of a
Methodist camp meeting in 1819. Library of Congress.
Roots Though it became a multi-denominational movement over time and was furthered by the
Second Great Awakening which energized churches of all stripes, the bulk of Holiness movement has its roots in
John Wesley and
Methodism.
Early Methodism The Holiness movement traces their roots back to
John Wesley,
Charles Wesley,
John Fletcher, and the Methodists of the 18th century. The Methodists of the 19th century continued the interest in Christian holiness that had been started by their founder,
John Wesley in
England. They continued to publish Wesley's works and tracts, including his famous
A Plain Account of Christian Perfection. From 1788 to 1808, the entire text of
A Plain Account was placed in the
Discipline manual of the
Methodist Episcopal Church (U.S.), and numerous persons in early American Methodism professed the experience of entire sanctification, including
Bishop Francis Asbury. The
Methodists during this period placed a strong emphasis on holy living, and their concept of entire sanctification.
Second Great Awakening , a Methodist evangelist and founder of
Asbury Theological Seminary , an elder in the
African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, preached Christian holiness in the pulpits of her connection. Her autobiography has the theme of entire sanctification interwoven in it and concludes with "How to Obtain Sanctification". Also representative was the revivalism of Rev.
James Caughey, an American missionary sent by the
Wesleyan Methodist Church to work in
Ontario, Canada from the 1840s through 1864. He brought in the converts by the score, most notably in the revivals in Canada West 1851–53. His technique combined restrained emotionalism with a clear call for personal commitment, thus bridging the rural style of camp meetings and the expectations of more "sophisticated" Methodist congregations in the emerging cities.
Phoebe Palmer's ministry complemented Caughey's revivals in Ontario circa 1857.
Jarena Lee of the
African Methodist Episcopal Church and
Julia A. J. Foote of the
African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church aligned themselves with the Wesleyan-Holiness movement and preached the doctrine of entire sanctification throughout the pulpits of their connexions. Similar beliefs were publicized in
John H. Noyes's 1848 book
Bible Communism. In 1860, B.T. Roberts and John Wesley Redfield founded the
Free Methodist Church on the ideals of
slavery abolition,
egalitarianism, and second-blessing holiness. Advocacy for the poor remained a hallmark of these and other Methodist offshoots. Some of these offshoots would currently be more specifically identified as part of the
Conservative holiness movement, a group that would represent the more conservative branch of the movement. At the Tuesday Meetings, Methodists soon enjoyed fellowship with Christians of different denominations, including the
Congregationalist Thomas Upham. Upham was the first man to attend the meetings, and his participation in them led him to study
mystical experiences, looking to find precursors of Holiness teaching in the writings of persons like German Pietist
Johann Arndt and the Roman Catholic mystic
Madame Guyon. Baptists who have embraced the second work of grace have founded their own denominations, such as the
Ohio Valley Association of the Christian Baptist Churches of God. The
Original Church of God and the
Church of Christ (Holiness) U.S.A. were founded by Baptist ministers, including Charles W. Gray and
Charles Price Jones, who embraced the doctrine of entire sanctification. Other non-Methodists also contributed to the Holiness movement in the U.S. and in England. "New School" Calvinists such as
Asa Mahan, the first president of
Oberlin College, and
Charles Grandison Finney, an
evangelist associated with the college and later its second president, promoted the idea of Christian holiness and slavery abolition, which
Wesleyan Methodists also supported. In 1836, Mahan experienced what he called a
baptism with the Holy Spirit. Mahan believed that this experience had cleansed him from the desire and inclination to sin. Finney believed that this experience might provide a solution to a problem he observed during his evangelistic revivals. Some people claimed to experience conversion but then slipped back into their old ways of living. Finney believed that the filling with the Holy Spirit could help these converts to continue steadfast in their Christian life. This phase of the Holiness movement is often referred to as the Oberlin-Holiness revival.
Presbyterian William Boardman promoted the idea of Holiness through his evangelistic campaigns and through his book
The Higher Christian Life, which was published in 1858, which was a zenith point in Holiness activity prior to a lull brought on by the American Civil War. Many adherents of the
Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) stressed
George Fox's doctrine of
Perfectionism (which is analogous to the Methodist doctrine of entire sanctification). These Holiness Quakers formed
Yearly Meetings such as the
Central Yearly Meeting of Friends. Around the same period,
Hannah Whitall Smith, an English Quaker, experienced a profound personal conversion. Sometime in the 1860s, she found what she called the "secret" of the Christian life—devoting one's life wholly to God and God's simultaneous transformation of one's soul. Her husband,
Robert Pearsall Smith, had a similar experience at the camp meeting in 1867. The couple became figureheads in the now-famous
Keswick Convention that gave rise to what is often called the Keswick-Holiness revival, which became distinct from the holiness movement. Among Anabaptists, the
Brethren in Christ Church (as well as the
Calvary Holiness Church that later split from it) emerged in
Lancaster County as a denomination of
River Brethren who adopted
Radical Pietistic teaching, which "emphasized spiritual passion and a warm, personal relationship to Jesus Christ." They teach "the necessity of a crisis-conversion experience" as well as the existence of a
second work of grace that "results in the believer resulting in the ability to say no to sin". Founded by
Samuel Heinrich Fröhlich, the
Apostolic Christian Church (Nazarene) is an Anabaptist denomination aligned with the holiness movement, thus being "distinguished by its emphasis on entire sanctifiation".
Mennonites who were impacted by Radical Pietism and the teaching of holiness founded the
Missionary Church, a holiness church in the Anabaptist tradition.
General Baptists who embraced belief in the second work of grace established their own denominations, such as the
Holiness Baptist Association (founded in 1894) and the
Ohio Valley Association of the Christian Baptist Churches of God (formed in 1931).
Post–Civil War Following the
American Civil War, many Holiness proponents—most of them Methodists—became nostalgic for the heyday of camp meeting revivalism during the Second Great Awakening. The first distinct "Holiness
camp meeting" convened at
Vineland, New Jersey in 1867 under the leadership of
John Swanel Inskip, John A. Wood, Alfred Cookman, and other Methodist ministers. The gathering attracted as many as 10,000 people. At the close of the encampment, while the ministers were on their knees in prayer, they formed the National Camp Meeting Association for the Promotion of Holiness, and agreed to conduct a similar gathering the next year. This organization was commonly known as the National Holiness Association. Later, it became known as the Christian Holiness Association and subsequently the
Christian Holiness Partnership. The second National Camp Meeting was held at
Manheim, Pennsylvania, and drew upwards of 25,000 persons from all over the nation. People called it a "Pentecost". The service on Monday evening has almost become legendary for its spiritual power and influence. The third National Camp Meeting met at
Round Lake, New York. This time the national press attended and write-ups appeared in numerous papers, including a large two-page pictorial in ''
Harper's Weekly''. These meetings made instant religious celebrities out of many of the workers. "By the 1880s holiness was the most powerful doctrinal movement in America and seemed to be carrying away all opposition both within the Methodist Church and was quickly spreading throughout many other denominations." This was not without objection. "The leaders of the National Camp Meeting Association for the Promotion of Holiness generally opposed 'come-outism,'...They urged believers in entire sanctification and Christian perfection to remain in their denominations and to work within them to promote holiness teaching and general spiritual vitality." Though distinct from the mainstream Holiness movement, the fervor of the Keswick-Holiness revival in the 1870s swept Great Britain, where it was sometimes called the
higher life movement after the title of William Boardman's book
The Higher Life. Higher life conferences were held at
Broadlands and
Oxford in 1874 and in
Brighton and
Keswick in 1875. The Keswick Convention soon became the British headquarters for this movement. The Faith Mission in Scotland was another consequence of the British Holiness movement. Another was a flow of influence from Britain back to the United States: In 1874,
Albert Benjamin Simpson read Boardman's
Higher Christian Life and felt the need for such a life himself. Simpson went on to found the
Christian and Missionary Alliance. American Holiness associations began to form as an outgrowth of this new wave of camp meetings, such as the Western Holiness Association—first of the regional associations that prefigured "come-outism"—formed at Bloomington, Illinois. In 1877, several "general holiness conventions" met in Cincinnati and New York City. While the great majority of Holiness proponents remained within the three major denominations of the mainline
Methodist church, Holiness people from other theological traditions established standalone bodies. In 1881,
D. S. Warner started the Evening Light Reformation, out of which was formed the
Church of God (Anderson, Indiana), bringing
Restorationism to the Holiness family. The Church of God Reformation Movement held that "interracial worship was a sign of the true Church", with both whites and blacks ministering regularly in Church of God congregations, which invited people of all races to worship there. Those who were
entirely sanctified testified that they were "saved, sanctified, and prejudice removed." Palmer's
The Promise of the Father, published in 1859, which argued in favor of women in ministry, later influenced
Catherine Booth, co-founder of the
Salvation Army. The practice of ministry by women is common but not universal within the denominations of the Holiness movement. The founding of the Salvation Army in 1878 helped to rekindle Holiness sentiment in the cradle of Methodism—a fire kept lit by
Primitive Methodists and other British descendants of Wesley and
George Whitefield in prior decades. Overseas missions emerged as a central focus of the Holiness people. As one example of this world evangelism thrust,
Pilgrim Holiness Church founder
Martin Wells Knapp, who also founded the
Revivalist in 1883, the Pentecostal Revival League and Prayer League, the Central Holiness League 1893, the International Holiness Union and Prayer League, and
God's Bible School and College, saw much success in Korea, Japan, China, India, South Africa and South America. Methodist mission work in Japan led to the creation of the
One Mission Society, one of the largest missionary-sending Holiness agencies in the world. Another such missionary organization,
World Gospel Mission, originated out of the Missionary Department of the
National Association for the Promotion of Holiness, continuing to receive support from Free Methodist, Global Methodist, Nazarene and Wesleyan congregations.
Wesleyan realignment depicting a Methodist circuit rider on horseback, 1906 Though many Holiness preachers, camp meeting leaders, authors, and periodical editors were Methodists, this was not universally popular with Methodist leadership. Out of the four million Methodists in the United States during the 1890s, probably one-third to one-half were committed to the idea of
entire sanctification as being brought about instantaneously. An opponent of the Holiness movement within Methodism named Daniel Whedon, a newsletter editor, claimed that "they are not Wesleyan. We believe that a living Wesley would never admit them to the Methodist system." One of the founders of the camp meeting association, J. A. Wood, defended his doctrine with an extensive survey of Wesley's doctrine of Christian Perfection, entitled
Christian Perfection as Taught by John Wesley. In this book, he spent several hundred pages exclusively quoting Wesley in defense of the Holiness Movement's view of entire sanctification. Even still "The leaders of the National Camp Meeting Association for the Promotion of Holiness generally opposed "come-outism",...They urged believers in entire sanctification and Christian perfection to remain in their denominations and to work within them to promote holiness teaching and general spiritual vitality." This tension reached a head at the 1898 conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, when it passed rule 301: Many Holiness evangelists and traveling ministers found it difficult to continue their ministry under this new rule—particularly in mainline Methodist charges and circuits that were unfriendly to the Holiness movement. In the years that followed, scores of new Holiness Methodist associations were formed—many of these "come-outer" associations and various parties alienated by certain parts of
Mainline Methodism consolidated to form new denominations (e.g., the
Free Methodist Church, the
Wesleyan Methodist Church, the
Salvation Army and the
Church of the Nazarene). Other Holiness Methodists (the "stay-inners") remained within the mainline Methodist Churches, such as
H. C. Morrison who became the first president of
Asbury Theological Seminary, a prominent university of the holiness movement that remains influential among holiness adherents in Methodism. Those who left mainline Methodist churches to form Holiness denominations during this time numbered no more than 100,000.
Early 20th century , first published in 1922 and then used in
Seven Questions in Dispute by William Jennings Bryan Throughout the early 20th century, week-long
revival campaigns with local churches, and revival elements brought into the worship service, carried on the tradition of camp meetings. Pentecostalism and the Charismatic movement competed for the loyalties of Holiness advocates (see related section below), and a separate
Holiness Pentecostal movement was born that taught three works of grace: (1) New Birth, (2) entire sanctification, (3) speaking in tongues. This new dichotomy gradually dwindled the population of the mainstream of the Holiness movement. Some Holiness advocates found themselves at home with
Fundamentalism and later the
Evangelical movement. It was during this time (1939) that the Methodist Episcopal Church (North and South) and the
Methodist Protestant Church merged to form The Methodist Church. This merger created a Mainline Christian organization which made remaining Holiness elements within U.S. Methodism less influential.
Mid-to-late 20th century , one of the largest denominations in the
conservative holiness movement, and is located in
Akron, Ohio. Cultural shifts following World War II resulted in a further division in the Holiness movement. Not content with what they considered to be a lax attitude toward sin, several small groups left Holiness denominations of the Methodist tradition, and to a lesser extent
Quaker, Anabaptist and Restorationist denominations, to form the
conservative holiness movement. Staunch defenders of
Biblical inerrancy, they stress
modesty in dress and
revivalistic worship practices. They identify with classical Fundamentalism more so than Evangelicalism. While some have pointed out that the broader holiness movement has declined in its original strong emphasis of the doctrine of entire sanctification, the conservative holiness movement still frequently promotes, preaches, and teaches this definition of holiness and entire sanctification, both at the scholarly level, and in pastoral teaching. As the
Holiness Conservatives were distancing themselves even further, Mainline Methodism was becoming larger with the merger between The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church, forming the
United Methodist Church in 1968. A slow trickle of disaffected Holiness-friendly United Methodists left for Holiness movement denominations. Other Holiness advocates stayed in the United Methodist Church and are represented in the Good News Movement and
Confessing Movement. These movements eventually led to the creation of the
Global Methodist Church. Many United Methodist clergy, and now Global Methodist clergy, in the holiness tradition are educated at
Asbury Theological Seminary. Meanwhile, the bulk of the Wesleyan-Holiness churches began to developed a disdain for what they considered to be
legalism, and gradually dropped prohibitions against dancing and theater patronage, while maintaining rules against gambling, as well as alcohol and tobacco use. Continued stances on the sanctity of marriage and abstinence matched similar convictions. In the 1970s, opposition to abortion became a recurring theme, and by the 1990s statements against practicing
homosexuality were increasingly common. A devotion to charity work continued, particularly through the Salvation Army and other denominational and
parachurch agencies.
21st century , United Kingdom Faced with a growing identity crisis and continually dwindling numbers, Wesleyan-Holiness Evangelicals have hosted several inter-denominational conferences and begun several initiatives to draw a clearer distinction between Wesleyan theology and that of other Evangelicals and to explore how to address contemporary social issues and appear winsome to a "
post-modern world". As one such example, in 2006 the
Wesleyan Holiness Consortium published "The Holiness Manifesto" in conjunction with representatives from historic Holiness Methodist denominations, including the Free Methodist Church, United Methodist Church, Wesleyan Church, and the Church of the Nazarene. The divide between classical Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism became greater following the
9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. by militant Muslim fundamentalists—as the term "fundamental" became associated with intolerance and aggressive attitudes. Several Evangelical Holiness groups and publications have denounced the term "fundamentalist" (preferring Evangelical) while others are reconciling to what extent the Fundamentalist movement of the 1920s remains a part of their history. The Church of the Nazarene, the Wesleyan Church, and the Free Methodist Church were the largest Wesleyan-Evangelical Holiness bodies as of 2015. Talks of a merger were tabled, but new cooperatives such as the Global Wesleyan Alliance were formed as the result of inter-denominational meetings. The
Global Methodist Church consists of a large number of traditionalists, including those aligned with the Wesleyan-Holiness movement. The
Book of Discipline of the Global Methodist Church thus teaches that "a life of holiness or 'entire sanctification' should be the goal of each individual's journey with God." After its establishment,
Asbury Theological Seminary, a flagship institution of the Wesleyan-Holiness movement, signed a church planting partnership with the Global Methodist Church. At this point the legacy of the Holiness Movement is fragmented between the more conservative branch (cf.
conservative holiness movement), attempting to maintain and revive historic Holiness doctrine and practice, and others more willing to move beyond the doctrine and tradition of the past. ==Influences==