THE HISTORIOGRAPHY
OF
THE
WESLEYAN/HOLINESS TRADITION
by
David Bundy
In developing a research agenda, the scholar is limited
both by the work that has gone on before and the sources available for analysis. This
truism has been the subject of significant reflection among philosophers of history.
However, scholars of the Wesleyan/Holiness tradition1 generally have not taken time to
examine their methods and sources, especially at the points where their sources present
disjunctions vis-a-vis the methods and sources used by scholars of American religion who
focus on the so-called "mainstream.
It is the intent of this essay to begin a discussion of
the tradition of rationalization in the study of the Wesleyan/Holiness movement. The
argument is that new attention must be paid to the diverse genre of social and theological
discourse used within the Wesleyan/Holiness movement and that tools of structural and
social analysis may provide new paradigms of understanding. The method of the essay is to
discuss the stows question is, examine the range of sources used, and suggest
historiographical issues raised by this investigation.
In the basis of this analysis, desiderata for research
and recommendations for developing new structures of discourse about the Wesleyan/Holiness
tradition will be proposed. Although occasional reference is made to publications
concerned with theological issues, the study of the theology of the tradition is generally
beyond the scope of this essay. The intention is not to be exhaustive with regard to
bibliography.
Many significant works, especially unpublished
dissertations and theses, cannot be mentioned due to space. For the same reason, scholarly
articles are rarely mentioned. The focus of reflection in this essay is the effort to
place the Wesleyan/Holiness tradition in the context of American religious experience and
to provide structures for self-understanding and for the articulation of ideals and values
to groups outside the Wesleyan/Holiness tradition. While mention is made of works written
by scholars outside the tradition, the emphasis is on research internal to the tradition.2
Research on the Wesleyan/Holiness Tradition
The Wesleyan/Holiness tradition has had its chroniclers
from its earliest years, due perhaps in part to a concern with documentation inherited
from the Methodists. This record-keeping tradition was generally maintained, although not
always preserved, despite the fact that these persons often understood themselves to be
over against the Methodist Episcopal Church (Noah and South) in calling it back to its
presumed theological heritage. The historical works, based on selected primary literature
and historical, biographical or autobiographical in genre, were often composed for special
anniversaries or to keep the morale high and funds flowing, as well as to celebrate the
life and work of individuals consecrated to an activist spirituality.
Included in this category are volumes like W. W. Cary's
history of the National Holiness Missionary Society (which became World Gospel Mission)3
and George Hughes' narrative of the first half-century of the Tuesday Meeting held at the
home of Phoebe and Walter Palmer (and later Sarah Lankford Palmer).4 Similar were the
historical, missiological, self-promotional contributions of William Taylor, which,
despite their shortcomings, preserve otherwise unavailable primary documents.5 These
volumes and hundreds like them are worthy of a major study for their public relations and
propaganda value as well as historical documents.
The same can be said for most Wesleyan/Holiness
denominational histories, many of which were produced during the 1950s and 1960s. Nearly
all of these were written in an effort to revise the historical traditions of the Holiness
churches so that they might appear more "mainstream" and more in continuity with
Wesley than mere observers might have noted. For example, Bishop Leslie Marston endeavored
to create a respectable Methodist heritage, arguing that Free Methodists are in direct
continuity with Wesley, without taking into account the radical structures of the
tradition during the first six decades of the group's history.6 The most useful of these
volumes are Timothy Smith's work on the Church of the Nazarene, which recognized the
diversity and actual class structures of many of the early components of the denomination,
and John Smith's analysis of the Church of God (Anderson).7
Before the 1950s. The Wesleyan/Holiness tradition was
first considered in academic terms by Wilson T. Hogue in his University of Chicago
dissertation.8 William Warren Sweet and his students at the University of Chicago,
particularly Merrill B. Gaddis' 1929 dissertation, "Christian Perfection in
America," applied Sweet's thesis about frontier religion to the phenomena. Sweet,
formerly a professor at Indiana Asbury University (DePauw University) in Indiana wrote of
Methodism in Indiana as if the holiness movement were totally irrelevant to the
development of Methodism in the state.9
Three other dissertations/theses of the decade made
significant contributions to the historiography of the tradition. Perhaps the most
important was never published, that of Harold Reed which applied H. Richard Niebuhr's sect
theory to the Church of the Nazarene.10 Published by their respective denominational
publishers were the works of Clarence F. Cowan (Church of God, Holiness) and Maury E.
Redford (Church of the Nazarene). Cowan's was probably the first critical history of a
Wesleyan/Holiness denomination and remains one of the best.11
The 1950s. Despite the popularity of the analysis
published by denominational publishers, it was the paradigm of Gaddis over against which
subsequent work would be under taken. Modern efforts to analyze the tradition are
dependent upon six monographs published during the 1950s, all of which responded to Gaddis
and/or Sweet at some level.
Whitney R. Cross led the way, pointing out the roles of
women and lower class participants in the revivals of the antebellum period and noting the
geographical, ideological, and prosopographical proximity of Adventists, Mormons,
Finneyites, and Wesleyan Methodists. This dissertation directed by Arthur M. Schlesinger
was a crucial test in the relativizing of the W. W. Sweet thesis mentioned above.12
This was followed by the remarkable work of Delbert
Rose, a volume published under two titles, both infelicitous and misleading.13 The titles
promised, according to traditional categories of analysis, a volume on dogmatic theology.
What the volume actually contained was a history of the National Holiness Association
(NHA), a biographical study of Joseph H. Smith, president of the NHA (1924-1928), and an
exposition of Smiths theological structures which were presented as paradigmatic of the
tradition. The volume was far more significant than the modest reception it received in
Wesleyan/Holiness circles. Outside those circles it attracted no notice. Rose's work
constituted the first effort to analyze folk theological literature produced by the
Wesleyan/Holiness tradition as serious theological literature, Rose had located all of
Smith's publications in popular Wesleyan/Holiness periodicals and attempted to let Smith
speak through them as a theologian. Furthermore, the theological developments culled from
these disparate sources were interpreted in the matrix of Smith's life and ministry. It
was an effort decades ahead of its time.
Also made available in 1952 was George Turner's Ph.D.
dissertation (Harvard, 1946) written under the direction of H. J. Cadbury.14 This was an
effort to develop the theological theses of the Wesleyan/Holiness tradition
"inductively" from the Bible and Wesley, with attention to the concept of
"Christian Perfection" in patristic and medieval contexts. It was the first
major work to assume direct theological continuity between the mid-twentieth century form
of the tradition and Wesley, as though there had been no influence by either the American
context or the existential experience of the Wesleyan/Holiness tradition. It was, in many
ways, a primitivist vision seeking to return the tradition to a more theologically pure
past. No attention was given to nineteenth or twentieth century Wesleyan/Holiness
theologians. Turner's book is essential for an understanding of the theological and
historical structures of the Wesleyan/Holiness tradition since the 1950s. It provided the
theoretical framework for the work of Marston discussed above. The Turner paradigm
continues to dominate Wesleyan/Holiness theological, if not historical thinking.
More interactive with Wesleyan/Holiness authors was the
analysis of developments relating to the doctrine of "Christian Perfection"
given by John L. Peters, a former Nazarene who had become United Methodist.15 Peters was
well acquainted with a wide range of Wesleyan/Holiness theological literature, and his
work remains arguably the best introduction to the corpus. This volume was influential on
Methodist historiography, but the analysis of the Wesleyan/Holiness movement as a
perfectionizing rather than restorationist effort limited its appeal to Wesleyan/Holiness
audiences. Its appropriately narrow focus led other scholars to miss the wider theological
concerns of the tradition and to view it as a one-point theological system.
The fifth "golden oldie" of the fifties is
Timothy L. Smith's Harvard Ph.D. dissertation, also directed by Arthur M. Schlesinger.16
Smith managed to position the revivalists on the side of social reform, a stance that was
beginning to be appreciated in academic circles during the period. Contrary to Gaddis and
Sweet, Smith portrayed the Holiness Movement as urban and Northeastern. Many young
Wesleyan/Holiness radicals of the 1960s found comfort in this exposition of their
heritage. This thesis, also argued by Donald W. Dayton,17 will probably, on closer
examination, require revision. For example, Phoebe Palmer forbade discussions of slavery
at her meetings, and her two closest Methodist ecclesiastical supporters, the holiness
bishops Janes and Hamline were the principal architects of the policy of avoiding
condemnations of slavery by the Methodist Episcopal Church in the interest of preserving
the unity of the denomination. It also appears that the racism of Southern holiness
leaders (e.g.. J. L. Brasher) was little different from that of the larger Southern white
culture. Smith's volume made an impact in the academic discussion by presenting
Wesleyan/Holiness concerns in structures comprehensible to secular and
"mainline" scholars.
Perhaps less influential than the other volumes of the
1950s was the biography of B. T. Roberts, founder of the Free Methodist Church, by
Clarence Zahniser and published on the basis of his University of Pittsburgh dissertation.
It, like the volume of Rose about J. H. Smith, focused on an individual using all
available resources, but Zahniser did not have the interpretative framework of Rose. The
correspondence and other personal and family materials used by Zahniser have only recently
become available to scholars when they were filmed by the Library of Congress.18
The 1960s. The decade of the sixties was quiet. History
departments of Wesleyan/Holiness colleges and universities rarely offered courses on the
history of their own traditions, and religion departments followed that lead and even
began to remove them. History, where it survived, was the step-child of church polity.
Significant numbers of Wesleyan/Holiness graduate students wrote on Wesley and Fletcher,
but the discipline of choice during the 1960s was education as these institutions worked
to establish graduates in middle-class service positions. A few intrepid students wrote
theses and dissertations, but these were not published either by academic presses or by
the churches.19 The latter usually viewed these efforts with some concern because the
results of the research began to reflect a picture quite different from the apologetic
historiographical tradition represented by the denominational histories. Two exceptions to
this general pattern were the works of Wilcox and Ford. Ford wrote a University of London
doctoral dissertation on the British Church of the Nazarene. 20 Wilcox provided an
introduction to the theology and history of the tradition based on his research at God's
Bible School.21
Change began with the 1966 founding of the Wesleyan Theological Society (WTS). This
organization provided new structures and energy for serious scholarly reflection on the
history and theology of the Wesleyan/Holiness traditions. The focus of the WTS, however,
remained primarily theological as the organization explored the acceptable limits of
theological diversity within the movement, unfortunately without often taking the history
of the tradition into account, Historical analysis was, at best, auxiliary to the
theological questions addressed. The historiography of the Wesleyan/Holiness movement
remained a cottage industry. The result was an entire decade without major published
contributions to the study of the history of the Wesleyan/Holiness tradition that could
function in the scholarly academy.
Symptomatic of the documentation situation of
Wesleyan/Holiness historiography at this juncture is the relative
"non-existence" of this religious movement for American historians reflected in
the landmark works of Bucke, Barclay, and Ahlstrom.22 The two Methodist histories
continuously denigrate or ignore Holiness Methodists, Ahlstrom mentions only Phoebe
Palmer, Phineas Bresee, and E. Stanley Jones, and identifies Jones as a
"liberal" theologian.
The 1970s. Several volumes appeared in the first half of
the 1970s which radically changed research on the Wesleyan/Holiness movement. Vinson Synan
published research in which he definitively demonstrated the close relationship between
the Wesleyan/Holiness churches and Pentecostalism, to the great discomfort of both groups.
The WTS would devote significant time to the issue of the relationship between the two
revivalist traditions, as is clear from the articles published in the Wesleyan Theological
Journal during the years 1973 1980.23 Donald Dayton suggested the same in his
groundbreaking monograph (1971) which delineated and evaluated the important bibliography,
and provided an interpretative framework for looking at the tradition.24
Monographs by William Faupel and David Bundy contributed
to establishing the parameters of the movement.25 Charles Jones revealed the extensive
bibliography of the tradition, identifying in his Guide26 about 5.000 titles as relevant
to the study of the Wesleyan/Holiness tradition, including many periodicals. A second and
significantly expanded edition is in process. It is important to note that Jones deals
minimally with the Holiness Movement outside North America and is very restrictive with
regard to bibliography related to the Salvation Army. Wesleyan/Holiness writers in
Germany. Sweden, Korea. and India have been quite prolific. Jones includes materials about
the North American Wesleyan/Holiness Pentecostal churches in his A Guide to the Study of
the Pentecostal Movement.27
Recent efforts to re-evaluate the impact of the
Wesleyan/Holiness tradition on American and European cultures began with the work of
Melvin Dieter. He demonstrated the complex network that fostered the revivalist efforts
and traced its influence in Europe, a thesis further developed by John Kent and Richard
Carwardine, albeit in less enthusiastic tones.29 David Bundy proffered an analysis which
suggests that the arrival of the Wesleyan/Holiness movement in Europe must be understood
in light of the intellectual and religious structures into which insights from the
American revivalists were appropriated and in which these developed.30 An entire meeting
of the European Methodist Historical Society (1992) was devoted to the question of
Wesleyan/Holiness influence in Europe. Unfortunately the papers will not be published as a
collection.
Efforts at social analysis of the North American
situation were proffered by Charles Jones. Val Clear and Carl Oblinger.31 These scholars
found a Holiness movement quite different hum the New England urban identity proposed by
Timothy Smith. Paul E. Johnson returned to the study of the "burned-over
district" with the tools of a contemporary Marxist social historian to offer a
revised analysis of revivalism, especially of Finney's revivals in Rochester, New York.32
John Hammond argued, based on an examination of the
relationship between voting patterns and religious revivalism in the same area, that
religious revivalism was committed to achieving agreement and action on a specific social
issue, that of slavery.33 Norris Magnuson studied Wesleyan/Holiness social service
activism in the Holiness tradition after the Civil War, providing a clear warning about
theories of the declension of Wesleyan/Holiness social involvement in that urban arena.34
Moody and the Salvation Army have also received attention.35 The primary and secondary
literature on the "Army" is vast, but generally it has not been examined using
critical social and historical tools. A narrative of the American Salvationist experience
can he found in the volume by Edward McKinley,36 and material for evaluating the Holiness
relationships is provided in Heritage of Holiness: A Compilation of the Historical
Background of Holiness.37
The 1980s. The works of Timothy Smith, Charles Jones,
Carl Oblinger, and Paul Johnson, et al, were the precursors of a number of studies on the
intellectual and social impact of the holiness revivals of the nineteenth century. As
examples, Darrel Robertson used tools of social analysis to examine the 1876 Moody
revivals in Chicago.38 Lawrence Lesick examined the significance of the Lane Theological
Seminary experiment on the anti-slavery crusade.39
Of special significance is the social history of the
Church of God (Cleveland) by Mickey Crews. Originally submitted as a doctoral dissertation
at Auburn University. written under the direction of J. Wayne Flynt, this is the first
study of a Wesleyan/Holiness denomination published by a university press.40 Curtis
Johnson continued the tradition research on the "burned-over district," offering
an alternative to Paul Johnson's (1978) analysis by emphasizing the rural and religious
structures of the traditions.41 The impact of the Holiness movement on African-American
culture is in the initial stages of analysis.42 The same can be said about the impact of
the Wesleyan/Holiness revivals on other traditions. An initial evaluation (negative) of
the influence on the Friends has been made by Thomas Hamm.43
Others have focused on Wesleyan/Holiness leaders.
Several male leaders have been studied. The writer/scholar/activist most studied has been
Charles G. Finney. Not only has the original text of his memo been published in a critical
edition, Finney also has been the subject of numerous dissertations.44 Among the other
figures who have received attention are Asa Mahan,45 Thomas Upham,46 and Charles Parham.47
Larry Brasher has written about the southern holiness leader and vamp meeting founder, J.
L. Brasher.48 There have been several studies of the lift arid impact of the Maine
phenomenon. Frank Sanford. William Hiss wrote as a participant observer in the
"Kingdom," Murray as a participant, and Nelson as a person whose parents and
grandparents had been key members of Shiloh.49
Related are the efforts to analyze the role of women in
the Wesleyan/Holiness tradition. Donald Dayton and Lucile Sider Dayton wrote a
groundbreaking essay which provided the basis for the work of Nancy Hardesty and others.50
Phoebe Palmer has, appropriately, attracted the most attention. She has been the focus of
the work of Harold Raser, the more apologetic exposition by Charles White. and she has
been included in the "Sources of American Spirituality" anthology of Thomas
Oden.51
Three other Wesleyan/Holiness women leaders, Jennie
Fowler Willing, Hannah Whitall Smith, and Mary Lee Harris Cagle have been the subject of
yet unpublished dissertations.52 Alma White was treated in a major biography by Susie
Stanley.53
The most important monograph of the decade in terms of
its implications for the historiography of the Wesleyan/Holiness tradition has been Donald
Dayton's study of the roots of Pentecostal theology. Dayton has endeavored to place the
Wesleyan/Holiness tradition in the contexts of American Evangelicalism and
Pentecostalism.54 It builds on the research of the past four decades and offers a
sophisticated theological analysis in the tradition of the "history of ideas"
school.
The Present Situation. The issue which provides the
backdrop for Dayton's analysis (1986) is the position of the Wesleyan/Holiness movement in
American historiography. Dayton offered a more pointed critique, with particular reference
to the historiography of Evangelicalism in a yet unpublished essay presented at a
Wesleyan/Holiness Studies
Seminar at Asbury Theological Seminary.55 A similar
essay was published by Leonard Sweet at the end of the same year.56 The argument of both
writers was that Wesleyan/Holiness sources were not being taken into account in the
general historiography of American Evangelicalism. George Marsden made an effort to
include Wesleyan/Holiness factors in his volume on Evangelicalism, although
"perfectionists" are generally relegated to the sidelines of the historical
trajectories.57 However. Dayton has insisted that Marsden ignored the Wesleyan/ Holiness
and Pentecostal aspects of the story when discussing the formative period of Fuller
Theological Seminary.58 Dayton (1988) and Sweet have argued that the volume of Douglas
Frank offers a more adequate presentation of the period.59
However, Wesleyan/Holiness historiographical
transparency is not only a problem in Evangelical historiography. For example,
Wesleyan/Holiness sources and people are not included in William Hutchison's magisterial
presentation of American mission theory.60 Similarly, Stanley Burgess edited an entire
volume on "perfectionism" as it related to the self-understanding of
Pentecostalism. Astonishingly, he did this without a chapter devoted to the
Wesleyan/Holiness tradition as it influenced the newer movement.61 Only Victor Howard has
made the effort to examine the primary sources of the tradition in order to interpret the
impact of Wesleyan/Holiness and other "Evangelical" traditions on the American
Civil War and Reconstruction.62
The survey of recent historiography would suggest that
recent Wesleyan/Holiness historians have been only marginally more successful than their
predecessors in getting their material into the contemporary discussions of American
religious culture. Scholars are aware of the existence of the movement and have reason to
suspect its significance, but it has not yet become a standard feature of American
religious historiography.63
Sources Exploited and Unexploited
The Wesleyan/Holiness tradition has been given little
notice in the historiography of American religion, either by "mainline" or
Evangelical, writers. However, scholars of American religious life who would include the
Wesleyan/Holiness tradition within their scope have a problem which defies simple
solution. There is a dearth of scholarly monographs, either books or articles, which
interpret the story of the tradition into categories that make them useful to scholars of
religion outside the Holiness churches.
Those that are available, including those discussed
above, relate to the more literate, middle and upper class elements of the tradition
[e.g., Finney, Mahan, the Palmers, Upham, Parham, H. W. and R. P. Smith] and generally are
dependent upon a restrictive appropriation of the extant literary genre. If one considers
the entire range of literary genre available [theology, history, biography,
testimony/hagiography, liturgy, novels, self-help or moralistic literature, oral
tradition], the forms of presentation of the printed material [books, pamphlets, tracts,
periodicals, other serials, music], and the unpublished sources [diaries, correspondence,
church records, institutional records, films, recordings], and examines the notes and
bibliographies of the monographs devoted to the Wesleyan/Holiness tradition, one finds
that the vast majority of the sources exploited are printed theological and historical
works. Only preliminary use has been made of periodical literature, and that has largely
been restricted to official church (e.g., The Free Methodist) or national periodicals
(e.g., The Guide to Holiness).
Institutional and personal records are virtually
untouched, as are diaries and correspondence. Major exceptions to these generalizations
include the works of Rose, Browne, Stanley, Brasher, and Howard mentioned above.
Historiographical Issues
There are two primary reasons that these
holiness-related materials have been minimally exploited. First, they are presently
unavailable, except to the persistent and the lucky. Second. traditional scholarly tools
offer scarce results for the analysis of folk or narrative theologians. The first problem
is being addressed by the soon-to-be-published work of William Kostlevy who has traveled
throughout the country to identify archival materials for the study of the
Wesleyan/Holiness movements in institutional (and some personal) collections. The second
issue involves not only the selection of scholarly tools, but the self-understanding of
the tradition which prejudices these choices.
Briefly stated, the Wesleyan/Holiness tradition has
understood itself as Ahlstrom understood it, as a sectarian movement in search of becoming
a church.64 The evaluation of the phenomenon by Wesleyan/Holiness scholars and adherents
has been somewhat more positive than that of Ahlstrom. but with the same deleterious
result, The best sources for theological reflection (broadly understood) have been assumed
to be those of the established churches, or of other Evangelical traditions farther up the
social mobility scale. Doctrinal. ecclesial, literary, and other structures were
corrected" in light of the assumption that Holiness distinctives were merely baggage
of lower class experience and had no relevance to the new social realities. This meant
that the more personal sources (testimony, oral history. hagiography, biography. novels,
liturgy) were considered inferior, naive, and socially degenerate. They were useful only
insofar as they provided "facts" or "examples." Deprivation theories,
and variations on that theme, provide no more adequate bases for analysis.
The same is true of the "orthodoxy and heresy"
analysis. Many Wesleyan/Holiness scholars have succumbed to the notion that the
Warfieldian analysis of their doctrinal structures is correct and have urged the adoption
of American Fundamentalist/Evangelical theological and philosophical categories, despite
the fact that these contradict and undermine Wesleyan/Holiness spirituality.65 Assumptions
about the social location (sophistication) and "orthodoxy and heresy" issue
regarding Wesleyan/Holiness theological positions have had a deleterious effect on the use
of Wesleyan/Holiness historical data in contemporary work on American religious history in
general and in American Evangelicalism in particular.
These scholarly theories have led many Wesleyan/Holiness
scholars and church leaders to devalue the most extensively available resources as sources
for historical, theological, ethical, and missional refection. This does not mean to imply
that Wesleyan/Holiness scholars should retreat from the academic study of history and
theology. Quite the contrary. It merely suggests that the intellectual and spiritual
resources of the movement should be valued and carried into that discussion. On this
point, Wesleyan/Holiness scholars stand to learn much from Pentecostal scholars, scholars
beyond North America and Europe, and students of women's history. ft also means that
interpretative structures appropriate to the genre in which the spirituality and history
are expressed must be found, and alternative patterns of rationalization must be tested.
Desiderata for Research
In order to address the historiographical problem
described above, several steps are essential. These include: (1) providing access to
resources for research; (2) experimenting with and developing interpretative tools; (3)
articulating the self-understanding of the tradition in light of both the present
realities and the social, historical, and theological heritage of the Wesleyan/Holiness
movement and developing an ecumenical profile.
1. Resources for Research.
Providing access to Wesleyan/Holiness historical
sources is the primary desideratum. This needs attention at two levels. The first level is
the identification and collection of documentation for the tradition. The full range of
literary genre must be included, but especially archival materials and periodicals.
The collection and organization of archival materials by
Wesleyan/Holiness institutions is in its earliest stages, with the library of Asbury
Theological Seminary, the Salvation Army Archives, and the Church of the Nazarene Archives
far ahead of the rest. Progress on the archives of the Wesleyan, Free Methodist, and
Church of God (Anderson) churches is continuing slowly after major efforts at
documentation during recent years. World Gospel Mission has a minimalist collection
available to scholars. OMS archival materials were sent to Asbury for processing and some
filming before they were reclaimed for the personal use of a former OMS administrator.
Their location is presently unknown.
William Kostlevy, funded by the grant of the Pew
Charitable Trust to the Wesleyan/Holiness Studies Project, Asbury Theological Seminary,
has described the collections of established centers and identified a large number of
unpublished archival materials in institutional and private collections. His guide,
published in the ATLA Bibliography Series of Scarecrow Press, will significantly increase
access to these resources, and invariably, because of his work, others will come to
light.66
Wesleyan/Holiness periodicals, except those generated by
national organizations or established institutions, rarely have been collected and are
seldom catalogued into on-line data systems or reported to the Union List of Serials
published by the Library of Congress. The project of Michael Boddy, librarian at Claremont
School of Theology, to develop a "Union List of Non United Methodist Periodicals and
Serials in North America," will be useful, but does not include para-church
publications, yearbooks, or conference and district serials. Unfortunately, non-U.S.A.
originated periodical publications and holdings are not covered in any of the standard
reference tools. This is especially serious since many of the Methodist mission efforts of
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were undertaken by Wesleyan/Holiness
missionaries within the Methodist Episcopal Church. Wesleyan/Holiness mission periodicals,
both denominational and independent are often difficult or impossible to locate. A
"Union List of Wesleyan/Holiness and Methodist Episcopal Periodicals Outside the
U.S.A." remains an important, even crucial need for the development of
Wesleyan/Holiness history and theology.
The second level of access concerns the definition and
preservation of a corpus of primary and secondary material as well as prosopographical
research. Thousands of volumes have been published by the various branches of the
Wesleyan/Holiness tradition. The historians discussed above have contributed a very
preliminary sorting and evaluating of sources. However, most of the printed sources remain
unused and unevaluated. Preservation is also problematic. Most Wesleyan/Holiness books
were published on inexpensive, highly acidic paper. Despite high circulation of many of
the volumes,67 many of these are now frequently extant in but one or two copies.
Reprinting and microfilm are both expensive undertakings. Deciding what to preserve is
difficult given the state of the historiography.
Every scholar who has studied the Wesleyan/Holiness
tradition has been vexed by prosopographical questions. It is often impossible to
ascertain for given individuals basic information, such as birth and death dates, ministry
positions, denominational affiliation, and theological perspective. A "Dictionary of
the Wesleyan/Holiness Traditions," contracted for publication by Scarecrow Press
(circa 1996), is in the planning stage, and, if completed, will begin to address the
prosopographical problem. Resource identification, evaluation, and preservation is basic
to any other level of research.
2. Interpretation of the Wesleyan/Holiness
Tradition.
The holiness tradition has its roots in popular
culture. The vast majority of Wesleyan/Holiness adherents traditionally have come from
lower and lower-middle class (small property owners) contexts. When upper-middle class
individuals such as Phoebe Palmer and Hannah Whitall Smith became adherents of the
movement, they were very aware of the class distinctions, and embarrassed by their less
sophisticated co-religionists. To this point, most of the research has focused on the
elite of the movement.
Social analysis has begun; the studies of Jones,
Oblinger, Johnson, and Hammond are especially suggestive. Assumptions about social
location need to be tested with empirical and quantitative methods. Many detailed,
carefully defined studies of the demographic make-up of the Wesleyan/Holiness movement are
needed to provide a basis for the study of theological and historical issues.
It is necessary to develop new approaches to the
documents of the Wesleyan/Holiness movement. Some recent essays have begun to experiment.
Paul Livermore applied Jacob Neusner's analysis to the Discipline of the Free Methodist
Church.68 Robert Wall used literary criticism methods to ascertain the shifts in values
underlying changes in the Free Methodist Discipline.69 Insights of the Annales
historiographical tradition as modified by Structuralist reflection have been used to
examine the life and ministry structures of William Taylor, E. Stanley Jones. and T. B.
Barratt.70
Beyond this is the matter of popular piety and lifestyle
which have been addressed tangentially by these writers. Assertions have generally
reflected the ideological biases of the respective scholarly analysis rather than
employing careful social and historical analysis. Research needs to focus on the laity of
the tradition who sustained the religious experiences, funded the organizations, and
practiced the piety devoid of much of the cynicism that characterizes leaders of any
movement. Studies of charitable giving have normally shown Wesleyan/Holiness adherents as
among the highest per capita givers, despite their social location. This was underlined by
a rigorous asceticism and radical desacralization of the present realities. At the same
time, the practices were shaped by social, political, regional and economic environments.
Wesleyan/Holiness ritual participation is high. There appear to be comparatively few
"nominal" members.71 This is the case even though lay and clerical loyalty to
the institutions generated by the tradition appears to be low, Also unexplored is the
spiritual and theological creativity sustained outside the official
"magisterial" structures of the tradition. Much of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century "hardening of theological categories" in the movement may be
traceable to institutional efforts to suppress or control this phenomenon. Only when
issues posed by popular piety and practice are addressed will there be a basis for placing
the Wesleyan/Holiness movements in the context of American religious history.72 American
folklore studies may well prove profitable approaches to the written and oral texts of the
tradition.
3. Self-Understanding of the Tradition and its
Ecumenical Profile.
Most Wesleyan/Holiness adherents are members of small
denominations which have their origins in doctrinal controversies or regional identities.
Individual members, indeed entire denominations, have no
conception of the national or international structures of the larger tradition. The
Wesleyan/Holiness churches comprise the seventh largest Christian group in the world after
Roman Catholics, Pentecostals, Orthodox, Baptists, Lutherans, and Methodists. It has been
projected that there are 10,318,586 members of Holiness churches.73 This does not include
adherents or participants in churches, such as the United Methodist churches, or the
Pentecostal churches which are also Wesleyan/Holiness. It would appear that there are more
human and spiritual resources in the Wesleyan/Holiness tradition to be marshaled than find
expression in present Wesleyan/Holiness academic, ecumenical and institutional structures.
For these resources to be effectively interjected into
the arenas of church and world, attention will need to be given to the role of the
tradition in American religious culture, its relation to other Evangelical and mainline
traditions, and the forms in which it has become established within other cultural
contexts. This endeavor to articulate an identity will need to address theological as well
as historical issues.
This identity, which will not be monolithic but diverse
and populist, will provide a framework for the development of an ecumenical profile. Every
tradition has a perspective on Christian faith and life. The values and perspectives of
the Wesleyan/Holiness tradition need to be projected into contemporary discussions of
these issues throughout the world.
Conclusion
The problems posed by (1) the lack of integration of the
Wesleyan/Holiness tradition into the historiography of American and international
religious culture and (2) the diverse historical sources of the tradition combine to
present a significant challenge and opportunity. As these sources are allowed to provide
their own interpretive matrices, they will provide a door into the life, mind, and
spirituality of the nineteenth and twentieth century movement. More than that, they will
provide a basis for contemporary theological (in the widest sense of the term) reflection.
Such a process will require location of "misplaced
sources" prosopographical work, as well as synchronic and diachronic social analysis.
It also will require new philosophical and historiographical sophistication as new
structures of discourse are sought. Only when this quest begins to place new monographs in
the academic marketplace will Wesleyan/Holiness scholars fulfill the quest of the past
four decades to insert the perspective of the tradition into the ongoing theological and
historical discussions.
Notes
1. In this essay, for consistency and felicity of style,
the term "Wesleyan/Holiness Tradition" is in the singular. However, it should be
understood that the author considers the historiography and phenomenology of the
"Wesleyan/Holiness Tradition" to represent a variety of traditions, with varying
histories, theological emphases, liturgies, and systems of praxis.
2. Because of this focus, many important works cannot be
mentioned. This lack of mention is not to disparage their worth, but results from
limitations of space and interpretative framework.
3. W. W. Cary, Story of the National Holiness Missionary
Society (Chicago: National Holiness Missionary Society, 1940). This volume is valuable,
among other things, for the large number of primary sources published verbatim.
4. Fragrant Memories of the Tuesday Meeting and the
Guide to Holiness, and their Fifty Years Work for Jesus, introductions by Bishops W. F.
Mallalieu and William Taylor (New York: Palmer and Hughes, 1886). Compare also Phoebe
Palmer, Four Years in the Old World. Comprising the travels, Incidents and Evangelistic
Labors of Dr and Mrs. Palmer in England, Scot/and and Wales (Louisville: Pickett
Publishing, n.d.).
5. See especially William Taylor, Four Years Campaign in
India (London: Hodder and Stoughton; New York: Phillips and Hunt, 1876); idem, Our South
American Cousins (London: Hodder and Stoughton; New York: Phillips and Hunt, 1879), and,
idem, Story of My Life: An Account of What I have Thought and Said and Done in My Ministry
of More than Fifty-Three Years in Christian Lands and Among the Heathen, ed. J. C. Ridpath
(New York: Eaton and Mains, 1896). See D. Bundy, "William Taylor and Methodist
Mission: A Study in Nineteenth Century Social History," Methodist History 27(1989),
198-212; 28(1989). 3-21 and idem "The Legacy of William Taylor."
6. For example, Leslie R. Marston, From Age To Age A
Living Witness (Winona Lake: Free Methodist Publishing House, 1960).
7. Timothy Smith, Called Unto Holiness: The Story of die
Nazarenes; The Formative Years (Kansas City: Nazarene Publishing House, 1962); John W. V.
Smith, The Quest for Holiness and Unity. A Centennial History of the Church of God
(Anderson, Indiana) (Anderson: Warner Press, 1980).
8. Wilson T. Hogue, History of the Free Methodist Church
of North America (Introd. Bishop E. P. Han; Chicago: Free Methodist Publishing House,
1915).
9. M. E. Gaddis, "Christian Perfection in
America," Ph.D. Digs., University of Chicago. 1929; W. W. Sweet, Religion on the
American Frontier (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946).
10. Harold Reed, "The Growth of a Contemporary
Sect-Type Institution as Reflected in the Development of the Church of the Nazarene,"
(Ph.D. Diss., University of Southern California, 1943).
11. F. Cowan, A History of the Church of God (Holiness)
(Overland Park, KS: Herald and Banner Press. 1949; formerly, Ph.D. Diss., University of
Missouri. 1948; M. F. Redford, The Rise of the Church of the Nazarene (Kansas City:
Nazarene Publishing House. 1948: revised and expanded from "The History of the Church
of the Nazarene in the South" MA. Thesis, Vanderbilt University, 1935.
12. Whitney R. Cross, The Burned-Over District: The
Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York 1800 1850
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1950). See the analysis of Judith Wellman, "In
Retrospect: Whitney Cross's Burned-Over District as Social History," Reviews in
American History 16(1989), 159-174.
13. Delbert R. Rose, A Theology of Christian Experience:
interpreting the Historic Wesleyan Message (originally Ph.D. Diss., University of Iowa,
1952; polycopy reproduction, Wilmore, KY: Seminary Press, 1958; the dissertation was first
formally published more than a decade after it's composition, Minneapolis: Bethany
Fellowship, 1965; reprinted as idem, Vital Holiness: A Theology of Christian Experience:
Interpreting the Historic Wesleyan Message (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1975).
14. George A. Turner, The More Excellent Way: The
Scriptural Basis for the Wesleyan Message (Winona Lake: Light and Life Press, 1952). More
careful to place Wesleyan/Holiness writers and their theology in the context of their
culture was the never published 1949 Drew Ph.D. dissertation of Claude Thompson, "The
Witness of American Methodism to the Historical Doctrine of Christian Perfection,' which
received little attention within the tradition after Thompson was forced to leave Asbury
Theological Seminary in the notorious "Thompson Affair' of the early 1950s.
15. John L. Peters, Christian Perfection and American
Methodism (Nashville: Pierce and Washabaugh, 1956; reprinted, Zondervan: Francis Asbury
Ness, 1985).
16. Revivalism and Social Reform: American Protestantism
on the Eve of the Civil War (New York: Abingdon, 1957; reprinted, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1980).
17. Discovering an Evangelical Heritage (New York:
Harper and Row, 1976; 2nd ed., Peabody: Hendrickson. 1988).
18. Clarence Howard Zahniser, "Earnest Christian:
Life and Work of Benjamin Titus Roberts," (Ph.D. Diss., University of Pittsburgh,
1951), partially published as idem, Earnest Christian: The Life and Work of Benjamin Titus
Roberts (Winona Lake: Free Methodist Publishing House, 1957).
19. For example, James A. Reinhart, Personal and
Sociological Factors in the Formation of the Free Methodist Church (Ph.D. Diss.,
University of Iowa, 1971). and Barry L. Callen, The Church of God Reformation Movement: A
Study in Ecumenical Idealism (M.Th. Thesis, Asbury Theological Seminary, 1969).
20. Jack Ford, The Church of the Nazarene in Britain,
the International Holiness Mission and the Calvary Holiness Church with Reference to
Holiness Movements in Christian History (Ph.D. Diss.. University of London, 1967),
published as, In the Steps of John Wesley: The Church of the Nazarene in Britain (Kansas
City: Nazarene Publishing House, 1968). This may have been possible because Ford was
already a trusted, established figure in the Church of the Nazarene throughout the world.
21. Leslie D. Wilcox, Be Ye Holy: A Study of the
Teaching of Scripture Relative to Entire Sanctification, with a Sketch of the History and
Literature of the holiness Movement (Cincinnati: God's Bible School and Missionary
Training Home, 1965).
22. Emory Stevens Bucke, ed., The History of American
Methodism, 3 vols. (Nashville: Abingdon 1964), despite the contribution of Timothy Smith
to volume 2, pp. 608-627; Wade Crawford Barclay, The Methodist Episcopal Church 1845-1939:
Widening horizons 1896-1939 (History of Methodist Missions. 3; New York: Board of Missions
of the Methodist Church, 1957); Sidney Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American
People (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972).
23. See the reflections of Donald Dayton, "Wesleyan
Tug-of-War on Pentecostal Link." Christianity Toda' 23(15 Dec. 1978). 43.
24. The American Holiness Movement: A Bibliographic
Introduction (B. L. Fisher library Occasional Bibliographic Papers, 1; Wilmore: B. L.
Fisher Library. 1971).
25. D. William Faupel, The American Holiness Movement: A
Bibliographic Essay (B. L. Fisher Library Occasional Bibliographic Papers, 2; Wilmore: B.
L. Fisher Library 1972); David Bundy, Keswick: A Bibliographic Introduction to the higher
Life Movement (B. L. Fisher Library Occasional Bibliographic Papers, 3; Wilmore: B. L.
Fisher Library. 1975). These, together with the volume by Dayton. have been reprinted as
The Higher Christian Life, ed. Donald W. Dayton (New' York: Garland, 1984).
26. Charles E. Jones, A Guide to the Study of the
Holiness Movement (ATLA Bibliography Series, 1; Metuchen: Scarecrow, 1974).
27. Charles B. Jones, A Guide to the Study of the
Pentecostal Movement (ATLA Bibliography Series, 6: Metuchen: Scarecrow, 1983). A second
edition of this important work is also in preparation.
28. The discussion of the impact of the
Wesleyan/Holiness tradition on Europe. Africa, and Latin America will be reserved for
another essay.
29. Melvin E. Dieter, The Holiness Revival of the
Nineteenth Century (Ph.D. Diss., Temple University, 1973; published as, Studies in
Evangelicalism, 1; Metuchen: Scarecrow Press, 1980). A new edition of this volume is in
preparation). John Kent, Holding the Fort: Studies in Victorian Revivalism (London:
Epworth, 1978). Kent unfortunately provides little documentation for his volume. Richard
Carwardine, Transatlantic Revivalism: Popular Evangelicalism in Britain and America.
1790-1805 (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1978).
30. David Bundy, "Keswick and the Experience of
Evangelical Piety," Modern Christian Revivals (ed. E. L. Blumhofer and R. Balmer;
Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 118-144.
31. Charles E. Jones, Perfectionist Persuasion: The
Holiness Movement in American Methodism ([originally Ph.D. Diss., University of Wisconsin,
1968] ATLA Monograph Series, 5; Metuchen: Scarecrow, 1974), idem. "Disinherited or
Rural? A Historical Case Study in Urban Holiness Religion," Missouri Historical
Review; Valorous Bernard Clear, Where The Saints Have Trod: A Social History of the Church
of God Reformation Movement (Chesterfield, IN: Midwest Publishers. 1971 [originally a
University of Chicago Ph.D. Diss., 1953]); Carl Oblinger, Religious Minesis: Social Bases
for the Holiness Schism in Late Nineteenth Century Methodism (Monograph Studies, 1;
Evanston: Institute for the Study of American Religion, 1973).
32. Paul B. Johnson, A Shopkeepers Millennium:
Society and Revivals in Rochester. New York. 1815-1837 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1978).
33. John Hammond, The Politics of Benevolence: Revival
Religion and American Voting Behavior (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1979).
34. Norris Magnuson, Salvation in the Slums: Evangelical
Social Work. 1865-1920 (ATLA Monograph Series, 10; Metuchen: Scarecrow, 1977; reprinted,
Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1990).
35. Stan Gundry, Love Them In: The Proclamation Theology
of D. L. Moody (Chicago: Moody Press, 1976).
36. Edward H. McKinley, Marching to Glory: The History
of the Salvation Army in the United States (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1980). McKinley
also wrote the remarkable volume Somebody's Brother: A History of the Salvation Army Men's
Social Service Department. 1891-1985 (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1986).
37. New York: Salvation Army, 1977.
38. Darrel M. Robertson, The Chicago Revival, 1876:
Society and Revivalism in a Nineteenth-Century City (Studies in Evangelicalism, 9;
Metuchen: Scarecrow. 1989).
39. Lawrence T. Lesick, The Lane Rebels: Evangelicalism
and Anti-Slavery in Antebellum America (Studies in Evangelicalism, 2; Metuchen: Scarecrow,
1980).
40. Mickey Crews, The Church of God: A Social History
(Knoxille: University of Tennessee Press. 1990).
41. Curtis D. Johnson. Islands a Holiness Rural Religion
in Upstate NA York. / 790-1860 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989).
42. Charles E. Jones, Black Holiness: A Guide to the
Study of Black Participation in Wesleyan Perfectionist and Glossolalic Pentecostal
Movements (ATLA Bibliography Series, 18; Metuchen: Scarecrow. 1987): Sherry S. DuPree,
Biographical Dictionary of African-American Holiness Pentecostals 1880-1990 (Washington:
Middle Atlantic Regional Press, 1989). The unpublished work of William GM Turner,
"The United Holy Church of America: A Study in Black Pentecostalism, (Ph.D. Diss.,
Duke University, 1984) is an important analysis of one denomination.
43. Thomas D Hamm, The Transformation of American
Quakerism: Orthodox Friends, 1800-1 907 (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1988
See also the more positive analysis in the thesis of Arthur O. Roberts, "The Concept
of Perfection in the History of the Quaker Movement," B. D. Thesis, Nazarene
Theological Seminary, 1951.
44. The Memoirs of Charles G. Finney. The Complete
Restored Text (cc Garth M. Rosell and Richard A. G. Dupuis; Grand Rapids:
Zondervan-Academie Books, 1989). The bibliographic essay. pages 671-701, presents a
selection of dissertations which deal with Finney written between 1899 and 1985, as well
as discussion of manuscripts and primary source material. Unfortunately, few of the
dissertations have been published. See especially Keith Hardman, Charles Grandison Finney,
1792-1875 (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1987) [Hardman downplays the interaction
with and participation in the holiness revivals, as well as Finney's debt to the New
England Methodist revivalists such as Lorenzo Dow]; David L. Weddle, The Law as Gospel:
Revival and Reform in the Theology of Charles G. Finney (Studies in Evangelicalism. I.
Metuchen: Scarecrow, 1985); and John Leroy Gresham, Charles G. Finney Doctrine of the
Baptism of the Holy Spirit (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987).
45. Barbara Brown Zikmund, "Asa Mahan and Oberlin
Perfectionism,"(Ph.D. Diss., Duke University, 1969): Edward H. Madden and James
Hamilton, Freedom and Grace: The Life of Asa Mahan (Studies in Evangelicalism, 3;
Metuchen: Scarecrow, 1982).
46. Darius Salter, Spirit and Intellect: Thomas Upham's
Holiness Theology (Studies in Evangelicalism, 7; Metuchen: Scarecrow, 1986).
47. James Goff, Fields White Unto Harvest: Charles F.
Parham and the Missionary Origins of Pentecostalism (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas
Press. 1988).
48. John Lawrence Brasher, Standing Between the Living
and the Dead: John Lakin Brasher, Holiness Preacher (Ph.D. Diss.. Duke University, 1986),
published as The Sanctified South: John Latin Brasher and the Holiness Movement (Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 1994).
49. William C. Hiss, Shiloh: Frank H. Sanford and the
Kingdom. 1893-1948 (Ph.D. Diss. Tufts University, 1978); Frank S. Murray, The Sublimity of
Faith: The Life and Work of Frank 1W. Sanford (Amherst, MA: Kingdom Press, 1981); and the
insightful, but marginally documented contribution of Shirley Nelson, Fair, Clear and
Terrible: The Story of Shiloh Maine (Latham: British American Publishing House, 1989).
50. Donald W. Dayton and Lucile Sider Dayton, "Your
Daughters Shall Prophesy: Feminism in the Holiness Movement," Methodist History
14(1976), 67-92; Nancy Hardesty, Your Daughter Shall Prophecy: Revivalism and Feminism in
the Age of Finney (Ph.D. Diss., University of Chicago, 1976). Rosemary Radford Reuther and
Rosemary Skinner Keller eds., Women and Religion in America: The Nineteenth Century
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 1981) draws on Dayton but does not acknowledge the
work.
51. Harold Raser, Phoebe Palmer: Her Lift and Thought
(Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 1987); Charles White, The Beauty of Holiness: Phoebe Palmer as
Theologian, Revivalist, Feminist and Humanitarian (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986); and,
Thomas Oden, Phoebe Palmer: Selected Writings (Sources of American Spirituality; Mahwah,
NJ: Paulist Press, 1988).
52. Joanne Carlson Browne. Jennie Fowler Willing
(1834-1916): Methodist Churchwoman and Reformer (Ph.D. Diss., Boston University, 1983):
Roberta Joy Stewart. Being a Child in the Father's House: The Life and Work of Hannah
Whitall Smith, (Ph.D. Diss., Drew University, 1990); and, Robert Stanley Ingersol, Burden
of Dissent: Mary Lee Cagle and the Southern Holiness Movement (Ph.D. Diss., Duke
University, 1989).
53. Susie Stanley, Feminist Pillar of Fire: The Life of
Alma White (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 1993). This was a revision of Stanley's dissertation
at Iliff, Alma White: Holiness Preacher with a Feminist Message (Ph.D. Diss., Iliff School
of Theology. 1987).
54. Donald W. Dayton, The Theological Roots of
Pentecostalism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan; Metuchen: Scarecrow, 1987).
55. Donald Dayton, "An Analysis of the
Self-Understanding of American Evangelicalism with a Critique of its Correlated
Historiography" (Lecture: Asbury Theological Seminary, January, 1988).
56. Leonard Sweet, "Wise as Serpents, Innocent as
Doves: The New Evangelical Historiography," Journal of the American Academy of
Religion 56(1988), 397-4 16.
57. George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American
Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth Century Evangelicalism, 1870-1 925 (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1980).
58. George M. Marsden, Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller
Seminary and the New Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987).
59. Douglas W. Frank, Less than Conquerors: How
Evangelicals Entered the Twentieth Century (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986).
60. William Hutchison, Errand to the World: American
Protestant Thought and Foreign Mission (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).
61. Stanley Burgess, Reaching Beyond: Chapters in the
History of Perfectionism (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1986).
62. Victor B. Howard, Religion and the Radical
Republican Movement, 1860-1870 (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1990).
63. Winthrop S. Hudson, Religion in America: An
Historical Account of the Development of American Religious Life, 3rd ed. (New York:
Charles Scribners Sons. 1981) gives three pages to the Holiness tradition under the rubric
of "disaffected churches," pp. 344-347; Edwin Scott Gaustad, A Religious History
of America. new revised edition (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1990) notes the continuous
presence of the tradition, but neither attempts to gauge its impact nor provides a
relevant bibliography related to the Wesleyan/Holiness tradition.
64. Ahlstrom, A Religious History.
65. B. B. Warfield, Perfectionism (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1931-1932). These conclusions have also influenced Wesleyan Theological
Society discussions, as evidenced by articles in the Wesleyan Theological Journal
discussing "secondness," "baptism in the Holy Spirit," and the nature
of Scripture. The acceptance of Fundamentalist defined categories like
"inerrancy" are symptomatic of this Wesleyan/Holiness failure of theological
nerve. Fortunate exceptions to this trend are the major theological works of Mildred Bangs
Wynkoop, A Theology of Love: The Dynamic of Wesleyanism (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press,
1972) and Ray Dunning, Grace. Faith and Holiness (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 1988).
66. William Kostlevy, Holiness Manuscripts: A Guide to
Sources Documenting the Wesleyan Holiness Movement in the United States and Canada (ATLA
Bibliography Series, 34, Metuchen: Scarecrow Press, 1994).
67. Many volumes sold between 10,000 and 100,000 copies
in 1-25 printings. The Wesleyan/Holiness presses conducted an enormous publication effort
on behalf of their causes.
68. Paul Livermore, "The Formative Document of a
Denomination Aborning: The Discipline of the Free Methodist Church (1860)," in Jacob
Neusner, Ernest S. Frerichs and A. J. Levine, eds., Religious Writings and Religious
Systems: Systemic Analysis of Holy Books in Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, (Greco-Roman
Religions, Ancient Israel and Judaism, Vol. 2; Christianity (Brown Studies in Religion. 2;
Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1Q89), 175-195.
69. Robert Wall, "The Embourgeoisement of the Free
Methodist Ethos," Wesleyan Theological Journal 25(1990), 117-129.
70. David Bundy, William Taylor, see above; idem,
"Theology of the Kingdom of God in B. Stanley Jones," Wesleyan Theological
Journal 23(1988), 58-80; idem, "T. B. Barratt: The Methodist Years," to appear
in EPTA Bulletin
71. My study of Holiness churches in Indianapolis in an
article for the Encyclopedia of Indianapolis (to appear circa 1995) suggests that church
attendance is declining in relation to membership.
72. The best survey of European investigation of
religious life from this perspective is Jon Butler, "The Future of American Religious
History: Prospectus, Agenda, Transatlantic Problematique," William and Mary Quarterly
42(1985), 167-183. Unfortunately, Butler does not also introduce the reader to the
philosophical structures behind the approach.
73. David Barratt, Encyclopedia of World Christianity
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 14- The Salvation Army was, inexplicably, counted
apart from Holiness churches. The two numbers are added for this figure.
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