by Stan Ingersol, Denominational Archivist
By the late 19th century, the Wesleyan-Holiness Movement floundered at the edge of a sectarian snakepit, divided by race, region, and national boundaries. Yet from this doubtful setting, the Church of the Nazarene arose.
Holiness Movement at a Crossroads
Early in the 19th century, Sarah Lankford combined the women's prayer groups of two Methodist in New York City to create the Tuesday Meeting for the Promotion of Holiness. That action, coupled with the publication of Boston pastor Timothy Merritt's Guide to Christian Perfection, marked the Holiness Movement's advent.
The remarkable career of Phoebe Palmer, Lankford's sister, followed. Leader of the Tuesday Meeting, transatlantic revivalist, cofounder of a mission in New York City's slums, author of several books, and editor of The Guide to Holiness (Merritt's old paper)--Mrs. Palmer stoked the fires of 19th-century Evangelical piety.
John Inskip, J.A. Wood, and other Methodist clergy initiated a new phase of the movement after the Civil War. The National Camp Meeting Association for the Promotion of Holiness fostered specialized meetings throughout the United States. But Inskip was dead by 1890, while Wood had retired to California and preached occasionally from Phineas Bresee's pulpit.
A democratic spirit pervaded the Holiness Movement. Bishops could control Methodist clergy but not the laity who led many local, county, and state Holiness associations. Some were headed by women excluded from leadership in other areas. Independent-minded evangelicals defied the Methodist Discipline and used a local preacher's license as authority to conduct revivals, even competing with local pastors.
By century's end, the Wesleyan-Holiness Movement included sectarian "come-outers," "put-outers" dismissed from their churches, and Methodist loyalists. The fragmenting Holiness revival posed daunting questions: would anyone--could anyone--gather the pieces?
The Nazarene Synthesis
The Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene originated in this milieu as a believers' church in the Wesleyan tradition.
"Believers' churches" have a distinctive way of being the church. They are voluntary fellowships of those who have experienced the regenerating power of divine grace. Their members form a covenant between God and one another and are active in Christian works. They do not allow obvious sin among the clergy and laity to slide, but practice church discipline. They give willingly to the poor and follow a simple pattern of worship. And "they center everything on the Word, prayer, and love."2
Anabaptists (Mennonites, Amish) pioneered the type during the Reformation, and many groups have adopted it since: Baptists, Quakers, Disciples of Christ, Congregationalists, Church of the Brethren--the list goes on. The parent bodies of the Church of the Nazarene shared the characteristic of believers' churches. So, too, did the united church they created.
To really understand the intent of the founders, we must grapple with a fact usually ignored: the majority of late 19th-century Holiness people remained in the Methodist churches and continued playing a vital role in the Holiness Movement. They supported an extensive system of Holiness camp meetings and schools, including Asbury College, Taylor University, and Asbury Theological Seminary.
What does this fact say about our founders, who stepped aside from Methodism?
It says that they wanted to put behind them the on-going argument over the Holiness Movement’s methods and theology that raged at the time. They were willing to start over again from nothing in order to remain focused on their primary mission.
It tells us that they wanted sacramental integrity. They rejected Methodism’s growing acceptance of the church as a mixed multitude of Christians and “almost Christians.” But they equally rejected the notion that independent Holiness missions and prayer circles would suffice. Why did C. B. Jernigan organize the scattered Holiness bands in Texas into churches? Because their people needed “a place where the sacraments could be administered.” In the independent bands “there was no baptism, no sacraments for her people, and they were called come-outers by the church people."3
It was not enough, however, to have a believers’ church. The Nazarene founders wanted a believers’ church that was rooted firmly in the Wesleyan tradition, oriented theologically toward landmark doctrines of original sin, justification and sanctification wrought by grace through faith, and the clear witness of the Spirit to the distinct works of divine grace in our lives.
They were not the first. Francis Asbury, founder of American Methodism, had shared the same dream. In 1784 Methodism had an exceedingly small share of the American religious public, but by 1850 it was the largest denomination in America, its growth driven by great engines of revivalism and dedicated circuit riding preachers. It also was a victim of its own success. It excelled at reaching the unconverted but drew them in faster than it could catechize them into the Wesleyan ethos, and its identity slowly changed.
“What was your experience this week?” Generations of Methodist class leaders posed the question weekly to those under their care until the class meeting and its leaders were deemed unimportant and disappeared. But the question was consequential; it was a crystal-clear expression of essential Methodism. The leader was not inquiring about generalized experience but about a person’s present experience of a trustworthy God.
The Nazarene prayer meeting, testimony service, and altar service were among the ways that the concern for personal, vital piety would be communicated to a new generation. The experience of God’s transforming grace lay at the heart of the Nazarene movement. Unity in Holiness The vision for bringing these impulses together was centered in a union movement with many leaders: Bresee, Jernigan, J. B. Chapman, H. F. Reynolds, E. F. Angell, and, preeminently, C. W. Ruth, whose revivals for the National Holiness Association took him to every corner of America.
Their unflagging efforts united five separate Holiness de-nominations and substantial portions of two other groups in a series of steps that culminated in the uniting General Assemblies in Chicago (1907) and Pilot Point, Texas (1908). In 1915 two other denominations united, including one in Scotland. Divisive forces of regionalism and nationalism were conquered by grace.
What distinguished the united church from others?
1. Women joined men in its ministry.
The ordination of women--common to the parent bodies--occurred at both uniting General Assemblies. It was no secondary issue. Bresee insisted that a ministry inclusive of women is apostolic, while one that is not inclusive is not apostolic.4 The key scripture was Acts 2:16-17. Women were eligible for every office in the new church, but the essential issue regarding their ordination was not democracy or social justice but apostolicity. Men and women share in proclaiming the gospel in the church that moves by the power of the Holy Spirit!
2. The new church stood shoulder to shoulder with the poor and broken.
Orphanages in North America and India, homes for unwed mothers, rescue missions for alcoholics--these were visible expressions of inward holiness. “We want places so plain that every board will say welcome to the poorest,” Bresee wrote from Los Angeles, while half a continent away tears coursed down Mary Lee Cagle’s cheeks as she preached to the prisoners—Black and White alike—in an Arkansas prison.5 The early Nazarenes listened with their hearts to, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor” (Luke 4:18). An identification with the Lord’s own mission had led Wesley to England’s prisons, slums, and mining communities. Now it was the founder’s concern. Holiness builds a church with a heart for the poor and broken!
3. The early Nazarenes were energized by a vision of worldwide ministry.
In 1908 they already ministered in Cape Verde, India, and Japan. They soon did the same in Central and South America, Africa, and China. Evangelism, education, and compassionate ministries were their characteristic methods. Mission stations, preaching points, Bible women, colporteurs, schools, clinics, hospitals, and printing presses were dedicated to the global spread of the Wesleyan-Holiness revival.
4. The Christian college was regarded as an important ingredient of a Wesleyan-Holiness church.
The united denomination started with more colleges than it could support and had to consolidate them. Nazarene communities grew up around these colleges, and there were parents who uprooted their families to move to these communities so that their children could enjoy the benefits of a Nazarene education.
5. Entire sanctification was the doctrinal capstone.
The uniting core was the idea of a believers’ church in which God’s grace was real in human lives. Justifying and sanctifying grace were central in the experience and thought of the founders, who knew personally the transforming nature of this grace.
Entire sanctification represented a real cleansing a real grace in this life that conquers sin. Every other Christian doctrine was somehow related to this one, and no method could be employed that contradicted it. The deep awareness of sin, repentance, the regenerating power of the new birth, life in the Spirit, true eucharistic celebration all were related to entire sanctification. The second work of grace was the doorway behind which lay rooms of further experience and life. The founders walked through the door and into the rooms.6 And if they could, still, they would bid us to follow.
Notes:
1. Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People (London and New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1972), 475.
2. Donald F. Durnbaugh, The Believers' Church: The History and Character of Radical Protestantism (New York: Macmillan Co., 1968), 32-33.
3. C. B. Jernigan, Pioneer Days of the Holiness Movement in the Southwest (Kansas City: Pentecostal Nazarene Publishing House, 1919), 109. 123.
4. J.B. Chapman, Herald of Holiness, October 15.1930,5. And J.B. Chapman, “Dr. Bresee an Apostolic Leader," Preacher’s Magazine, December 1938, 2.
5. Nazarene Messenger, January 15,1902, 6.
6. The analogy is made by Carl Bangs, Phineas F. Bresee (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 1995), 282.
Dr. Stan Ingersol is the denominational archivist for the Church of the Nazarene.
For additional information on the Nazarene story, visit the Nazarene Archives.