Holiness and Pentecostal Movements: Intertwined Pasts, Presents, and Futures?
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Holiness and Pentecostal Movements: Intertwined Pasts, Presents, and Futures? Edited by David Bundy, Geordan Hammond, and David Sang-Ehil Han Historically and theologically the Holiness and Pentecostal movements are closely related and intertwined. Yet at the same time they are competitive traditions and spiritualties. Commonality and competition has been a feature of the relationship between the histories and theologies of the Holiness and Pentecostal movements from the early twentieth century beginnings of Pentecostalism to the present. Nonetheless, these movements are often studied in relative isolation from one another. This volume will examine the intersections between these two movements in order to shed new light on both traditions and the complex relationship between them. The introduction to this volume will frame it in a way that analyses the “commonality and competition” theme and relates it to the essays in this book. This should help to set the general tone and scholarly standard for the series. Outline of Contents David Bundy, Geordan Hammond, and David David Sang-Ehil Han, Introduction At the Beginning David Bundy, The Preachers and their Students: God’s Bible School as a Seedbed of Radical Holiness and Pentecostal Leaders, 1892-1910 Robert A. Danielson, Pandita Ramabai, the Holiness Movement, and the Mukti Revival of 1905 Kimberly Ervin Alexander, “A Larger World of Spirit-Filled Brothers and Sisters”—Rev. Alexander A. Boddy, The Pentecostal League of Prayer, and the Wesleyan Roots of British Pentecostalism Luther Oconer, A World Tour of Evangelism: Henry Clay Morrison’s Radical Holiness Meets “Global Holiness,” 1909–1910 Unity and Diversity Daniel Woods, “Spiritual Railroading”: Trains as Metaphor and Reality in the Holiness and Pentecostal Movements, ca. 1880 to ca. 1920 Cheryl J. Sanders, Black Radical Holy Women at the Intersection of Christian Unity and Social Justice Insik Choi, Pneumatology as a Basis for Ecumenical Dialogue between the Korean Methodist, Holiness, and Pentecostal Traditions Theological Engagement 1 Frank D. Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit and Fire: The Relevance of Spirit Baptism for a Holiness and Pentecostal View of the Atonement Henry H. Knight III, The Presence of the Kingdom: Optimism of Grace in the Holiness and Pentecostal Movements Chris E. W. Green, Fulfilling the Full Gospel: The Promise of the Theology of the Cleveland School Abstracts and Author Biographies David Bundy, The Preachers and their Students: God’s Bible School as a Seedbed of Radical Holiness and Pentecostal Leaders, 1892-1910 As the Gilded Age was transforming into the Progressive Era, as described by American historians, a small unpretentious educational institution in Cincinnati, God’s Bible School, was confronting both tendencies. Ideas and values were being shaped by students, staff, and faculty at this multi-racial, multi-class, gender inclusive institution that would influence two religious movements. The institution provided formative leaders for both the Pentecostal Movement and the Radical Holiness Movement. These two traditions have normally been seen only as competitors, but the relationships were quite complicated. Building on the work of Wood (2002), Kostlevy (2012), Thornton (2014), and Bundy (2015), this essay argues that the commonalities were significant between the two traditions at the beginning of the 20th century; indeed, the competition was because they were so similar. The essay examines what students were taught at God’s Bible School and what was accepted or rejected as the two movements differentiated. It discusses issues of modernity, power, race, gender, social location, and generational shifts, as well as the diverse networks in which the younger leaders participated. Common theological methodologies, sources, social commitments, and praxis are analyzed. Despite the commonalities, other factors led to a process of differentiation of the two traditions, ecclesiastically but also with regard to revivalism, glossolalia, and theological sources. David Bundy is Associate Director of the Manchester Wesley Research Centre and Research Professor of World Christian Studies, New York Theological Seminary. Robert A. Danielson, “Pandita Ramabai, the Holiness Movement, and the Mukti Revival of 1905” Considered by many Pentecostal scholars as a pre-Azusa Street example of a spontaneous outpouring of the Holy Spirit accompanied by speaking of tongues, the Mukti Revival of 1905 remains an intriguing early outlier of Global Pentecostalism. While some have given passing recognition to the possible influence of the Welsh Revival through the expansion of the Holiness Movement in the Khasi Hills, many scholars have overlooked the holiness influences on Pandita Ramabai from her travels and form within Mumbai (Bombay) itself. Holiness influences through the Methodist Episcopal Church, such as Albert and Mary Norton, the Free Methodist Church with Ernest and Phebe Ward, as well as strong connections with Alfred and Helen Dyer, need 2 to be explored more deeply. Numerous lesser contacts with the radical holiness Pentecost Bands, C. W. Sherman and his daughter Bessie Ashton from the Vanguard Mission in St. Louis, and William B. Godbey also demonstrate the complex influences of the Holiness Movement on this historic revival so closely tied to the history of Pentecostalism. What makes these interactions especially interesting is that most of them occurred before the 1905 Mukti Revival. This essay seeks to bring all of these influences together to better understand how the Holiness Movement influenced both Pandita Ramabai and the Mukti Mission itself. While direct connections to the revival itself are tenuous, understanding the complex interplay of holiness influences provides strong circumstantial evidence for how the Holiness Movement in India influenced the growth of historic Pentecostalism in its early years on the sub-continent. Robert A. Danielson is the Scholarly Communications Librarian as Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. He is a missiologist with a Ph.D. in Intercultural Studies and teaches in the E. Stanley Jones School of World Missions and Evangelism at Asbury Theological Seminary as an affiliate faculty. Kimberly Ervin Alexander , “A Larger World of Spirit-Filled Brothers and Sisters”: Rev. Alexander A. Boddy, The Pentecostal League of Prayer, and the Wesleyan Roots of British Pentecostalism Thomas Ball Barratt, an English-born Methodist minister from Norway, visited the United States after hearing of the Pentecostal revival at Azusa St. in Los Angeles. After Lucy Leatherman laid hands on and prayed for him at a Pentecostal meeting in New York City, he returned to Norway, preaching the Pentecostal message there. A revival followed. When Rev. Alexander A. Boddy, vicar of All Saints Church, Sunderland heard of the revival in Christiana, he visited it and urged Barratt to come to England for a series of meetings. Barratt obliged in the late summer of 1907. In those meetings, Boddy’s wife, Mary, an able teacher known for her prayers of healing for the sick, received the Pentecostal experience. Boddy’s experience followed in December. The Boddys quickly took on the leadership role of the movement in England, with influence all over the continent, as well as the US, as a result of their annual meetings and monthly periodical, Confidence . Historians have long noted Boddy’s role in the beginnings of British Pentecostalism and have assumed a Keswick influence on him, and, therefore on the early Pentecostal movement. But this assumption is based on scant evidence and ignores the more probable influences on the Boddys: Reader and Mary Harris and their Pentecostal League of Prayer (PLP). This chapter explores evidence for this claim as well as parallels between the PLP and the nascent Pentecostalism of Sunderland. Kimberly Ervin Alexander (Ph.D., Open University/St. John’s College) is Associate Professor of the History of Christianity at Regent University School of Divinity and an Honorary Research Fellow at the Manchester Wesley Research Centre. Alexander is a past-president of the Society for Pentecostal Studies. She serves on several editorial 3 boards for Wesleyan and Pentecostal publications. She is the author of Pentecostal Healing: Models of Theology and Practice as well as numerous books, articles, and chapters on healing, women in Pentecostalism, and early Pentecostal spiritual experience. Luther Oconor, “A World Tour of Evangelism: Henry Clay Morrison’s Radical Holiness Meets ‘Global Holiness,’ 1909–1910” In the fall of 1909, Henry Clay Morrison, soon-to-be president of Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky, embarked on an eleven-month “world tour of evangelism” by conducting a series of “Pentecostal meetings” in Asia, most particularly, in India, Korea, and Japan. Primarily funded by the Board of Missions of the Holiness Union, Morrison’s tour demonstrates the vitality of the Radical Holiness movement which, through its revival impulses, had given rise to the Pentecostal movement in the United States. This essay argues that Morrison’s tour provides an opportunity for us to examine not only a brand of radical holiness that developed after the rise of the Pentecostal Movement in the United States, but also the contours of a different form of holiness spirituality that persisted in the mission field or what is called “global holiness.” It also demonstrates that reception to Morrison’s work in countries where he found great success serve as barometers to understanding why Pentecostalism