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
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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 would take root in these locations decades later. It establishes that the rise and growth of global Pentecostalism would have not been possible without the pre-existence of “global holiness” networks.
Luther Oconer is Associate Professor of United Methodist Studies and Director of the Center for Evangelical United Brethren Heritage at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. He is an ordained elder from the United Methodist Church in the Philippines.
Daniel Woods, “Spiritual Railroading”: Trains as Metaphor and Reality in the Holiness and Pentecostal Movements, ca. 1880 to ca. 1920
Technological innovation, especially in communication and transportation, has the power to create new paths for the flow of religious ideas and witness. It also can provide the faithful with fresh ways of thinking about the interplay between the material and spiritual worlds—between the visible and the invisible—providing new words and images for testifying to religious rapture. Train travel had just such influences on the Holiness movement of the late nineteenth century and its daughter Pentecostal movement that emerged in the first decade of the twentieth century. The dynamic expansion of both revivals was deeply entwined with the concurrent explosive growth in transportation that historians refer to as the “Golden Age of the Railroad.” Holiness and Pentecostal leaders mutually benefited from rail expansion and modeled fruitful engagement with the opportunity trains offered to accelerate evangelism of the world. Many of them also appropriated technological innovations of the rail age—such as “locomotive power” of the indwelling Holy Ghost—to help people grasp the theological distinctives of their movements and avoid deceptive “sidetracks” that might lead them away from the “Grand Trunk Line of Holiness.” Examples of these two sides of what Holiness evangelist Seth C. Rees described as “spiritual railroading” abound in the
4 sermons, testimonies, ministry reports, fiction, and autobiographies produced by the presses of both movements. Trains proved as useful for inspiration as for actual facilitation of these burgeoning revivals.
Daniel Woods is Professor of History Emeritus at Ferrum College (Virginia) and School of Ministry Director for the North Carolina Conference of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church. In 2017, he co-authored Fire Baptized: The Many Lives and Works of Benjamin Hardin Irwin with Vinson Synan (Emeth Press).
Cheryl J. Sanders, “Black Radical Holy Women at the Intersection of Christian Unity and Social Justice”
This chapter explores the contributions of black women leaders whose social witness influenced the emergence of the radical Holiness movement in the 19th century and of Pentecostalism in the 20th century. Three models of Christian social witness are ascribed to these women to interpret how they operated under the rubric of exilic ecclesiology “in the world, but not of it” as they followed Jesus: (1) the cosmopolitan evangelism of Amanda Berry Smith; (2) the egalitarian revivalism of the Azusa Street washwomen, and (3) the sanctified civic engagement of the Church of God in Christ church mothers, Lizzie Robinson and Lillian Brooks Coffey.
The five types set forth by H. Richard Niebuhr in his classic text Christ and Culture provide a framework for further analysis of the exilic ecclesiologies represented among the black radical Holiness and Pentecostal women in this study. Evangelist Amanda Berry Smith followed Jesus by travelling internationally to disciple people in all nations; the Niebuhrian typology in her case is “Christ above culture”. The Azusa washwomen followed Jesus by performing miracles of healing and deliverance in his name across the barriers of race, sex, social class and language, also in keeping with the “Christ above culture” typology. The COGIC church mothers followed Jesus by organizing black women, in participation with other organizations beyond the scope of their denomination, to sanctify the world, exemplifying the typology of “Christ transforming culture”. Because of their race, sex, and social class, these black radical holy women were uniquely positioned to confront and dismantle barriers to Christian unity and social transformation.
Cheryl J. Sanders is Professor of Christian Ethics at Howard University School of Divinity and Senior Pastor of Third Street Church of God in Washington, D.C. She is President of the American Theological Society, and is a member of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Christian Ethics. Her publications include Saints in Exile: The Holiness-Pentecostal Experience in African American Religion and Culture ; and Ministry at the Margins and Empowerment Ethics for a Liberated People .
Insik Choi, “Pneumatology as a Basis for Ecumenical Dialogue between the Korean Methodist, Holiness, and Pentecostal Traditions”
This chapter explores theological conversations related to pneumatology among three distinctive yet related strands of Christianity in Korea that, to a greater or lesser degree,
5 share the Wesleyan heritage. These traditions arrived on the Korean Peninsula at different times: Methodism (1885), the Holiness Movements (1907), and Pentecostalism (1928). Pneumatology has long been a source of contention among Korean Christian traditions. In particular, the pneumatologies of Holiness and Pentecostal traditions have been often severely criticized by the older Reformed and Methodist traditions. A careful reconsideration of these disputes have been resurfaced among the third generation of Korean theologians. This chapter provides a descriptive analysis of the theological tensions existing among the aforementioned traditions, especially with regard to pneumatological issues. Attention will be given to the evolution of their mutual historical understandings as well as elements that might contribute to the possibility of a more holistic approach in pneumatology.
Insik Choi is Professor of Systematic Theology, Seoul Theological University and Director of the Global Institute for the Fourfold Gospel Theology. He has served as Graduate Dean of Seoul Theological University and Chairman of Korean Systematic Theology. He received his doctorate at Kirchliche Hochschule Berlin (currently Berlin Humboldt University).
Frank D. Macchia, “Baptized in the Spirit and Fire: Towards a Pneumatological Understanding of Atonement for Wesleyans and Pentecostals”
Historically, Christology in the West was secured as the redemptive event in its own right through the linkage between the incarnation and the atonement. This linkage protected Christology from adoptionism or the subordination of Christology to pneumatology. Left unanswered by this linkage was the role of Jesus as the Baptizer in the Spirit and fire as announced by John the Baptist. In particular, what is the role of cross in the fulfillment of Jesus’ mission as Spirit Baptizer? I will answer this question drawing from Holiness and Pentecostal sources. I will develop the idea that Jesus is sanctified in his own baptism in the Spirit and fire through his passage from death to life in order to baptize others in the Spirit.
Frank D. Macchia is Professor of Christian Theology at Vanguard University of Southern California and Associate Director of the Centre for Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies at Bangor University, Wales (UK). His most recent books are The Spirit-Baptized Church: A Dogmatic Inquiry (T & T Clark, 2020) and Jesus the Spirit Baptizer: Christology in Light of Pentecost (Eerdmans, 2018). He has written extensively on various systematic loci in the light of pneumatology.
Henry H. Knight III, “The Presence of the Kingdom: Optimism of Grace in the Holiness and Pentecostal Movements”
The Holiness and Pentecostal movements, consistent with their Wesleyan roots, are shaped and motivated by the promise that through the power of the Holy Spirit, the life of the coming kingdom of heaven is already being realized in this age. This optimism of grace, centered in the presence and power of God, encourages a way of salvation that emphasizes new life in Christ and aims toward holiness as perfection in love. Theirs is a spirituality of openness to God and expectant faith and hope. The reception of new life
6 in turn provides the motivation for mission, enabled by the reception of power from the Spirit, in which the good news of Jesus Christ is proclaimed through word and deed, the church is renewed, and there is ministry to bodies as well as souls. This is all grounded in a dynamic trinitarianism in which Christ is the foundation and content of salvation and the Spirit is the power of salvation and mission. These movements are a distinct alternative to both liberal theologies shaped by the Enlightenment and Reformed scholasticism.
Henry H. Knight III (Hal) is Donald and Pearl Wright Professor of Wesleyan Studies and E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism, Saint Paul School of Theology, Leawood, Kansas. He is the author of The Presence of God in The Christian Life: John Wesley and the Means of Grace , Anticipating Heaven Below: Optimism of Grace from John Wesley to the Pentecostals , John Wesley: Optimist of Grace , and editor of From Aldersgate to Azusa Street.
Chris E. W. Green, “Fulfilling the Full Gospel: The Promise of the Theology of the Cleveland School”
This essay explores and evaluates the key theological claims of the Cleveland School— especially its Christ-centeredness, synergism, liberationism, apocalypticism, and affectivity—and asks what those claims mean for the future of Pentecostal theology, in particular, and the Christian tradition, more broadly. Attention is given to the limits of the five-fold gospel paradigm, which some in the Cleveland School consider essential, and an alternative paradigm is suggested, one that privileges the apocalyptic.
Chris E. W. Green is Professor of Theology at Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida, a Teaching Pastor at Sanctuary Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Canon Theologian for the Diocese of St Anthony in Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches.
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