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North American Wesleyan-Holiness Churches in Australia

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North American Wesleyan-Holiness Churches in Australia NORTH AMERICAN WESLEYAN-HOLINESS CHURCHES IN AUSTRALIA Submitted by Glen O’Brien Bachelor of Theology, Master of Arts A thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of European and Historical Studies Faculty of Humanities La Trobe University Bundoora, Victoria 3086 Australia March 2005 1 E. E. Zachary with koala. Photo: Nazarene Archives, Kansas City. Missouri. i Contents Summary………………………………………………………………….. vi Statement of Authorship………………………………………………… viii Acknowledgments……………………………………………………….. ix Chapter One: Introduction………………………………………………. 1 The Wesleyan-Holiness Churches in Historical Context………… 5 Moving Along the Church-Sect Continuum……………………… 9 Americanisation and Anti-Americanism………………………… 11 Declaration of Researcher’s Position……………………………. 14 The New Religious History……………………………………… 20 Spatial and Temporal Boundaries……………………………….. 23 1900-1945………………………………………………… 24 1945-1958………………………………………………… 24 1959-1977………………………………………………… 26 1977-the Present…………………………………………… 27 Outlining the Field…………………………………………………. 28 Chapter Two: ‘A Beautiful Virgin Country Ready for a Revival of Bible Holiness’: Early Visiting Holiness Evangelists……………… 31 Early Holiness Movements in Australia…………………………. 31 The Keswick Convention Movement……………………… 31 The Holiness Impetus in Mainline Methodism…………… 34 The 1928 Norman Dunning Campaign…………… 34 The Blurring of the Concept of Definiteness in Conversion and Sanctification…………………… 37 Holiness Conventions……………………………… 39 ii The Social Gospel ……………………………. 44 Doctrinal Indifferentism……………………………. 45 The First Rise of Independent Wesleyan-Holiness Movements…... 47 Eliot John Rien and Bethshan Holiness Mission………… 47 E. P. May and the Church of God (Anderson)…………… 48 A. B. Carson and the Holiness Movement Church………… 52 Forerunners of the Church of the Nazarene in Australia…. 59 Chapter Three: ‘Singing a Hallelujah Song Under the Southern Cross’: The Post-War Emergence of Wesleyan-Holiness Churches…. 64 American ‘Home Missions’ in Australia…………………………... 66 ‘Dark Days and Long Hard Pulls’: Opposition on Theological Grounds…………………………………………………………… 88 ‘Their Sphere is Among the Wattles’: Establishing an Aboriginal Church……………………………………………………………… 98 Holiness in Australian Methodism in the 1940s………………… 109 Chapter Four: ‘Just Another “Queer Sect” from Over the Pacific’: Americanism and Anti-Americanism……………………………… 113 ‘Alexander’s Racy Hymns and Americanism’……………………. 114 Curtin Looks to America………………………………………….. 118 ‘The Man with the Turned Up Hat’ and ‘The Feller with the Tucked-In Tie’………………………………………………….. 119 The Sanctified Soldier Boys………………………………………. 122 ‘The Oddities of the Yank Deportment’: Differing Religious Origins and Styles………………………………………………… 125 ‘Sheep Stealers’ and ‘Sinless Perfectionists’…………………….. 133 American Imperialism or the Production of Modernity?………… 137 Chapter Five: Joining the Evangelical Club: Moving Along the Church-Sect Continuum………………………………………….. 144 iii ‘We’re Wowsers; Let’s Wowse!’………………………………… 148 ‘Our Aim – Fidelity Not Popularity’: Relations with Other Churches…………………………………………………………… 163 ‘Seeing the True Church of God’: The Church of God (Anderson)………………………………………………………… 170 Are the Wesleyan-Holiness Churches Still ‘Movements’?………. 185 Chapter Six: They ‘Made a Pentecostal Out of Her’: The Church of God (Cleveland) in Australia……………………………………… 189 Fire in the Mountains: The Beginnings of the Church of God (Cleveland)………………………………………………………… 192 The Church of God (Cleveland) in Pentecostal Context…………... 193 The Self-Identification of the Church of God (Cleveland)………… 198 Pentecostalism in Australia……………………………………… 201 The New Testament Church of God in Australia…………………. 204 A Church of Immigrant Communities…………………………….. 210 Chapter Seven: Old Time Methodists in a New World: The Continuing Viability of Conservative Religion……………………………. 215 Growth and Decline in Australian Christian Churches……………. 216 Summary Conclusions……………………………………………... 224 Appendix A: The Apostolic Church (Nazarean)…………………………. 230 Appendix B: The Christian and Missionary Alliance…………………….. 236 Bibliography………………………………………………………………. 241 List of Photographs: E. E. Zachary with Koala…………………………………………... i Meredith ‘Ted’ Hollingsworth…………………………………….. 65 E. E. Zachary………………………………………………………. 78 Delegates at the First Nazarene District Assembly 1948………….. 81 iv Australia: Land of Challenge, Nazarene Young People’s Society, 1945………………………………………………………. 97 Doug Pinch with Frank Roberts and Langus Phillips……………… 108 I Object…to Billy Graham and I Object…To My Religion Being Imported from America…………………………………………… 116 RAAF Chaplain, Rev. Kingsley Ridgway,1942 ………………… 123 A young Billy Graham…………………………………………………. 132 Doug Pinch with Nazarene ‘Caravaners’ in 1956…………………. 141 List of Tables: Table 1: Factors Leading to Variables in the Tension of Religious Sects………………………………………………………. 147 Table 2: Patterns of growth and decline in mainline, Pentecostal, and Holiness churches…………………………………… 216 Table 3: Degrees of participation of adherents in the Wesleyan Methodist, Nazarene, and Uniting Churches……………. 217 v Summary This thesis examines the emergence of a number of North American Wesleyan-Holiness denominations in Australia, beginning in the years following the Second World War. They are the Church of God (Anderson), the Church of God (Cleveland), the Church of the Nazarene, and the Wesleyan Methodist Church. It will trace the manner in which some of these churches moved from being despised and marginalised sects to established denominations while others remained small and isolated, experiencing little growth. The thesis demonstrates that the movement along the church-sect continuum is by no means a smooth and inevitable one. Immigrant dislocation may lead to a slowing down of change to preserve a sense of identity. A particular group may be found to be positioned toward the church end of the continuum in its place of origin and be positioned toward the sect end in its mission areas, or the reverse may be true. A particular movement may be seen as a ‘sect’ when compared to one group and a ‘church’ when compared to another. The theme of Americanisation and anti-Americanism will be examined, as the explicitly American origins of these churches was both the cause of their exclusion and at the same time a mechanism for their survival. The emergence of the Wesleyan-Holiness denominations in Australia is not an example of American cultural and religious imperialism. Rather it has been a creative partnership between like-minded evangelical Christians from two modern nations sharing a general cultural and social similarity and a common set of religious convictions. The Wesleyan-Holiness churches saw increased growth from the late 1970s by welcoming into their membership a new wave of refugees from more liberal Protestant denominations. They are shown to be both a new religious movement, vi emerging out of the post-war context of greater engagement between Australians and Americans and at the same time a continuation of the long-standing ‘holiness’ and ‘revivalist’ strain within Australian evangelicalism. vii Statement of Authorship Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis contains no material published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis submitted for the award of any other degree or diploma. No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the main text of the thesis. This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution. All research procedures reported in the thesis were approved by the relevant Ethics Committee or authorised officer. ____________________________ Glen Ashley O’Brien 31st March 2005 viii Acknowledgments I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. John Hirst, Postgraduate Coordinator Dr. Richard Broome, and the many fellow postgraduate students at La Trobe University, who showed me kindness and friendship during the writing of this thesis. Barry Callen and archivist Doug Welch at Anderson University, Anderson Indiana, Bill Clark at the Wesleyan Archives in Indianapolis, Indiana, Stan Ingersol at Nazarene Archives in Kansas City, Missouri, Louis F. Morgan at the Hal Bernard Dixon Pentecostal Research Centre in Cleveland, Tennessee, the archival staff at the headquarters of the Church of God of Prophecy, also in Cleveland, Tennessee, and the staff responsible for the Sugden Collection at Queen’s College, University of Melbourne, all of whom gave of their time generously, as did all of those who participated in oral history interviews, both in Australia and the United States. I thank the administration at Kingsley College in Melbourne who heavily subsidized the writing of this thesis by giving me time off from regular duties and my friends and colleagues at Nazarene Theological College in Brisbane who gave me access to their collection and archival holdings. My wife and children, and the congregation at Spring Street Wesleyan Methodist Church, Prahran, offered great support and encouragement and are almost as glad as I that the project has now been completed. ix Chapter One Introduction There exists in this country a number of evangelical churches in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition, having their organizational headquarters in the United States. This thesis will seek to gain an understanding of the historical forces that gave rise to the emergence of such groups in Australia, and the manner in which Wesleyan perfectionism of the American variety was received
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