The Holiness Movement/Reformation was initiated by the work of John and Charles Wesley in the mid-1700’s, beginning in England and moving into the United States through into the very early 1900’s. There were two phases of this movement, the first connected directly to John Wesley, producing the Methodist Church, and the second a movement away from that Church into Holiness Church’s.

Wesley was an Anglican Priest who became dissatisfied with the level of pursuit of God and holiness within his own life and the Church. The Anglican Church was the English version of the Counter-Reformation that occurred within the Catholic Church as a result of the Reformation. “After receiving an A.B. and A.M. degrees from Oxford, young Wesley took Anglican orders in 1728 at the insistence of his father. Then as a twenty-five year old youth, he began an intensive program of religious reading in order to define his own convictions.” [1]

Wesley traveled to Georgia to preach among the Indians in 1735 and returned having greatly failed in converting either them or himself! In his journal he exclaimed, “I went to America to convert Indians; but, O! who shall convert me” [2] However, it was on this trip that Wesley encountered some Brethren from the Moravian Church, a remnant of the Anabaptist Church in Moravia. In 1738, Wesley joined the Moravian community for a season and was greatly impacted by what he saw in them that they were ‘saved from inward as well as outward.”

The Church of the day was comprised of the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, The Reformed (Calvin) Church, the Lutheran Church, the Baptist Church, and remnants of the Anabaptist Church. Most of the Churches had institutionalized since the Reformation, and the great persecution of the Anabaptists had marginalized them.

Wesley’s methods of ‘church’ were followed and the Methodist Church was born and transplanted to America in 1766, and formally organized in 1784. “We believe that God’s design in raising up preachers called Methodists in America is to reform the continent and spread Scriptural holiness over these lands.” [3]

In the mid to late 1800’s, there arose a movement within the Methodist Churches that called for a return to the holiness message of Wesley that when opposed by the official Methodist Church, sprung up in dozens of ‘Holiness’ denominations’. “Defenders of holiness became less loyal to the Church [organized Methodist Church], and defenders of holiness became less loyal to the doctrine of holiness…During the last decade of the century [1890’s], the Methodist Church formed the largest body of Protestants in the nation…Of the four million…those who left the Methodist churches to form the holiness denominations numbered no more than 100,000.” [4] The Churches of God, the Nazarene, Christian Missionary Alliance, and others were all birthed as Holiness Churches out of the Methodist Church

 

Reformation Focus Points

‘Holiness’ was a term used to describe a radical encounter with the God that was subsequent to and distinct from conversion and water baptism. It was called ‘second blessing’, ‘sanctification’, ‘perfection’, and later ‘fire baptism’ and ‘spirit baptism’, a ‘reception of the Holy Ghost’. “…[I]t involved two separate phases of experience for the believer; the first, conversion, or justification, and the second, Christian perfection, or sanctification. In the first experience the penitent was forgiven for his actual sins of commission, becoming a Christian but retaining a residue of sin within. This remaining inbred sin was the result of Adam’s fall and had to be dealt with by a ‘second blessing’…This experience purified the believer of ‘inward sin’ and gave him ‘perfect love’ toward God and man.” [5]

Holiness declared that there was more to God than conversion, but that there was an intimate encounter after conversion that dealt with the tendency to sin…Holiness taught the need of being ‘saved’ and ‘sanctified’. This expectation and promise of a radical and intimate encounter with God subsequent to conversion led to revival ‘camp meetings’ in which men and women sought after the second blessing releasing sanctification

“Many were panting and groaning for pardon while others were entreating God, with strong cries and tears to save them from the remains of inbred sin and to sanctify them throughout…Some would be seized with a trembling, and in a few moments drop on the floor as if they were dead; while others were embracing each other with streaming eyes, and all were lost in wonder, love and praise…some wept for grief while others shouted for joy so that it was hard to distinguish one shout from another. At times the congregations would ‘raise a great shout’ that could be heard for miles around.” [6]

Great preaching campaigns, such as led by Finney, swept over America into the late 1800’s, beginning in Virginia, but finding its greatest acceptance and release in the pioneering states of the Mid-West such as Kentucky, Iowa, and Texas. After the civil war, the Southern States opened up to the Holiness message and revivals spread throughout those states as well.

Holiness inside had to be revealed on the outside and this led to a clear definition of external regulations for those having been sanctified. “Great emphasis was laid on dress and ‘worldly amusements…Irwin and his preachers declaring that they would ‘rather have a rattlesnake around their necks than a tie.’” [7] Notwithstanding the extreme legalism of some of the holiness preachers, the presence of practical holiness led to the rise of many social events as the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, temperance, etc.

 

Persecutions

In that the primary release of Methodism and Holiness was released in America, a nation that closely guarded against state persecution of religious variance, the persecutions were not so much physical as emotional, relational, and social. “Since the Southern Methodist Church had declared war on the holiness movement…Crumpler ran into trouble with his superiors in the Church. In October 1899 the North Carolina Annual Conference tried him for insubordination for refusing to stop preaching the doctrine of sanctification…Crumpler thereupon withdrew from the church ‘for the sake of peace and harmony…and formed a new denomination ‘that those who had been saved and sanctified, many of whom belonged to no church, and many of whom had been turned out of their churches for professing holiness, might have a congenial church home.’” [8] This persecuted ‘out’ group became the seed of the Pentecostal Movement!