The
Holiness Movement’s Heritage of Social Action
As the social action tsunami sweeps across the evangelical
church it is popular in my denomination (Wesleyan) to cite John Wesley’s social
action to argue that our current shift to social action is really part of our
heritage. It is true that Wesley focused on both personal and social
holiness. But it is also true that John
Wesley was the grandfather of our movement, not our father. Indeed the father
of the American holiness movement was a mother who came along a hundred years
after Wesley. Today’s Wesleyans have
more in common with our mother than our grandfather. Wesley fits in our minds
with his long-haired contemporaries—Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.
Young holiness Wesleyans need not to go back all the way to England’s
1700’s to find examples of social action in our family tree. Social action was
a central focus of the American holiness movement just a hundred years ago. The American holiness movement who virtually inverted urban
missions. They took the sanctification
of the person and
society as their mission believing that neither individuals nor
society have to wait until heaven to be perfected. The stories of the founders of the American
holiness movement are inspiring to today’s young people especially since they
understood so keenly modern urban problems and they set out to address them.
Phoebe
Palmer & the American holiness movement
The American holiness movement’s
mother is Phoebe Palmer. Palmer merged the personal piety of a second work of
grace which she promoted in her “Tuesday Meetings” with an active approach to
social action. She led distribution of clothing, food and medical supplies to
the poor in New York.
Her husband, a medical doctor, provided free medical care to the poor. She
frequently visited prisons and when the courts refused to release one Jewish
young boy whose family had rejected him simply adopted him to get custody of
the boy and give him a home. She was the
central figure in the 1850 establishment a “Settlement house in New York city’s worst slums—the Five Points. This was in an area where
gangs ruled and brutality reigned. Even Charles Dickens refused to visit the
area without two burly policemen as guards. Phoebe Palmer went alone. The workers at the Five Points house did not
commute into the poor section of town from their comfortable cottages at the
edge of town but chose to live among the poor, opening their own homes as
Christian half-way houses for the poor trying to escape poverty. By 1900 there
were hundreds of holiness missions in almost every urban center of America
providing food, housing, clothing medical care and job training. Social action
was as much a part of the American holiness movement as was personal holiness.
William
Booth & the Salvation Army
Most Wesleyans forget the Salvation Army was born of the
holiness movement. (Many Salvationists have forgotten too.) Almost a century
after John Wesley, William and Catherine Booth founded the Salvation Army in England about
the same time of the American holiness movement was blossoming. Like the
Methodist movement, The Salvation Army spilled over into America. In
1886 the first Salvationist home for “fallen women” was started and social
action became the central action for this holiness denomination and “church for
the poor.” The Salvation Army is the one
holiness denomination that has continually and faithfully stuck with a mission
of social action while other holiness churches scrambled up the ladder of success
abandoning the poor and needy.
B. T.
Roberts & the Free Methodists
Free Methodism’s founder, B. T. Roberts
considered a mission to the poor a biblical mandate. Roberts was especially
perturbed with the Methodist practice of auctioning off pews in its churches to
the highest bidder, essentially announcing their church was for the rich and
upper classes. His agitation got him expelled from the Methodist church and,
with others he formed the Free
Methodist Church,
with a central mission to the poor. Roberts actively opposed slavery and was called
for a “100% death tax” so that the wealthy could not pass on wealth keeping it
in the family—he thought it should be spread around. But the holiness movement
of the 1800s was carried on by (mostly middle-class) women, not men, (see
separate article on the women of the holiness movement). For instance, June Dunning, a Free Methodist
woman founded the Providence Mission squarely in New York’s African-American ghetto in the
1860’s. Free Methodists, largely a rural denomination, still made it their
business to reach the poor in the sprawling crime-infested urban centers of America. Why?
Because the Bible called them to do it, and Jesus gave the example of
proclaiming the gospel to the poor.
Charles G. Finney & Oberlin College
The founder of Oberlin
College in Ohio, holiness evangelist Charles Finney
preached personal holiness but was in the forefront of the anti-slavery
movement. In 1850, congress passed the compromise "fugitive slave law”
which required the return of any southern slave which had escaped to a free state. Federal marshals were required to arrest and
return any escaped slave and were fined $1000 if they ignored an escaped slave.
When a federal marshal arrested a slave in Oberlin a mob (including Oberlin
students) was organized to storm the hotel where the slave had been imprisoned
in the attic. They rescued the slave and took him back for hiding in the home
of Oberlin college’s President’s then spirited him off
to Canada.
Thirty-seven people were indicted by a federal grand jury for this act of
holiness social action.
Orange
Scott, Luther Lee & the Wesleyan Methodists
Angry at Methodist appeasement of southern
slave-holders, Orange Scott and Luther Lee organized the Wesleyan Methodist
Church to oppose the
social sin of slavery. Lee said of the Fugitive Slave act “I never would obey it. I had assisted thirty slaves to escape to Canada during
the last month. If the authorities wanted anything of me, my residence was at 39 Onondaga Street.
I would admit that and they could take me and lock me up in the Penitentiary on
the hill; but if they did such a foolish thing as that, I had friends enough on
Onondaga County to level it to the ground before the next morning.” These
Wesleyan holiness preachers were
interested in personal holiness but they also cared enough about the poor and
powerless to risk their lives to save even one escaped slave. Wesleyan
Methodists wanted a fair and just society for all, especially the poor,
disenfranchised and powerless.
Phineas Bresee & the Nazarenes
Methodist Bresee
founded the Nazarene church in 1895 at Los
Angeles in his plain “Glory Barn” which he defended
with the statement, “we want places so
plain that every board will say welcome to the poorest.” For a while he affiliated with the “Peniel Mission” though he was convinced that a “church for
the poor” was the ultimate answer. He saw the Church of the Nazarene as being a
church for “the lowly, toiling masses.”
This first Nazarene General Superintendent said: “let the Church of the Nazarene be true to its commission; not great and
elegant buildings. But to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, and wipe away
the tears of sorrowing, and gather jewels for His diadem.”
Alma White
& the Pillar of Fire
When the
anti-female faction of the Colorado Holiness Association refused to let Alma
White speak at its convention because she was a woman she founded the Pillar of
Fire denomination and was ordained as the first woman bishop of an American
denomination. She founded hundreds of churches along with several colleges and
radio stations and was a national leader in the women’s rights movement,
pushing for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment which was first
introduced in 1923. She was a vegetarian and argued against eating meat and was
a constantly agitation against business and government for “making women slaves”
and constantly agitated for full equal rights for women.
Seth Rees
& the Pilgrims
Late in the 19th
century (1897), Quaker Seth Cook Rees and Methodist Martin Wells Knapp founded
what would become the Pilgrim Holiness Church
at God’s Bible School
in Cincinnati.
The resulting movement (later a denomination) was committed from the beginning
to both personal and social holiness.
Students at God’s Bible school “worked the streets” of downtown
Cincinnati, feeding the poor and caring for the homeless in mission venues as
they prepared to travel to the “impoverished nations of the world” in
missionary work or stay at home and plant “storefront churches” accessible to
the poor. Pilgrim churches were commonly planted “across the railroad tracks”
in the poorest sections of town or in storefront missions which could cater to
the poor. It was here as a student at God’s Bible school that the most recent
General Superintendent of The Wesleyan church, Joanne Lyon first caught the
vision for holiness social action.
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When young folk in today’s holiness movement make the
argument for both personal and social
holiness they cite John Wesley from 250 years ago as their “heritage trump card.” But they do not have to go that far back to
find a sturdy holiness social conscience—it is really less than a hundred years
ago in America that holiness people considered ministry to the poor, the
prisoners, the lowly and disenfranchised, dropouts and life’s victims central
to holiness living.
May God bless you young folk as you lead a revival and
rediscovery our own full holiness heritage—both personal and social holiness.
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Further Reading
1.
Christian
History And Biography—Issue #82. If you only buy
one thing buy this. If you’re in the holiness movement and have not read Issue
#82 of Christian History get one today. It only costs five bucks, and you will
be inspired by the social action history of the American Holiness Movement. I
am so convinced you will agree that this issue is worth the money that I
guarantee it—if you are disappointed, just send your copy to me and I will
refund your money.
2.
Discovering
an Evangelical Heritage. Donald W. Dayton’s book
outlining the holiness heritage of social action. In a way Dayton’s book was a tome
out of time. When he made these points the holiness movement was in the midst
of “upward drift” moving out of town and into multi-million dollar modern
buildings designed for racquetball suburbanites. Now it is rapidly becoming a
“classic” to younger holiness generations who are themselves discovering their
ideas of social action are actually more in the mainstream of their great
grandparents than their parents.
3.
Everything
Must Change. For a more recent take on the social action movement read this
book by Brian McLaren. McClaren has deep roots in the Wesleyan movement even
though today’s Wesleyans see him sometimes as “far out.” You can read online Michel
Cline’s interview with Brian McClaren on his
Wesleyan roots and social action.
So what do you
think?
During the first few weeks click
here to comment or read comments
Keith Drury August, 2008
WWW.TuesdayColumn.com