when no man shall need to say to his neighbor,
"Know thou the Lord"; but when all shall know Him, "from the least unto the
greatest"; east and west, north and south, uniting to praise the name of the one God,
and the one Mediator-because I believe in the Holy Ghost.50
Beautiful, but utterly naive? So it might seem, except .
. . the power of God's Spirit is beyond imagining.
Randolph Foster was one of Methodism's great orators. In
his Christian Purity he argued that the "physical man" had enjoyed his
day, the "intellectual" his. So must the "spiritual" man. The moral
energy of God is "stirring and heaving." If the observer of the world carefully
considers, "he must perceive in the Gospel the elements of the world's regeneration;
and in surrounding phenomena, predictive foreshadowings of the oncoming . . . glories of a
reign of righteousness and peace. "51
A. Social Transformation: By What Means?
While there is among these men a body of common opinion
regarding the place of the Word of God in social change, there are certain nuances or
accents in which they differ. Since points of emphasis shape theology so profoundly, it
will be helpful to analyze separately the perspectives of Peck, Haven, Arthur, and
particularly, Daniel Steele.
Peck expresses a social philosophy in which progress
toward the "new manhood" in a regenerated society is certain. In my 1978 paper
in Methodist History, "Reformation and Perfection: The Social Gospel of Bishop
Peck," I have claimed that Peck's doctrine of progress and a view of manifest destiny
strongly shaped his position on social reconstruction. The mood of his writings seems less
"evangelical" than that of Arthur or Steele. His progress thesis appears to be
more philosophical, more secular than the others. Haven seems closer to the evangelion
than Peck. But I must qualify this argument by insisting that Peck's
"evangelicalism" is muted only relatively and minimally when compared with later
liberalism, whether "evangelical" or "modernistic" liberalism, to use
Kenneth Cauthen's typologies.
B. Pre-Millennialism and Social Reconstruction:
Daniel Steele's Vision of
Renewal
As we review the question of means effecting social
conversion in the Wesleyan/Holiness tradition, the interpretations of Daniel Steele become
especially helpful. Two streams of Biblical and theological analysis provided the foil for
his criticism and constructive insights. The first was the pre-millennialist and prophetic
views which were powerfully influencing late nineteenth-century American Protestants. A
view of the human, social prospect was central to the reflections of Darby, the Plymouth
Brethren, Moody and others. William Arthur had satirized those of little faith who
expected "small results from the preaching of the Gospel."52 This argument was
expanded in Steele's critique of the Darbyist viewpoint, especially in A Substitute for
Holiness: or Antinominianism Revived. The millennium would not arrive in the radical
rupture of history by the second Coming of Christ, but by the sure power of the Word of
God preached. The Brethren had substituted the personal reign of Christ on earth for the
"present agency of the Spirit and of preaching." Their view did not offer
adequate means for the "successful evangelization of the whole world and the
reconstruction of society on a Christian basis." Steele satirized the pre-millennial
position: "From the Cross to the Second Advent there is nothing but a
parenthesis." If the pre-milllennialists were correct the Great Commission was
"designed only to keep alive a testimony for Christ, not to inaugurate a
victory." When the Methodists were criticized for their intentional absence from the
Prophetic Conference in New York in 1878, Steele rejoined that the Methodist Church was
"by no means so discouraged with the progress of the Gospel as to pronounce the
dispensation of the Holy Spirit as inadequate to the conquest of the world to
Christ."53
The world might be won to Christ, Steele taught:
"The kingdom is to be established by preaching, and it is to develop gradually till
its ultimate triumph." In the parables of mustard seed and leaven, Jesus was teaching
"the development of [his] kingdom from small beginnings through long ages." The
leaven of the Gospel has "assimilative power . . . to penetrate the whole mass of
humanity and transform the whole being of individuals."54
The theme of a coming millennium was present in varying
degrees in each of the Methodists surveyed. Haven saw the millennial year, the "Grand
Sabbatic year," when "the regeneration of the lands would be perfected."55
The millennium would follow a gradual but sure line of
progress. "God does not make abrupt and arbitrary changes in the social state,"
Peck insisted, but movement toward the goal of history may be made. The nation should seek
to perfect its laws. "Personal regeneration must extend until political corruption
shall become improbable, unpopular, impossible...."56
C. Remington Rifles or Bows and Arrows? Evangelical
or Liberal Social Reform
The dialogue concerning individual conversion as the
avenue to social reform, or reform as critical to the conversion of individuals as a
second area considered by Steele and the others of like mind. Peck pointed up the
extension of renewal from the individual to society, and pictured the "new
manhood" of a transformed society.57 Haven affirmed that a "holy society,"
"a virtuous civil and social organization" would tend toward the salvation of
souls more surely than would an immoral order of life.58
Arthur contended for the necessary extension of the
principles of Christianity to social evils. Should holy individuals fail to exercise their
influence, terrible social evils would go unchecked. "To be indifferent to these
things is as unfaithful to Christian morals on the one hand, as hoping to remedy them
without spreading practical holiness among individuals, is astray from truth on the
other."59
If sin is corporate as well as personal, as these men
believed it to be it is to be expected that they would address the problem of social
holiness as well as individual. In 1877, on the seventh milestone of his experience of
sanctification, Steele expressed concern over "rocking chair" holiness. The
professor of perfection cannot blindly assume that all things, "even gigantic social
and political evils are working out to the highest good."
I find myself, by tongue and pen and vote, antagonizing
every movement of Satan in society, in politics, and in literature. I have forebodings
when selfish and wicked men are lifted into power.60
In a series of essays, published posthumously in 1917,
Steele sought to establish the priority of personal conversion. Philanthropy cannot be
adequate apart from Christianity. The failure of most social remedies rested upon their
premise that change begins "with the mass and not the individual." If outward
reforms produced paradise in this world, the citizens of that society would be
"heavenly in behavior, but satanic in principle."61
Nevertheless, in another essay, he affirmed divine
efforts toward reconstruction:
While we believe that society can be most effectively
regenerated by regenerating the individual, we should . . . express a lively sympathy with
all who . . . are trying to cast out devils in the name of Jesus regarded as a . . .
reformer. They are, so far as the moral well-being of our society is concerned, our
allies. . ., though they are fighting with bows and arrows when they might be firing
Remington rifles.62
However, we should express the relationship between
individual regeneration and social reconstruction in terms of movement from one to the
other, rather than as different tracks, as in Steele's comment. We are then consistent
with the normal position found in our sources, i.e., that there is a way from personal
re-birth to the new birth of society (as in Peck's "new manhood").
D. The Theoretical Bridge From Personal to Social
Regeneration and Sanctification
Earlier Peck made the assertion that "personal
regeneration must extend until political corruption shall become ... impossible...."
But how does such an extension take place? How do Peck, et al., move from the
personal to the social or national context in reformation?
The answer begins with the judgment of these men that
the Gospel extends to all of life, beginning with individual members of society and
proceeding to the social order. Their "post-millennialism" led them to the
persuasion that ultimate reconstruction was sure, triumph certain. The way to that
reconstruction was through the Spirit and preaching. Faith in the power of Christ's Gospel
coupled with the belief that the outcome was assured, brought them to a syllogism of
renewal: Truth and holiness are stronger than evil; the Gospel is the divine dynamic of
victory, preached in the Spirit; the millennium is coming. Then be assured of progress to
the eschaton.
In my essay on Peck in Methodist History (1978) I
hypothesized that the progress motif becomes the theoretical bridge from the one to the
many.63
In this present analysis, it is important to recognize
the progress thesis throughout the vision of Haven, Peck, Foster, Arthur, and Steele.
Their larger sense was that retrogression and moral decay are rooted in sin, viewed in its
full range of meaning (individual to institutional). But when they connected faith in the
Gospel preached, the transforming power of the Spirit, and the promise of millennial
glory, the progress theme was natural, logical, inevitable. Peck's vision of progress,
joined to a "manifest destiny" assessment of national development, was perhaps
derived more from the philosophic dialogue of the times than the evangelical matrix.64 Yet
he cannot be understood apart from the latter. And it is my opinion that Arthur and Steele
drew their view of progress more exclusively from their faith in Spirit and Word, and
their hope of Christ's exalted victory over evil.
IV. THE HOLINESS MOVEMENT AND SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION
About two decades ago, Timothy Smith proposed for
scholarly discussion the issue he called "The Great Reversal."65 Why did
evangelicalism, which had devoted so much of its moral energy to reforming society,
reverse its field late in the last century and on into this century? The purpose of this
present effort is intended to be preliminary and is better described as inquiry than as
response.
The Holiness Movement seems to be well described by this
reversal. In his forthcoming chapter 66 on the post-bellum attitudes of the Wesleyan
Methodists, Lee Haines assesses the reasons these reformers experienced a diminished
social vision. He posits a number of arguments for the changes, some of which are:
1. A change of membership-the original Wesleyan
Methodist reformers (like Matlack) returned to the Methodist Episcopal Church.
2. The breakup of the reform coalition after the War. No
issue could fill the huge place slavery had held.
3. Convinced that the power of the lodge perpetuated
slavery, Wesleyans turned to that issue.
4. Personal reforms-alcoholism, secretism-were the
issues of concern.
5. There was a natural revulsion to war.
6. So much focus in church services on political and
social issues led to loss of warmth in worship.
7. There was an increasing identification of liberal
causes with the new learning flowing from evolutionism, etc.
8. The new immigration and industrialization changed the
vision of the people.
Considering whether or not this description of Wesleyan
Methodism may be extended to the larger Holiness movement seems pertinent to the present
discussion.
The Ethics of Separation
The relationships between the writers considered here
and the emerging holiness people offer interesting comparisons and contrasts. They
provided important sources for the teaching of perfection among the Holiness people, works
such as Peck's Central Idea of Christianity; Foster's Christian Purity;
several of Steele's writings, Milestone Papers, Love Enthroned, Half Hours with Paul,
The Gospel of the Comforter; and Arthur's Tongue of Fire. But the social reform
component of their writings was quietly ignored, or rejected.67
In a forthcoming chapter, "They Confessed
Themselves Pilgrims,"68 I have reviewed some of the literature of the Pilgrim
Holiness Church from 1897-1930. On the basis of that study, it seems that the Pilgrims
were representatives of the type of Christian response which Niebuhr labels "Christ
Against Culture." No significant appeals for social reconstruction are to be found.
That is not to say there were no efforts to change the lives of persons, especially those
who were truly "down and out." Homes for unwed mothers, rescue missions for the
downtrodden, and a variety of programs for bearing the gospel to the nations were critical
parts of that effort. The gospel was not only good news of salvation, but it offered the
people of these lands reconstructive support in education, health, agriculture, food,
water, clothing, and more.
The Pilgrims and other Holiness people offered an early
interpretation of the place of women in ministry. Whereas Jesse Peck's True Woman
has insisted on the place of the woman in domestic life, the Pilgrims amplified the
"Pentecostal privilege" given to women. And they preached! In 1901, the Pilgrims
ordained Charles and Lettie Cowman to the ministry of the gospel. By 1930, in a number of
districts, as many as 30% of the ordained were women.
Finally, peace became a matter of special interest after
World War I. The Manual, the official discipline of the Church, carried this
statement from 1922-42:
Military warfare and the spirit of it are contrary to
the teachings of the New Testament and the Spirit of Jesus Christ; therefore we are
opposed to military training and strongly urge our members to refrain from bearing arms in
war.69
In 1942, the horror of Nazi aggression impacted the
Pilgrims along with the rest of the nation. Radical separation from society would not be
maintained in this instance, and the Manual statement was modified: "Inasmuch
as many of our people believe that military warfare is contrary . . . others believe that
their obligation to the State [may] . . . require them to take their place in the armed
forces.... We ... lend our support to ... members that their conscience be not
violated."70
As a second generation Pilgrim, I am gratified with
their concern to be truly Christian in all spheres of life. Nevertheless, it may be
contended that theirs was a separationist ethics which was opposite to the transformist
position of Peck, Arthur, Steele, et al Historical factors pressed the earlier
writers to take a stand against slavery. For the Holiness people, that issue was history,
although they lacked particular concern for the needs of the blacks, and often shared in
contemporary prejudices. The forces of history pressed the Pilgrims first into pacifism,
then into a more open view of the ends of warfare. Their view of women in ministry set
them athwart history, for very few Christians envisioned that prospect.
When we seek an explanation for the difference between
earlier and later Wesleyan/Holiness thinkers, the answer seems to be their differing
visions of salvation history.
Peck and his contemporaries possessed a lofty vision
concerning the transformation of society, the conversion of people from sins individual
and institutional. They dreamed of a world ordered by Christian values, a world won to
Christ.
The later Holiness movement generally lacked that
vision. Their vision was increasingly shaped in pre-millennialist terms, a view congenial
to their separationist concerns, and to the conversion of individuals to Christ. They
expressed little formal interest in social reconstruction. Martin Wells Knapp, a founder
of the Pilgrim Holiness Church became a pre-millennialist in the later years of his life.
In the Revivalist, February 1897, he announced the aim of the paper to be the
enhancement of holy living through the teaching of the Second Coming, and that "every
fully-developed Pentecostal experience includes this Pentecostal expecting of the coming
of the King." Knapp identified the influence of L. L. Pickett in his sources of
pre-millennial teaching, an identification confirmed by A. M. Hills. Hills also suggests
the friendship of Dr. W. B. Godbey as contributive to Knapp's position.71
In the Revivalist, Knapp stated his purposes. He
intended "To oppose the formality, worldliness, and ecclesiastical usurpation which
threatens the very life of the believer."72
The problem of worldliness was a pervasive fear among
these men and women, a theme less evident in the men holding the transformist vision
toward society. The latter were so convinced of the prospect of the victory of the Church
of Jesus that they seem to be relatively unworried by worldliness. In Knapp, Rees, Godbey,
Pickett, and E. E. Shelhamer, as well as Joseph H. Smith and Charles J. Fowler,73 the
motif of withdrawal is strong. Free Methodist Shelhamer signed the title of his book,
"Yours for a clean, rather than a big work."74 Pickett included a classic
statement of the fear of worldliness in his The Book and Its Themes:
The Church and the World walked far apart
On the changing shore of time;
The World was singing a giddy song,
And the Church a hymn sublime.
"Come, give me your hand," said the merry World,
"And then walk with me in this way."
.........................................................
Half shyly the Church approached the
World,
And gave him her hand of snow;
And the false World grasped it, and walked along,
And whispered in accents low:
"Your dress is too simple to please my taste;
I have gold and pearls to wear;
Rich velvets and silks for your graceful form,
And diamonds to deck your hair.
"Your house is too plain," said
the proud old World;
"Let us build you one like mine,
With kitchen for feasting, and parlor for play,
And furniture never so fine."
So he built her a costly and beautiful house;
Splendid it was to behold;
Her sons and her daughters met frequently
there,
Shining in purple and gold.
And fair and festival-frolics untold-
Were held in the place of prayer;
And maidens, bewitching as sirens of old,
With world-winning graces rare,
Bedecked with fair jewels, and hair all curled,
Untrammeled by gospel or laws,
To beguile and amuse and win from the World
Some help for the righteous cause.
The Angel of mercy rebuked the Church,
And whispered: "I know thy sin."
Then the Church looked sad, and anxiously longed
To gather the children in.
But some were away at the midnight ball,
And others busy at the play;
And some were drinking in gay saloons,
And the angel went away.
And then said the World, in soothing tones:
"Your much loved ones mean no harm-
Merely indulging in innocent sports."
So she leaned still on his proffered arm.
And they of the Church and they of the
World
Journeyed closely hand and heart,
And none but the Master, who knoweth all,
Could discern the two apart.
Then the Church sat down at her ease, and
said:
"I'm rich and in goods increased;
I have need of nothing, and naught to do,
But to laugh and dance and feast."
The sly World heard her, and laughed
within,
And mockingly said, aside:
"The Church has fallen-the beautiful Church;
Her shame is her boast and pride."75
It seems that the direction of Holiness thinking turned
toward a reversal of the vision of the earlier Wesleyan/Holiness thinkers. "From
transformation to separation" is too simple, yet it may be a fair generalization.
What catalyst prompted that gradual change? For the transformists, holy living by the
power of the Spirit, preaching the Gospel, linked with the sure confidence in Christ's
final victory, gave them the faith that they would see progress toward the millennium. For
the separationists, sanctification, linked with pre-millennial emphases, led to more focus
on inner holiness or personal godliness and avoidance of much of the world order, its
fashions, philosophies, or customs,76 and toward getting as many others as possible ready
for heaven.
The vision of the transformists, so grand and hopeful,
was increasingly narrowed. That the Holiness people constricted the hope for social
improvement in a time when many prominent thinkers (the dialectical theologians, and many
more) were becoming deeply pessimistic about the world, is an issue deserving assessment.
In this developing negation, the Holiness people may be anticipatory. Their retreat from
the world was a combination of several issues, not least of which was the gathering gloom
of the imminent day of Christ's coming to judge the world. For them that presaged hope;
for the world, destruction. Social reformation receives almost none of the attention it
found in their Wesleyan fathers. Personal salvation receives maximum attention.
Notes
1 See Paul Bassett's paper on manifest destiny from the
Wesleyan-Holiness Conference at Asbury Theological Seminary June 1988; and my
"Reformation and Perfection: The Social Gospel of Bishop Peck," Methodist
History (January 1978).
2 Haven was "an agitator, a disturber, an
irrepressible radical, until the Wrong which was the agony of his heart . . . was
destroyed from the face of the earth." Bishop Foster's funeral oration for Haven,
seen in George Prentice, The Life of Gilbert Haven (New York: Phillips and Hunt,
1883), 516ff.
3 Lee M. Haines, An Outline History of the Wesleyan
Church (Marion: Wesley Press, 1981).
4 William Arthur, Tongue of Fire (New York:
Harper and Brothers,1880), 306-08.
5 Cited by Paul Ramsey, Nine Modern Moralists (Englewood
Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1962), 149.
6 Sorbin (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1972), 44-47,
101. Timothy L. Smith adds that the doctrine of perfection was "the contribution
Methodists made to the romantic idealism which underlay so much of the movement for social
reform in the late l9th and early 20th centuries." Emory S. Buck, ed., The History
of American Methodism II (New York: Abingdon Press, 1964), 618, 610.
7 Cameron, Methodism and Society in Historical
Perspective (New York: Abingdon Press, 1961), 262f.
8 See my "Original Sin as Deprivation"
Wesleyan Theological Journal Vol. 22, No. 2 (Fall, 1987), 65-83. Chiles Theological
Transition in American Methodism (New York: Abingdon, 1965).
9 Daniel Steele, Love Enthroned (New York: Nelson
and Phillips,1875),22.
10 Jesse T. Peck, The Central Idea of Christianity
(New York: Hunt and Eaton, 1889), 334.
11 Daniel Steele, Milestone Papers (New York:
Nelson and Phillips, 1876), 13, 19.
12 Arthur, Tongue of Fire, 113.
13 Ibid, 283.
14 Ibid, 129-133. "Statesmen and
philanthropists, occupied with the idea of forming happy nations, frequently look to good
institutions as the means of doing so; but . . . as a means of regeneration, political
instruments are impotent Good institutions given to a depraved and unprincipled people,
end in bringing that which is good into disrepute. In fact, . . . institutions which are
good for a people of good principles, are bad for a people destitute of principle. The
only way to the effective regeneration of society is the regeneration of
individuals...."
15 Ibid, 331.
16 Haven, National Sermons (Boston: Lee and
Shepherd, 1869), 6-8, 12- 15, 25, 32.
17 Jesse T. Peck, The History of the Great Republic
(New York: Broughton and Wyman, 1869), 679-80. Slavery was an "enormous individual
and national crime" [Peck terms it criminal, not sinful here] which could "go
out only in blood."
18Haven, National Sermons, XI I .
19Haven, "The Church and the Negro" (Sermon,
1863). Ibid, 368,371-72.
20 Haven, "Te Deum Laudamus" (Sermon,
11-11-1860) on the day of Lincoln's election. Cited from my essay analysis of Haven's
sermon in A.M.E. Zion Quarterly Review (Fall, 1975), 202-21.
21 Haven knew it would be arduous, but predicted that by
July 4, 1876, the centennial of liberty, the cause of liberty would prevail. "This
must be the work of time. Yet the change is rapid from daybreak to dawn.... And when the
sun rises, darkness flees to its caves, though a few shadows may linger." "What
a day that day of deliverance will be, the great and acceptable day of the Lord, a day
sure to come; a day, I believe. soon to come." Ibid
22 Steele, Half Hours with St. Paul (Chicago and
Boston: The Christian Witness Co.. 1909). 283.
23 Haven, National Sermons, 123-25.
24 Prentice, op. cit., 21ff
25 Ibid, Daniel Steele argued that racial
intermarriage should depend on the love of two people and ought not be prevented by social
ostracism or by "Unwise and unrighteous legislation." It was a strange
Christianity which could be "contemptuous to a black saint and complimentary to a
white sinner." The sin of racial prejudice violated the law of progress because it
prevented many persons from achieving a better life. "Politics and the Pulpit"
Methodist Quarterly Review (April 1870), 189-204.
Alfred E. Cookman, a leader in the promotion of Holiness in Methodism and in the Camp
Meeting Association addressed the condition of slaves after the war. To those touting
colonization he wrote: "Let us live for the present, faithfully discharging the duty
of the passing hour, which is to educate and elevate a people whose unrequited labors,
multiplied wrongs . . . give them a special claim upon us. Give them the spelling book,
the Bible, equal rights before the law, and the elective franchise as their weapon of
defense...." A letter to his sister, Mary B. Cookman, June 6, 1866 in Henry B.
Ridgaway, The Life of the Rev. Alfred Cookman (New York: Nelson and Phillips,
1873), 299-300.
26 Haven "Te Deum Laudamus" in A.M.E. Zion
Quarterly Review (Fall, 1975), 202-21.
27 Haven, "John Wesley and Modern Philosophy,"
Methodist Quarterly Review (January, 1879), 6-7.
28 "Te Deum Laudamus," A.M.E. Zion
Quarterly Review (Fall, 1975), 202-21.
29 Peck, History, 679-80. My emphasis.
30 J. T. Peck, "God in Education,"
Baccalaureate Address ~Washington, D.C., Robert A. Waters, printer, 1852), 4, 15.
31 Peck's focus is surely on men, particularly black
men, but not women. In his book, The True Woman, he delineated a traditional
woman's role, envisioning no such liberation for women in the nation's renewal as he did
for men.
32 Peck, History, 480-82, 680ff.
33 Peck, Central Idea, 130.
34 Prentice, op. cit., 173-75.
35"Daniel Steele" Dictionary of American
Biography IX (New York: Charles Scribner's. 1964), 555.
36 Robert W. Lyon's "Baptism and Spirit-Baptism in
the New Testament," Wesleyan Theological Journal 14 (Spring, 1979),14-26,
debates this assumption of the definitive authority of the aorist for instantaneous
sanctification.
37 Zion's Herald (August 22, 1867), 133ff.
38 "Property and Purity," Divine Life
13 (December, 1889), 145-47.
39 Zion's Herald (June 5, 1867), 89ff.
40 Guide to Holiness 52 (September, 1867), 85.
41 (May 8, 1816), 75.
42 Steele's Answers (Chicago: Christian Witness
Co., 1912), 204-05, 269.
43 Peck, History, 510, 551, 680.
44 Ibid, 693-94, 709-10. Church unity will be
achieved by development, not despotic authority. This is a key to Peck's understanding of
social change. It was the church which would be "re-organizing civil society.
45 Haven, National Sermons, 334-38.
46 Ibid, 341-42.
47 Ibid., 629-30, 601-02.
48 Arthur, op. cit., 327.
49 Ibid, 338.
50 Arthur, op. cit., 306-08.
51 Randolph S. Foster, Christian Purity (New
York: Carlton and Lanahan, 1869), 23-24, 320-21.
52 Arthur's Tongue of Fire, revised edition, was
published in 1879, when pre-millennialist views were prevalent.
53 Steele, A Substitute for Holiness: or,
Anti-nomianism Revised, 3rd ed. (Chicago: The Christian Witness Co., 1887).
54 Ibid, 246-49. Steele's emphasis.
55 Haven, National Sermons, 629-30, 601-02.
56 Peck, History, 205, 208, 480-82, 707-09.
57 Peck, History, 680.
58 Haven, National Sermons, 341-42.
59 Arthur, op. cit., 130-31. See Asbury Lowry's
justification of the need for holiness revival as a corrective of political evil in
Divine Life 13 (December, 1889). See Steele's "Politics and the Pulpit," MQR
(April, 1870), 189-204.
60Steele, Milestone Papers, 291-92.
61 Steele, "The Spirit and Preaching," The
Gospel of the Comforter (Chicago: Christian Witness Co., 1917), 246-48.
62 Ibid, 175.
63 Hynson, "Reformation and Perfection: The Social
Gospel of Bishop Peck," Methodist History (January, 1978), 82-91.
64 Compare the language of Peck's great social vision (in
History) with that of William Gilpin (The Central Gold Region, The Grain, Pastoral,
and Gold Regions of North America (1860); revised and published The Mission of the
North American People (1873). Gilpin was born 1813, a friend of Andrew Jackson, a
military man, appointed as first governor of Colorado Territory in 1861 by Lincoln. Gilpin
described the destiny of the nation:
"The untransacted destiny of the American
people is to subdue the continent . . . to animate the many hundred millions of its
people, and to cheer them upward . . . to establish a new order in human affairs . . . to
regenerate superannuated nations . . . to stir up the sleep of a hundred centuries . . .
to confirm the destiny of the human race . . . to carry the career of mankind to its
culminating point . . . to cause a stagnant people to be reborn
. . . to unite the world in one social family . . . and
to shed blessings around the world."
This was in Mission (1873), in which he quotes a
letter of 1846. See Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1950),37,266 (from Chapter III footnotes, #4). Peck's
vision seems to be the Christian philosophical mirror to Gilpin's secular dream of
manifest destiny.
65 Smith is quoted by David 0. Moberg, The Great
Reversal: Evangelism versus Social Concern (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1972), 11.
66 In forthcoming volume Reformers and Revivalists, a
history of the Wesleyan church. My source was a conversation with Haines on August
28,1989, and is used here by permission. See also his "Radical Reform and Living
Piety: Creative Tension or Inevitable Exclusion?" Historical Bulletin: World
Methodist Historical Society, Vol. 18 (lst and 2nd quarters, 1989), 4-7, 3-12.
67 Joseph H. Smith notes some perils in Christian work:
"neglecting personal piety for public work" and "becoming absorbed in lines
of work which are not spiritual in their nature.... The material interests of the Church,
sociological problems of the world. . ., and a variety of other things which are Christian
only in a secondary, proximate, or remote sense may easily be allowed to consume the
energies without resulting in a single star for one's crown." From Glory to Glory:
or, Degrees in Spiritual Life /Philadelphia Christian Standard Col, 1898), 162-63.
George B. Kulp preached: "The churches today are preaching the gospel of DO, DO, DO,
running to social service, and neglecting the salvation of souls. Everything today is
along the lines of humanitarian effort and social lines. The world will never be won for
God that way...." Truths that Transfigure (Cincinnati: God's Revivalist Press,
1927), 71.
68 In Reformers and Revivalists, forthcoming
volume.
69 The Manual, 1930, p. 45.
70 Manual (1942), 51-52-
71 A. M. Hills, A Hero of Faith and Prayer: or Life
of Rev Martin Wells Knapp (Cincinnati: Mrs. M. W. Knapp, 1902), 154-56.
72 See advertisement in Hills, end pages.
73 Smith and Fowler both held leading roles in the
National Association for the Promotion of Holiness. See Smith's From Glory to Glory,
Fowler, Back to Pentecost (Philadelphia: Christian Standard Co., 1900).
74 E. E. Shelhamer, Heart Searching Sermons and
Sayings (Atlanta: Repairer Publishing Co., 1917), frontispiece.
75 L. L. Pickett, The Book and Its Theme (Louisville:
Pickett Publishing Co., 1890), 238-39. The Advocate carried some typical
"Squibs":
"I met a so-called holiness preacher who said he
had to wear a diamond ring to keep his job. He may keep his job but lose his soul.
"Worldliness is bringing an awful pressure to bear
upon the saints everywhere. Beware of intimacy or too close contact with this old world.
"I heard a lady whose hat was filled with plumes
sing a solo, 'I never can forget how the fire fell.' I will not soon forget how it did not
fall. The fire of Pentecost not only purifies the heart but will melt your jewelry, singe
your feathers, crack your paint and scorch your powder.
"Feathers, rag flowers or dead birds will find no
place in the market of holy women."
The Pilgrim Holiness Advocate, editors, C. G.
Taylor and Seth C. Rees (January 22, 1925), 5.
76 This may be perceived earlier in a sermon by C. F.
Turner, Presiding Elder, who affirmed "the propriety of making a specialty of
holiness in this dispensation of the Spirit. These last times so near the approach of
millennial glory.
"Hasten, Lord, the perfect day;
Now thy every servant say,
I have now obtained the power,
Born of God to sin no more."
In Wallace, A Modern Pentecost, 187.
Turner may not have been a pre-millennialist, but his
assessment is illustrative of the point made.
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