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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Many significant works, especially unpublished dissertations and theses, cannot be mentioned due to space.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 Shopkeeper’s 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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