Fundamentalism and American Culture

by Marsden, George M. ;

  An important reason that most American dispensationalists did not consider separation from their denominations a necessary consequence of their belief, was that they thought of religion primarily in terms of individuals rather than institutions. The important spiritual unit was the individual. The church existed as a body of sanctified individuals united by commitment to Christ and secondarily as a network of ad hoc spiritual organizations. The institutional church hence had no particular status. Separation, at least at this time, could be regarded as an individual question rather than an institutional one. The true Christian was one separated from sin and worldliness. Therefore, dispensational and premillennial teachings were not at this time central to a definition of the Christian’s relationship to the world, culture, and the churches. More immediately relevant was the question of how an individual was to live a spiritually separated and victorious life.25

  Holiness

  VIII. The Victorious Life

  “Indeed, within the last twenty years,” C. I. Scofield observed in 1899, “more has been written and said upon the doctrine of the Holy Spirit than in the preceding eighteen hundred years.”1 Scofield’s estimate, which appeared in his own work on the Spirit, was not implausible.2 During the preceding decades the movements known in the twentieth century as “Holiness,” “Pentecostal,” and “fundamentalist” had been taking shape and each had a common origin in the resurgence of interest in the Holy Spirit that was sweeping American evangelicalism. While Pentecostalism did not emerge as a selfconsciously distinct entity until the famous outbursts inspired by Charles F. Parham at the beginning of 1901, many of its doctrines and expectations had already been shaped by the surge of theories about the Holy Spirit to which Scofield referred.3 Most of these speculations, like those of Parham himself, developed in the vigorous “Holiness”4 movement that emerged during the last third of the century, basically out of Methodism, Less well known is the fact that many writers of holiness works were evangelists and Bible teachers like Scofield who had Calvinist leanings.5 Indeed, almost all of Moody’s lieutenants associated with the rise of dispensationalism wrote works on the Holy Spirit. While their views on the exact nature of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit differed somewhat from those of their Methodistic allies, in 1899 they still saw themselves as in the same spiritual camp. Even more than dispensationalism, their stress on the work of the Holy Spirit seems to have shaped their distinctive outlook at this time.6

  The dispensationalist and holiness teachings held by the more Calvinistic evangelists and Bible teachers were closely connected. The holiness teachings of nineteenth-century American evangelicalism were built upon the idea that the present era was the age of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit which had begun on or near the time of the first Pentecost as recorded in the book of Acts. Dispensationalism’s central teaching—that the church age was the unique age of the Spirit—stressed the same thing. The holiness teachings. which, as we shall see shortly, had roots in earlier nineteenth-century American revivalism as well as in Wesley’s Methodism, seem in fact to have prepared the way for the acceptance of dispensationalism.

  The campaigns and conferences organized by the associates of Moody to promote these two new doctrines were often kept distinct.7 Holiness teachings apparently were considered less divisive and more practical than dispensationalism. The chief practical use of dispensationalism was to inspire and intensify the all-important missions effort.8 It further provided rationale for understanding the demise of the institutional church, an issue that became increasingly important as the campaign against modernism grew in the early twentieth century. In the meantime, however, holiness teachings had a wider range of practical uses. As will be seen, the new doctrines of the Holy Spirit emphasized a profound personal experience of consecration, a filling with Spiritual power, and a dedication to arduous Christian service. Especially when the movement was in its more positive stages, prior to World War I, experience and practice were its primary concerns.

  These emphases did not conflict with the intellectual and calculating Baconianism of the evangelists any more than the message of Moody and Sankey conflicted with that of Torrey or Scofield. Evangelists of the latter sort were simply combining two complementary methods of defending authentic Christianity. American evangelicals, lacking a high view of the church or of tradition, could appeal to either or both of two bases of authority for their faith: personal experience and the Bible. The Wesleyan or Methodist tradition, which in the nineteenth century influenced almost all of American revivalism, stressed personal experience verified by the witness of words and works. Such testimony did not have to conflict with defense of the authority of the Bible grounded in reason and science. While Methodist Holiness advocates and later Pentecostals took the objective authority of Scripture for granted and accentuated the experiential, dispensationalist holiness teachers tried to emphasize both.

  Connecting the Methodist Holiness tradition with the Reformed holiness doctrine was a complex web of interactions going back at least to the eighteenth century and John Wesley’s work on “Christian Perfection.” Wesley, who was much concerned with morality, noted that Scripture commanded one to “be perfect.” He was convinced that this state must therefore be obtainable. He proposed a resolution to the obvious difficulties by limiting the definition of sin. “Nothing is sin, strictly speaking,” he said, “but a voluntary transgression of a known law of God.” This definition emphasized, in a spirit that later in America would suit the modern democratic age, the concept of sin as a voluntary act of will.9 Moreover, according to Wesley, believers could by God’s grace be freed not only from particular sinful acts, but also from the disease of sinful motives and the “power” of sin. This state he called “entire sanctification.” It usually involved both a growth in grace and a dramatic experience. The condition of “perfection” or having “perfect love” had to be maintained at all times and was one from which the Christian might fall.10

  This teaching conflicted sharply with the Reformed and Puritan concepts of Christian life that had prevailed in colonial America. Although the Puritans and their Presbyterian brethren intensely sought holiness, they did so with the assurance that the progress of the pilgrim would be marked by obstacles and failures. Perfection would never be attained in this life. Rather, the Christian’s life was one of constant and intense struggle, involving every aspect of his or her nature. In this struggle a person’s naturally sinful and corrupt condition (which remained even if increasingly weakened and mortified) fought against the new regenerated heart which through the Spirit of Christ grew in true holiness. The Christian’s life was a warfare, with many setbacks that taught humility and dependence of God’s grace.11

  These two opposed views clashed at first and were then synthesized during the evangelical revivals of the first half of the nineteenth century in America. Charles Finney brought the two views together and by 1840 was introducing something very similar to the Methodist holiness teaching into Reformed circles. Finney and his associates, notably Asa Mahan, developed the Oberlin Theology, a qualified version of perfectionism. Even more than Wesley thay emphasized the role of the will, founding their case on Yale theologian Nathaniel Taylor’s argument, based in turn on Common Sense philosophy, that nothing is either sinful or righteous unless it be a free act of will.12 The regenerate person, Finney and Mahan said, is not commanded to perform acts beyond his capacity. He must have the ability to choose the good in every instance of responsible choice. To choose correctly, however, a special work of the Holy Spirit, beyond mere regeneration, must completely overwhelm his will. Given this special work, defined so as to affirm both human free agency and complete dependence on God’s gracious power, “entire sanctification is attainable in this life.”13

  During the thirty years from 1840 to 1870 American evangelicalism was revolutionized by outbursts of similar holiness teaching across a broad denominational front. Parallel to Finney’s influence among the Reformed was Phoebe Palmer’s among Methodists. An i
nspiring Bible teacher, Mrs. Palmer promoted holiness renewal through “Tuesday Meetings” in New York City from 1837 until her death in 1874. Such gatherings, large and small, for Bible study, prayer, song, and personal testimony, provided the base for widespread growth of evangelical teaching with holiness emphasis.14 More specifically, Phoebe Palmer’s work led to the foundation in 1867 of the influential National Camp Meeting Association for the Promotion of Holiness, out of which the separatistic Holiness movement soon grew. The hallmark of the teachings of Palmer and most later advocates of this “Methodistic” wing of the holiness movement was a dramatic second blessing attained by an act of consecration described as placing “all on the altar.” The act of faith was crucial. “If you have faith to be sanctified, you are sanctified.”15 The result was present purification, being saved now from all sin. By the end of the century this experience was widely described (in terminology so important to the subsequent Pentecostal secessions) as “The Baptism of the Holy Ghost.” In the meantime, numerous denominations had been formed embodying the radical demands of the varieties of Holiness teachings. The Wesleyan Methodists and the Free Methodists were founded before the Civil War. In 1865 Willaim Booth established the “Christian Mission” in East London, which by 1880 had become the Salvation Army and was expanding to America. The Church of God (Anderson, Indiana) was founded in 1880 and the Christian and Missionary Alliance in 1887, both teaching Holiness doctrines. Various smaller groups, mostly growing out of the Camp Meeting movement, split off from the Methodist churches, eventually forming into groups such as the Nazarenes and the Pilgrim Holiness Church.16

  Meanwhile evangelicals in the Reformed tradition continued to be affected by this general holiness revolution. The seemingly spontaneous city revivals of 1858 grew out of this base, resulting in small gatherings for prayer marked by holiness teachings. The next year William E. Boardman, a Presbyterian clergyman, published The Christian Higher Life. Boardman’s work was soon supplemented by that of Hannah Whitall Smith and her husband Robert Pearsall Smith, converts of the 1858 revival, who also became Presbyterians. The Smiths promoted holiness teaching in America and then in England, with their greatest success in Hannah’s The Christian’s Secret to the Happy Life (1875). These writers emphasized two dramatically experienced acts of faith. The first (justification) involved cleansing from the guilt of sin; the second (sanctification), which brought the higher life and happiness, involved cleansing from sin’s power and “victory over sin and inward rest of soul.”17

  Oberlin perfectionism was also modified by these new trends as well as contributing to them. In 1870 Asa Mahan published The Baptism of the Holy Spirit, which title suggests the important shift from earlier Christocentric themes to an emphasis on the outpourings of the Holy Spirit such as took place at the first Christian Pentecost. Sometime after the Christian’s conversion, said Mahan, “‘the Holy Ghost comes upon,’ ‘falls upon,’ and is ‘poured out upon him,’ and thus ‘endues him with power from on high’ for his life mission and work.”18

  By 1870, holiness teachings of one sort or another seemed to be everywhere in American revivalist Protestantism. Their pervasiveness is suggested by the tremendous popularity of such new gospel song writers as Fanny J. Crosby, her English counterpart Frances R. Havergal, Philip P. Bliss, and a number of less well-known figures, all of whom rhapsodized about holiness and consecration. Their hymns, especially those by women, were filled with themes of total surrender and being overwhelmed by the love of Jesus and the cleansing tide of his Spirit. “Oh to be Nothing,” “None of Self and All of Thee,” “Dying with Jesus,” and “Take Me as I Am” were popular and typical titles. “Take my life and let it be Consecrated, Lord to Thee,” wrote Havergal. “Take my will and make it Thine, It shall be no longer mine; Take my heart, it is Thine own, It shall be Thy royal throne,” The power for Christian service was seen as the result of total consecration to Christ, and the imagery was often passionate and passive.19 A common image (as in the second verse of “Oh to be Nothing”) was that of an instrument, like the aeolian harp so popular in the romantic poetry of the time, on which the Saviour plays.

  From Gospel Hymns Nos. 1 to 6, Ira Sankey et al., eds. (New York, 1894).

  These romantic, sentimentalized, and often imprecise holiness teachings underwent one further modification before assuming the form they most often took when associated with American fundamentalism. This development involved a curious transatlantic exchange, with British elements added in the process. In 1873, while in England during the time of the early Moody campaigns, Pearsall and Hannah Smith and William Boardman organized a series of meetings for Bible study and the promotion of holiness. These grew into larger conferences the next year, settling permanently at the scenic Lake-District site of Keswick in 1875. Asa Mahan, Boardman, and Pearsall Smith were among the speakers at these early meetings. The most influential British founders of the movement seem to have been quite careful to avoid the charge of teaching perfectionism, an accusation that had some plausibility considering the American company they were keeping. This tension was heightened when in 1875, just before the first meeting at Keswick itself, Pearsall Smith, up to then the principal attraction, was found to have been involved in an “indiscretion” in a hotel room with a young woman student of higher spirituality. While his failing seems to have been suggestive, rather than active, his associates judged that his behavior did not comport well with his status as a leading teacher of holiness. Suddenly he dropped—or was pushed—from public life.20

  The resulting gap was almost immediately filled by H. W. Webb-Peploe, a distinguished and impressive Church of England clergyman, who dominated the Keswick movement, as it became known, for almost fifty years and did a great deal to define the Keswick teaching. Especially important was Webb-Peploe’s firm opposition to Methodist-type perfectionism. He and his fellow representatives of the Keswick position objected to the recent Wesleyan views which taught the eradication of sinful nature in this life. Such illusions, said Keswick teachers, would lead to trust in self rather than in Christ. Their view was rather that we should recognize that everything we do in this life is tainted by sin arising from the original corruption of our natures.21

  While rejecting as too strong the Wesleyan view of the eradication of one’s sinful nature, the Keswick teachers rejected as too weak the more traditional view that one’s sinful nature was simply suppressed by Christ’s righteousness. This view, they felt, would encourage a life not only of constant conflict with sin, but also of defeat by sin, and even tolerance of it as normal. They came to call their own view counteraction.22 What they had in mind is best described by a favored analogy. Our sinful nature is like an uninflated balloon with a cart (the weight of sin) attached. Christ fills the balloon and the resulting buoyancy overcomes the natural gravity of our sin. While Christ fills our lives we do not have a tendency to sin, yet we still are liable to sin. Were we to let Christ out of our lives, sin would immediately take over. Hence the state of holiness must be constantly maintained and renewed.23 So rather than using Methodistic-Holiness terms such as “the Baptism of the Holy Spirit” or “second blessing,” most Keswick teachers spoke of repeated emptyings by consecration and “fillings” with the Holy Spirit, or the “Spirit of Jesus.24

  In this way the Keswick teachers could offer a doctrine that in practice had many of the same implications as the more Wesleyan Holiness teachings, but in theory avoided the claim, so offensive to those with Calvinist leanings, of ever being totally without sin. In effect, the promise was that as long as Christ dwelt in the heart a Christian could be free from committing any known sin. There was therefore no excuse for tolerating any known vice, appetite, or sinful habit.

  The rest of Keswick teaching follows from these concepts of sin and counteracting grace. There are two stages of Christian experience: that of the “carnal Christian,” and that of the “spiritual.”25 To move from the lower to the higher state takes a definite act of faith or “consecration,” the pre
requisite to being filled with the Spirit. This consecration means an “absolute surrender,” almost always described by the Biblical term “yielding.” Self is dethroned, God is enthroned. This sanctification is a process, but one that begins with a distinct crisis experience. It is analogous to man struggling in the water (lost sinner) who grasps hold of a rowboat (regeneration), climbs aboard and rests in the boat itself (sanctification). Then he is in a position to rescue other struggling men (service).26 Missions and witnessing were the principal manifestations of such service and every Keswick conference concluded by emphasizing these themes.

  The return of the holiness teachings to America after the mid-1870s, now modified into their Keswick form, was (as with almost everything evangelical during the era) related to the work of D. L. Moody. In 1871 Moody had himself undergone an intense second experience. Reuben Torrey said later that Moody told him that this experience of the filling of the Spirit was so overwhelming that Moody “had to ask God to withhold His hand, lest he die on the very spot for joy.”27 Keswick teachings originated in England while Moody was there and resembled his own work with respect to avoidance of doctrinal controversy28 and stress instead on practical piety and service. Sankey’s hymns often stressed the popular themes of consecration.29 Although Moody did not follow Keswick terminology precisely, he taught very similar views and made them central in his work. The Northfield conferences especially resembled the Keswick gatherings.30 Meetings for “consecration” in which Moody urged participants “to yield themselves wholly to God” were regular features of these conferences.31 “Get full of the Holy Spirit” was the way Moody urged students to take the necessary first step in getting ready to go to the mission field.32 Reuben Torrey, for whom the work of the Holy Spirit was also a consuming interest, reported that early in his career Moody had urged him, “Now, Torrey, be sure and preach on the baptism with the Holy Ghost.”33 To all appearances Torrey followed this advice throughout his long career, preaching his sermon “The Baptism with the Holy Spirit” (which differed from the Keswick emphasis on “filling” mainly in terminology)34 almost everywhere he went.