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~—___

THE LAYMEN’S HOLINESS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA
THE DEVELOPMENT OF

A WESLEYAN - FUNDAMENTALIST SECT

BY
Ronald Richard Emptage

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

College of Arts and Letters

1991

ABSTRACT

THE LAYMEN'S HOLINESS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA
THE DEVELOPMENT OF
A WESLEYAN - FUNDAMENTALIST SECT

BY

Ronald Richard Emptage

The Laymen’s Holiness Association (LHA) (1917-1925) was
inspired by an eleven year emphasis on holiness revivalism
on the Fargo and Bismarck Districts of the North Dakota
Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The stress on
the message and experience of entire sanctification as a
second work of grace coupled with the adoption of religious
fundamentalism created tensions between pro-revivalist and
anti-revivalist forces in the conference. However, the
revival debate only masked a deeper concern among those of
the pro-revivalist division. They believed Methodism was
not only advocating modernistic teachings but openly opposed
the preaching of the doctrine of entire sanctification.

The original goal of the LHA was to reform Methodism
and revive the teachings of the Wesleyan doctrine of
Holiness. The movement used its official organ The Holiness
Layman to castigate the Methodist Church and warn its
readers of the trends of liberalism within the church and
society. Under the leadership of Dr. J. G. Morrison the
movement spread into six states and supported nine full time

holiness evangelists.

This dissertation places the organization within its
historical context by first reviewing the development of
American Methodism, the Wesleyan concept of Christian
Perfection, and the development of the American Holiness
Movement. The church-sect theories of Weber, Troeltsch, and
Niebuhr are used to understand the characteristics and the
development of this rural sect. Many of its members
eventually aborted from the Methodist church (1922-25) and
joined the Church of the Nazarene, an organized Holiness
sect.

Back issues of The fielineee Leymen were used to trace
the development of fundamentalistic tendencies within the
organization. The author discovered the movement fully
accepted these teachings with one exception -- it replaced
the Keswickian teaching of Holiness with a Wesleyan
interpretation. Furthermore, the Wesleyan doctrine was
merged with the fundamentalist's eschatological teachings.
The LHA’s adaption of the Wesleyan doctrine of
sanctification to fundamentalism created an anomaly known as
Wesleyan-fundamentalism. While Timothy Smith (1962)
introduces this term he never fully develops the concept.
This dissertation attempts to trace the development of the
organization (LHA) and the formation of its Wesleyan-

fundamentalistic teachings.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ------------------------------------------- 1
Chapter One: Literature Review ---------------------- 6
I. The Development of Church-sect
Typology -------------------------- 6
II. Attempts at Retooling the Church-
sect Typology -------------------- 13
III. Problems with the Church-sect
Theory --------------------------- 17
IV. Possible Uses for the Church-
sect Theory ---------------------- 19
V. The Theory of Secularization ----- 20
VI. Social Stratification ------------ 24
VII. Karl Marx and Max Weber:
The Class System ----------------- 27
VIII. Fundamentalism and Modernism ----- 33
IX. Primary Literature Sources ------- 37
Chapter Two: The Development of American Methodism
and the Holiness Movement ------------- 41
I. The Development of Wesley's
Christian Perfection ------------- 42
II. John Fletcher's Contribution
Wesleyan Theology ---------------- 49
III. The Institutionalization of the
Methodists ----------------------- 52
IV. The Camp Meeting Becomes a
Methodist Institution ------------ 56
V. Nineteenth Century Revivalism
and Entire Sanctification -------- 59
VI. Methodism in Social Transition---65
VII. The Holiness Camp Meeting

Movement ------------------------- 71

Chapter Three: The Development of a Holiness Sect:
the Church of the Nazarene ------------ 79

Chapter Four:

Chapter Five:

Chapter Six:

Chapter Seven:

ii

The Development of North Dakota
Methodism and the Jamestown

Camp Meeting -------------------------- 95
I. The Development of the Dakota
Territory ------------------------ 96
II. The Origins of North Dakota
Methodism ----------------------- 102
III. The Origins of the Jamestown
Camp Meeting Movement ----------- 109
IV. The Jamestown Movement Becomes
Divisive ------------------------ 115

Joseph Grant Morrison and the

Laymen’s Holiness Association -------- 125
I. The Development of a Leader ----- 126
II. The Evolution of a Movement ----- 133
III. A Profile of the Laymen’s
Holiness Association ------------ 142

The Laymen's Holiness Association
Advocates of
Wesleyan-fundamentalism -------------- 148

I. Protesting the Liberal Cause----151
II. The Premillennial Factor -------- 155
III. Separation from the World ------- 159

The Laymen's Holiness Association
Merger with the Church of the

Nazarene ----------------------------- 170
Summary and Conclusion ------------------------------- 186
A Chronological Time Table of Key Events ------------- 192
Bibliography ----------------------------------------- 195

INTRODUCTION

The American Methodist Church has a rich history.
Beginning as a revivalistic movement within the Anglican
Church, it soon graduated to the status of sect. Breaking
away from the mother church it created its own form of
government, mode of worship, and doctrinal emphasis. Its
success on the Western frontier of the United States cannot
be denied. However, from the earliest days of its American
origins Methodism struggled to maintain membership unity.
Its episcopacy and presiding eldership were authoritarian,
while the American society was democratic and the people
were freedom loving. The differences in the two styles of
government caused several schisms.

The form of ecclesiastical leadership was not the only
problem the Methodist faced in attempting to maintain unity.
Another was doctrinal integrity. Because of religious
freedom, the phenomenon of denominationalism blossomed in
the United States. Often a new or different interpretation
of the Bible, form of worship, or religious experience
created controversy. These controversies often led to
debates, the hardening of positions, and the fracturing of
opponents. Methodism experienced its share of schisms over
doctrinal issues as well.

Division in part, is the theme of this dissertation and

1

it will focus on one small but important twentieth century
doctrinal schism within the American Methodist Church. This
schism had its origins in the Upper Mississippi Valley.

This area was among the last frontiers in the land rush of
the late nineteenth century. In North Dakota early
twentieth century Methodism experienced revivals and church
growth akin to that on the frontier in the early nineteenth
century. In some respects their characteristics were very
similar.

This North Dakota revival was rooted in the Holiness
Movement and was most effective in the small towns and rural
areas of the state. As holiness revivals spread though the
Methodist Churches, an association sprang up to support the
activity. An annual camp meeting at Jamestown, North Dakota
became the heart throb of the organization. It created the
excitement and momentum for the movement each year between
1905 and 1925. It boasted attendance as high as 1800 for a
ten-day mid-June or July meeting. This movement became know
as the Laymen's Holiness Association (LHA). LHA President,
Dr. J. G. Morrison lead as many as a 1,000 Methodists of
this Association into the Church of the Nazarene.

Many works dealt with the various schisms within the
Methodist Church. (Sweet, 1964: Norwood, 1974: et a1)
Furthermore, many books were written on the holiness
movement, its doctrinal emphasis, its piety, and its
Wesleyan heritage. (Peters, 1956; Smith, 1962; Cox, 1964;

Dayton, 1987: et al) This dissertation will focus on the

Laymen’s Holiness Association. It was a Wesleyan Holiness
Movement within the Methodist Church located in the Upper
Mid-West. It will give particular attention to the LHA's
adoption of fundamentalistic creeds.

This study goes beyond the work of Dr. Timothy Smith's
(1962)Qalleduntofieline§§11nemmeftnenazarene§.
Smith covers the development of the LHA from its beginning
but fails to envelop the development of Methodism in North
Dakota the roots of the movement. Smith does establish the
fact that the LHA and Nazarenes adopted fundamentalist
creeds. Marsden (1980), on the other hand, identifies the
Methodist roots of Keswickian holiness (progressive
sanctification) within fundamentalism, but fails to develop
the Wesleyan version (instantaneous sanctification as a
second work of grace) of the movement. I will attempt to
expand upon both Smith and Marsden and correct a few
misstatements of historical facts based upon oral history by
citing primary sources.

It is my thesis that the rapid changes occuring on in
American society in the early twentieth century, the
challenges of science and rationalism, rigid Methodist
episcopacy, and resistance to the emphasis of holiness
revivalism were the ingredients that created the friction
and dissatisfaction among Methodist holiness people causing
their attachment to fundamentalism and schism from Methodism.
I will show how the LHA made the attachment of Wesleyan

holiness doctrine to fundamentalist creeds. Furthermore, I

will show the sectarian and separatist characteristics of
the organization as it challenged the social trends of the
"roaring twenties."

A perusal of the literature reveals the organization's
development. The first period covers between 1905 to 1908
with the development of the district camp meeting and the
emphasis on holiness revivals. This period is best
characterized by a loose organizational structure with the
leadership solely in the hands of the District
Superintendent S. A. Danford. The second period extends
between 1908 to 1914 and is characterized by the publishing
of a holiness paper. In this period the movement adopts
fundamentalist creeds and addresses the issues of higher
criticism and the teaching of evolution in public schools
and church related colleges. During this time the paper
begins sharp criticism of the Methodist Church for adopting
modernistic teachings and placing them in the minister's
course of study. The body takes on an organizational shape
with elected officers, and the district revivals intensify.
Clearly, it can be described as a Movement. The third
period covers the years 1915 and 1916 in which the Movement
is tossed into confusion and temporarily loses its
leadership. The next period extends from 1917 to 1922,
which is the crest of the Movement’s activity, just before
its merger with the Church of the Nazarene. Dr. J. G.
Morrison is elected president of the organization. It

assumes the name of the Laymen’s Holiness Association and

5

fully adopts fundamentalist creeds and attaches to them the
Wesleyan doctrine of sanctification. In addition, it
becomes a fully organized association, spreads its "Idea"
into several states, and employs nine evangelists with area
or district responsibility. The final period, 1922-1925,
covers the Association’s merger with the Church of the
Nazarene. The publishing activities are slowly, but
finally, absorbed by the Nazarenes, and the Jamestown Camp
Meeting is no longer the hub of the Movement. Finally, the
LHA officially ceases to exist. Thus, the LHA, a rural
Methodist protest sect, adapted fundamentalist creeds in
reaction to a changing cultural environment. Rejected by
its own denomination, it completes its journey and finds
kinship within an organized conversionist sect (Benefiel,
1986) whose doctrines and methods were compatible to their
own.

Stark and Glock (1968) suggest five core dimensions to
religion: belief, practice, knowledge, experience, and
consequences. This dissertation will cover three of the
five. They are as follows: belief, the theological outlook:
practice, the devotional aspect: and experience, the

teaching of subjective knowledge of ultimate reality.

 

CHAPTER ONE

LITERATURE REVIEW

According to the proponents of the church-sect theory
religious organizations develop along predictable paths.
These theories are relevant for a broader understanding of
church history. This literature review will survey the
development and debate of church-sect typologies. This
theory gave the author a deeper understanding into the
origins of the Laymen's Holiness Association.

In addition, the chapter will review the current works
pertaining to the development of the Fundamentalist-
Modernist controversy (1910-1925). This material was
essential for an understanding of the theological issues
surrounding the rise of the LHA. Finally, primary and
secondary historical materials will be reviewed and

commented on.

I. THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHURCH-SECT TYPOLOGY

The sociological study of church-sect typology began in
Europe around the turn of the twentieth century. The German
sociologist Max Weber (1864 - 1920) believed that sociology
was a comprehensive science of social action. His primary
focus was on the "subjective meanings that human actors

attach to their actions in their mutual orientations within

/__ _I

specific social-historical contexts." (Coser, 1977, 217) He
classified social action into four types: (1) goal - orient-
ed rational action; (2) value - oriented rational action:
(3) emotional motivations; and (4) traditional action.
Weber's work has been viewed as a "paradigm of a sociology
which is both historical and systemic" (Coser, 1977, 218)
and was primarily concerned with western society.

Weber, a student of social change, "was concerned with
the alterations that took place at the societal level that
permitted a virtually wholly secularized social structure to
develop." (Swatos, 1976, 130) He attempted to apply
sociological principles, particularly his concept of "ideal
type,” (a hypothetical model used to facilitate precise
comparisons) to the development of Christianity in Europe.
He was trying to understand the processes by which the
Christian religion and the larger social system interacted
to bring about the pluralizing and secularizing of the
Western world. (Swatos, 1975, 132) By using the concepts of
church and sect as a functional dichotomy he drew some
conclusion about movements within Christianity. While his
"types" have been both used and abused, it was his intent to
develop a heuristic tool "to give an understanding ‘inside
look' ... and, in this limited sense, an ‘explanation' for
specific kinds of action." (Eister, 1967, 87)

In developing his church-sect typology, Weber defines
the "church-type" as a political institution. This means it

is capable of exercising authority. Furthermore, the

8

"church-type" maintains its order by granting and
withholding sacramental goods. (Berger, 1984, 368)
Membership, based on birthright, is compulsory, meaning it
compels the members of society to come under its authority.
However, it does not stress a restrictive ethical lifestyle.

Weber's definition of sect is a voluntary association
"which uses no force and makes no effort to control all
people within a certain sphere of power." (Berger, 1984,
368) Membership is restrictive and is reserved for those
who religiously and ethically qualify.

In developing a theory of leadership, Weber uses the
term ‘charisma.’ "In the church, charisma is attached to
the office: in the sect, it is attached to the religious
leader." (Berger, 1984, 369) In summary, Weber is
attempting to distinguish between different modes of
religious organizations. The "church-type" is more
hierarchical and inclusive, incorporating all as members.
The "sect-type" is more democratic and exclusive, testing
the possible members.

Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923) was one of the great
German philosophers of religion and culture at the turn of
the century. He expanded upon Weber’s theory in his The
39521:]. Teachings of the Christian Churches. In his earlier
studies, he discovers what he believes to be a universal
sameness in all religions. However, when he applies the new
sciences of sociology and psychology in his study of

religion, he radically changes his views. Troeltsch begins

to take into account "the interplay of rational and
nonrational, transcendental and cultural factors in all
experiences and expressions of religion." (Kliever, 1977,
1979)

Building upon this principle, Troeltsch understands the
social teachings of the early church to have a dualistic
tendency. One branch, which follows the strict law of the
Scriptures, develops into movements such as monasticism and
pietism. The other branch follows the tendency to
compromise with the world. (Troeltsch, 1950, 331)

As Troeltsch expands upon the theory of Weber, he
teaches that the "church-type" is overwhelmingly
conservative and, to a certain extent, accepts the secular
order, dominates the masses, and in principle can be
considered a universal church organization. Like Weber, he
believes those who become its members do so by birth rite
and are legitimated by infant baptism. By using the
European Roman Catholic Church as a model, he further
emphasizes that the "church-type" maintains a
professionalized priesthood and an organized hierarchy.
(TroeltSCh, 1950, 331-339)

In Weberian fashion he contrasts the "church-type" with
the "sect-type":

The sects, on the other hand, are comparatively

small groups. They aspire after personal inward

perfection, and they aim at direct personal fellow

ship between the members of each group... Their
attitude towards the world, the State, and Society
may be indifferent, tolerant, or hostile, since

they have no desire to control and incorporate
these forms of social life: on the contrary, they

10

tend to avoid them; their aim is usually either to

tolerate their presence alongside of their own

body, or even to replace these social institutions

by their own society. (Troeltsch, 1950, 331)

Troeltsch also observes that "sect-types" or, as he
sometimes calls them, Christian revolutionary movements,
begin with the poor masses. Niebuhr quotes Troeltsch
saying:

The really creative, church-forming, religious

movements are the work of the lower strata. Here

only can one find that union of unimpaired

imagination, simplicity in emotional life,

unreflective character of thought, spontaneity of

energy and vehement force of need, out of which an

unconditioned faith in a divine revelation, the
naivete' of complete surrender and the

intransigence of certitude can rise. Need upon the

one hand and the absence of an all-relativizing

culture of reflection on the other hand are at

home only in these strata. (Niebuhr, 1929, 29)

One of the final characteristics of the "sect-type,"
according to Troeltsch, is their emphasis on "the subjective
realization and the effects of grace." (Troeltsch, 1950, 341)
While not trying to survive on the miracles of the past, the
"sect-type" attempts to renew the miracles of the presence
of Christ in the subjective reality of each individual's
ability to master life and its difficulties.

Theologian - historian H. Richard Niebuhr (1894-1962)
was introduced to German theology by his father, a pastor in
the German Evangelical Church, who served a bilingual church

in Missouri. Therefore, it was not surprising that Niebuhr

was to write his doctoral dissertation at Yale on Ernst

Troeltsch. In his work The Seeiel Sggxgefi Qt

ll

Dengminetieneliem (1929) Niebuhr adapts Troeltsch’s

pre-reformation analysis to American church history.

Niebuhr approaches the Christian faith from a
practical, rather than theoretical, viewpoint. Kliever
notes that Niebuhr discovers that a variety of religious
expressions have become institutionalized in the mainstream
of "evangelical revivalism and fundamentalism, and
secularized in liberal religiosity and humanitarianism."
(Kliever, 1979, 38) This institutionalization is not only
true of the early twentieth century church but also true of
the colonial churches as well. Niebuhr theorizes there is
"an inevitable rhythm of fluidity and fixity, of reformation
and institutionalization of the kingdom of God in American
Ihistory." (Kliever, 1979, 38) From this theoretical basis
(comes his interpretation of the "church-sect" typology.

Niebuhr considers church and sect as poles on a
(continuum rather than simple discrete categories. According
‘to'Niebuhr, much zeal is generated in the initial stages of
sect formation. However, this burst of new energy begins to
subside and in the next stages of development, the sect
begins to accommodate itself to the norms and values of the
Surrounding society. This challenge is critically acute
txeginning with the second generation. Unless the children
Sin the second generation are socialized by the parents, it
iSunlikely they will experience the same zeal for the
organization as their parents.

According to Niebuhr's definition, as a sect becomes

12

more accommodating of social values, it begins to appear
more "denominational." His use of "denomination" is similar
to Troeltsch's use of "church-type." The difference in this
case is a denomination will fail to dominate the society.
He suggests that the denomination recognizes the strength of
the secular world. It is built on the principle of
compromise:

... it dominates the world and is therefore

dominated by the world... (the church) utilizes

the State and the ruling classes, and weaves these

elements into her own life: she then becomes an

integral part of the existing social order; ... in

so doing, however, she becomes dependent upon the

upper classes, and upon their development.

(Niebuhr, 1929, 21)

Niebuhr’s model of sect-denomination-church seemed to
work well for the American religious scene. "By definition,
(only one ‘church-type' organization can be present in a
given society compared to an unlimited number of
‘denominations' potentially co-existing at the same time
usually in a more pluralistic society." (Benefiel, 1986, 7)
In summary, Coleman notes:

Niebuhr’s specific contribution to theory was his
hypothesis of the precariousness of sectarian
organization. He postulated a dynamism by which
sects become churches as they face the dilemma of
recruitment and incorporation of children of sect
members. Within a generation or two, sects either
become churches or die out. (Coleman, 1968, 58)

Weber, Troeltsch and Niebuhr all have a common theme.
TPhey recognize "church-sect" typology as an organizational
cOncept. These three see the church organization as

3relational and bipolar. Weber and Troeltsch focus on the

"Precarious" nature of the church giving rise to sects.

l3

Niebuhr focuses on the instability of the sect dealing with
member recruitment and leadership succession. However, this

theory has been challenged and expanded upon.

II. ATTEMPTS AT RETOOLING THE CHURCH-SECT TYPOLOGY

The Church-Sect theory of Weber has been useful to
students in the field of religious sociology. Many have
attempted to tailor it to the unique phenomenon of American
denominationalism. Some types are so rigid they give no
room for exceptions. Others are so theoretical and detailed
‘that they cannot find an actual example to prove their
Ihypotheses. The theory, with all its derivatives, has been
(debated since its 1904 debut. I believe there is no single
:sociological theory or model that contains all the variables
found in either the American or European religious
.institutions. However, I still believe there are basic
“tenets of the theory that are useful for tracing the
development of church organizations.

Weber's theory, based upon an European model of church
and sect, was absorbed by the American religious
Sociologists. These theorists began to alter his ideas to
fit the United States' phenomenon of denominationalism. The
Ifirst American sociologist trained to handle and extend
Church-sect theory was Howard Becker. Swatos notes:

In an attempt intended to facilitate increased

specificity, Becker (1932) delineated two types

within each of the original types and thus devised
a cult-sect-denominational-ecclesia model. In

14

developing the typology in this way, however,

Becker apparently abandoned - or ignored - the

Weberian device of the ideal type and instead

moved closer... to a notion of "abstract

collectivities - ideal realities rather than

constructs. (Swatos 1976, 135)

J. Milton Yinger, a prolific writer in the field of the
sociology of religion, has developed a six step
classification system based on the Weberian model. His
stages are as follows: the universal church, the ecclesia,
the denomination, the established sect, the sect, and the
cult. Even this detailed typology has had its share of
criticism. It is viewed as complex and sophisticated, and
Johnson adds, it contains "ambiguities, contradictions, and
unwarranted assumptions." (Johnson, 1971, 126)

The following will be a limited simplified summary of
church, denomination, and sect typology characteristics
based on Weber, et al. I have chosen these three rather
than listing the many variations that have been developed in
this school of thought.

The "church-type" will have been established for
centuries and will have six basic characteristics. First,
it claims universality and will include all members of the
society in its fold. Second, it will establish a religious
monopoly and attempt to eliminate all its religious
competition. Third, it will be very closely allied with the
established government of the land as well as other secular
powers. It supports existing social and economic

institutions and closely identifies with the status quo.

The "church-type" sees its primary function as "making an

15

effort to insure social cohesion and order." (Yinger, 1970,
253) In this case it must strive for some form of peaceful
coexistence with society. Everyone should be brought into
the ecclesiastical fold and that requires a willingness to
compromise with the wide ranges of behavior found in
society. Fourth, it will demonstrate a highly organized and
imposing hierarchical bureaucracy with a complex division of
labor. Fifth, it will "employ a professional, full-time
clergy who possess the appropriate credentials of education
and formal ordination." (Johnstone, 1983, 7) Finally, the
growth of the "church-type" will be by the natural gains of
the birth and socialization of its children.

The second typology is "denominational-type." It will
not have achieved the universal status of the "church-type,"
and is "limited by class, racial, and sometimes regional
boundaries." (Yinger, 1957, 149) A "denominational-type"
will be on relatively good terms with most secular and state
powers. It will maintain fairly good relationships with
other denominations for the sake of religious pluralism. It
also, like the "church-type," must depend on the birth of
new children to increase its membership. "A denomination
accepts the principles of at least modestly changing
doctrine and practice, and tolerates some theological
diversity and dispute." (Johnstone, 1983, 80) A fifth
aspect in a "denominational-type" is its worship. It tends
to follow a fairly routinized ritual and will suppress and

discourage any spontaneous emotional expression. It ordains

16

and employs its own clergy who must meet certain minimal
requirements before they can be certified to serve a local
parish. The seventh characteristic pertains to its attitude
toward its members. It tends to recognize the competing
demands of society and thus accepts less involvement than
would a "sect-type." It will be inclusive rather than
exclusive in terms of membership policies. Finally, in
regard to social standing, the "denominational-type" tends
to draw "disproportionately from the middle and upper
classes." (Johnstone, 1983, 80)

Many students in the field of sociology of religion
believe the fundamental theme of the "sect-type" is
"protest." "Sect-types" typically schism and break away
from the parent religious organizations. (Yinger, 1970, 81)
He further believes "the proliferation of separate churches
and sects can best be explained... by (the) variation in
needs, values, and experiences in a heterogeneous society."
(Yinger, 1961, 100)

Sects are characterized by voluntary workers, exclusive
membership, and the expulsion of those who do not conform.
They maintain an attitude of an elite spiritual status that
has come from a special enlightenment. "Sect-types" tend to
manifest a radicalism of a sort in regard to its
non-compromising and separatistic attitude toward the world.
(Niebuhr, 1929: Pope, 1942) Its clergy may not have formal
education or ordination and it gains it members by

evangelism, recruitment and birth, in that order.

17

III. PROBLEMS WITH THE CHURCH-SECT THEORY

There are those who believe many problems have arisen
in the church-sect theory since Troeltsch's departure from
Weber’s original methodology. Eister believes Troeltsch
introduced what became an open invitation for subjective,
value-laden definitions. "For what is ‘compromise’ of an
ethic to one believer or even to a non-believer -- is not
compromise to another." (Eister, 1967, 87)

"Troeltsch was a theologian attempting to relate types
of religious experience to the varieties of social teachings
with which they might be correlated." (Swatos, 1975, 133)

He altered Weber's basic ideas by moving from the emphasis
on organization to behavior and stressing the notion of
"compromise."

Swatos found what he believed to be a problem in
Niebuhr's reinterpretation of Weber. He notes:

(When) taken by itself, it (Niebuhr's theory)

tends toward the reification of the types and the

hypothetical continuum which he in turn posited -

it contained further seeds for church-sect theory

to develop (falsely) into a quasi-evaluation

device. (Swatos, 1975, 136)

Church-sect typologies have been under attack by
scholars for a number of years. Erich Goode, for example,
has called the typology a "dead concept, obsolete and
archaic." (Goode, 1967,77) Coleman (1968) has observed that
the attempts to improve the typologies have led to a lack of

consensus on the characteristics which should be included.

For example, Johnson (1971) sees Yinger's attempt to broaden

18

the typology categories as fraught with weaknesses.

Eister (1967) observes the problem with the typologies
as a definition problem. There are too many descriptions.
Often writers themselves do not know what concept for which
to settle. In the same sense, Snook (1974) believes the
church-sect theory needs a "more comprehensive theoretical
framework."

Niebuhr states the "rise of the sects was to champion
the uncompromising ethics of Jesus and to ‘preach the gospel
to the poor’" this, he believed, was an effective means of
recalling Christendom to its mission." (Yinger, 1970, 253)
However, it should not be assumed, Snook suggests, that
sects are necessarily a better sort of religious group.
(Snook, 1974, 202-203)

A final problem with church-sect typologies is the
tendency to build polar types. Troeltsch intended for his
typology to show two variant forms of religious
organizations. Furthermore, Johnson believes both the
"church-type" and the "denominational-type" are more
accommodating to their host societies than the sects.
However, "one commits a grave error in seeing them as
standing at the extreme end of the theoretical continuum
between church and sect." (Johnson, 1971, 133) The main
shortcoming of the church-sect typology appears to be the
assumption that the development of sects always leads to a
compromise of religious purity and distinctiveness.

Some scholars have suggested that "tension" be used as

19

an alternative to the church-sect typologies. While
Benefiel (1986) notes that only two measures for tension
appear in the church-sect literature, it seems to have the
support of Coleman (1968), Yinger (1970), Johnson (1971),
and others. "Simply stated, tension is the degree to which
a religious group accepts or rejects (and is, in turn,
accepted or rejected by) the social environment in which it
exists." (Benefiel, 1986, 14) The key advantages to using
"tension with the socio-cultural environment as a measure of
sectness is its conceptual simplicity, its applicability to
different religious groups, and the fact that it is a
characteristic included in most church-sect typologies."

(Benefiel, 1986,15)

IV. POSSIBLE USES FOR THE CHURCH-SECT THEORY

Despite the broadsides the church-sect theory has taken
over the past several years, there are still useful aspects
in the typology concerning the process of sect development.
It provides a conceptual framework for understanding the
development of religious organizations. The paradigm could
be used for comparisons and contrasts to existing and newly
formed religious organizations. As a predictive model, it
could give the researcher an understanding of religious
organizational life cycle, the impact of secularizing
influences upon the organization, and a clarification of the

tension between a church's theological perspective and

20

societal norms. Finally, the theory can be used to confirm
or deny this researcher's or any other researcher’s
hypotheses concerning a religious organization’s response to
a major social upheaval.

Next I will examine the concepts of secularization, a
transforming process religious groups undergo as they move

from sect to church status.

V. THE THEORY OF SECULARIZATION

The American Heritage Dictionary (1985) defines
secularism as "the view that consideration of the present
well-being of mankind should predominate over religious
considerations in civil affairs or public education." While
‘many theorists vary in their interpretation of secularism,
all agree in principle with the above definition.

According to Douglas, the term secularism has been
invented by G.J. Holyoake (1817-1906) "to indicate a way of
life which leaves out of consideration God, revelation,
heaven and hell, but bases morality on that which will
enhance the public good." (Douglas, 1979, 894) However,
Harry Smith indicates the term was first used "to mean the
transfer of physical properties from ecclesiastical control
to worldly principalities." (Smith, 1968, 158) While these
definitions are rather general they still maintain the
concept of a shift away from religious influences.

Max Weber defines the term more narrowly. He sees it

as "the process by which sectors of society and culture are

21

removed from the domination of religious institutions and
symbols" (Berger, 1967, 107) Bryan Wilson, likewise states,
secularization is the "process whereby religious thinking,
practice and institutions lose social significance."
(Wilson, 1966, xiv) Ronald Benefiel defines secularization
as "the process that a religious group undergoes as it
accommodates itself to its social environment." (Benefiel,
1986, 18)
. However, Richard Fenn notes that while the term
generally applies to the decline of orthodox religious
beliefs and practices in a particular society, religion will
continue to exist in a secular society. He also notes that
"secularization tends to limit the sacred to specific times,
places, people, and events." (Fenn, 1978, 28) Thus,
according to Fenn and others, the breadth of the influence
of religion decreases as its host society becomes more
secular. The extent of its controlling power becomes
limited to those who are voluntarily within its boundaries.
The above definitions describe sociological theory that
directly relates to secularization. The theory of
secularism states that as a society becomes more complex,
pluralistic and begins to modify, change, and diversify, the
influence of traditional religious beliefs begins to
decline. (Niebuhr, 1929: Pope, 1942: Wilson, 1966: Redekop,
1974: Fenn, 1978) Thus religious exercises become more
confined to the activities of religious institutions and

have less influence on society as a whole. When the

22

individual attempts to look for sources of legitimacy, he is
now more predisposed to the secularizing influences of the
society than by the former religious influences. (Fenn,
1978) It concludes that individuals are dominated or
prejudiced by the force which dominates the culture,

whether secular or religious. However, regardless which one
dominates, the other will survive in some degree.

It is Stark and Bainbridge who states that a sect’s
accommodation to their social environment is "the central
thesis of church-sect theory." (Stark, 1981, 137) Richard
Niebuhr (1929) believes sects tend to adapt (secularize) to
their culture. As a result the transformation is both
internal and external. Internally, the second generation
leaders begin to lose the spirit and fervor of the first
generation leaders. Externally, the increase of wealth and
social status forces the sect to redefine its relationship
with the world. Liston Pope notes that social pressure
against certain religious practices will eventually weaken
the sect members’ commitment to those unconventional norms.
Furthermore, the sects’ desire to "outdistance" other
religious groups in the community causes them to focus on
societal prestige and a secular measure of success. (Pope,
1942, 121) Thus, Redekop states:

...sect development involves a dialectical process

between sect and host society. What sects become

in time is not simply a function of their initial

characteristics taken by themselves but is the

product of an ongoing process of interaction with
their environments." (Redekop, 1974, 345)

23

Wilson notes that some groups, like the Amish, avoid
the process of secularization by "isolating" themselves from
the rest of society. In this case the group uses dress,
language, and/or territorial location to develop a tight-
knit social or physical community. They have organized
themselves to perpetuate their distinctiveness (Benefiel,
1986, 22) Other groups slow the process by "insulating"
themselves from the secular world by establishing behavioral
rules for group norms. (Wilson, 1967, 37) And, it should be
noted, if "norms become sacred like the belief system, there
is a reluctance to give them up." (Nielson, 1971, 27)
However, the insulating group must maintain group solidarity
while remaining in both "geographical and social proximity
to the secularizing influences of the outside world."
(Benefiel, 1986, 23) For Benton Johnson, the process of
secularization, in some cases, "is not irreversible" and a
group may stop the secularization process. (Johnson, 1971,
131)

Some groups have great difficulty maintaining a
position of social isolation. The position of isolation
would, for example, be nearly impossible for the
conversionist sect like the Church of the Nazarene. To
completely cut themselves off from the world would be
inconsistent with their commitment to evangelize the world.
The literature points to the fact that while the process may
be slow, most sects accommodate themselves to their host

societies and undergo secularization. Benefiel notes:

24

Adjustment to the social environment is central to
the process of secularization. This adjustment is
made more complex when the environment is

unstable. The organization finds itself faced

with trying to retain its identity while keeping

pace with a continuously changing social

situation. If the organization tries to initiate

internal change in order to remain pertinent, it

risks losing traditional symbols that have
contributed in the past to its social solidarity.

If it holds on to reified symbols and beliefs in

order to maintain its identity, it quickly

discovers that society has left it behind.

(Benefiel, 1986, 21)

In summary, the definition of secularism contains
within it the postulation and implication of two basic
sociological theories: that of religion losing its grasp of
influence over the secular aspects of society and
accommodating to those secularizing influences: and
sectarianism, the development of groups within the parent
religious organization who protest the influences of
secularization and exit the group to reestablish what they
consider to be primitive orthodox religious goals devoid of
the secularizing influences of culture. "Church-sect"
theory not only implies a secularization but a movement in
class status. The following sections give an overview to

that thesis.

VI. SOCIAL STRATIFICATION THEORY

Social stratification and social differentiation are
two terms used by sociologists to differentiate between
people. Social differentiation divides people into distinct
individual qualities and social roles. (Kerbo, 1983, 10)

Those distinct qualities may be biological characteristics

25

or social roles. This, in itself, does not necessarily
constitute social stratification.

Social stratification, however, tends to imply social
inequality with regard to the valued resources, services,
and positions in the society. In this sense, Kerbo defines
social stratification as an institutionalization or hardened
system of social layering. It is a hierarchical system in
which "people have come to expect that individuals and
groups with certain positions will be able to demand more
influence and respect and accumulate a greater share of
goods and services." (Kerbo, 1983, 11) Warner defines as
follows:

Social stratification refers to any system of

ranked statuses by which all the members of a

society are placed in superior and inferior

positions. Besides kinship and age and sex

typing, various other criteria, such as economic

position, power, and so on, may provide the bases

of stratification in any given society. (Warner,

364, 1961)

The literature indicates that sociologists believe that
societies develop differently, therefore each will have
different stratification structures. There are five
commonly held types of social structures.

Primitive communalism system is a social structure in
which there is a high degree of sharing of food and tools.
The only individuals with any status in such a society are
the chief and the shaman.

Slavery is a social system of extreme inequity in which

some people are owned by other people. In some cases a slave

26

could buy his freedom and thus elevate his social status.
Obviously such social mobility was limited to the better
educated and the more highly skilled.

The Caste system is a form of social stratification in
which one is assigned the status of his parents from birth.
This is known as ascribed status. This system is divided
into four main categories with the Brahmans (priests) at the
top and the Untouchables at the very bottom. In between are
several occupational subclasses. This system is extremely
rigid and there is no social mobility from one class to
another. One does not marry outside of his caste nor train
in any other occupation than that into which he has been
born. With this ascribed status there is no conflict over
who has what jobs. Although extremely oppressive, it has
been working in India for nearly 4000 years.

The estate system was in essence a "relationship based
on military power or economic dominance." (Kerbo, 1983,
21) Initially it began with two classes: the nobility, a
militaristic land holding class: and the vassals, the
peasants and serfs. The latter provided labor and military
services for the former in exchange for food and protection
from outside attacks. By the twelfth century, a third class,
the priests, came into being in Europe as this system
developed. Kerbo notes this was primarily a closed system.
However, there was some chance for "an exceptionally bright
peasant" to achieve a high religious position or skilled

warrior to achieve a position of nobility. In later

I .
J
-
k,
u
., .
.
F-
.1

t

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t

I

 

27

feudalism the ranks became much more rigid. (Kerbo, 1983,
22)

Finally, the class system, which is a modern product of
the industrial revolution. Class generally means large
numbers of people see themselves and others as sharing the
status that comes with wealth, power, and prestige.
Rossides states that with class stratification "the
industrial society defines social level and function in
terms of a hierarchy of differential achievement by
individuals, especially in economic pursuits." (Rossides,
1976, 17) Wallace states:

A class stratification system is a form of

stratification in which people are ranked into

categories according to their economic status, but

in which some opportunity exists for mobility

between the categories based on achievement or
merit. (Wallace, 1985, 251)

VII. KARL MARX AND MAX WEBER: THE CLASS SYSTEM

With the birth of modern sociology there has developed
differing schools of thought concerning the class system.
Karl Marx divided industrial societies into two classes, the
owners and the workers.

Karl Marx (1818-1883) is probably best known as the
Father of Communism. Marx was born to a Jewish family who
converted to Christianity, however, he abandoned religion
all together. He entered the University of Berlin to study
law, became immersed in his reading of Hegal, and dropped

his legal studies.

28

Hegal’s philosophy had a profound effect on the young
Marx. However, it was the teaching of Feuerbach that helped
him create his Mehe;ielie§_1hee;y e: Hiehery.

Hegal believed the history of each nation developed
from what both proceeded and succeeded it. This development
followed a fundamental spirit peculiar to that nation.
Taking this concept one step further, Hegal believed that
the whole world was directed by "The Absolute" (a
pantheistic concept of God). For Hegal the development of
the whole of human history was "the progressive self-
realization of this Absolute Spirit." (Stevenson, 1987, 54)

Feuerbach, a humanist, believed that Hegal had his
concepts turned around. He believed that instead of God
progressively realizing Himself in history, religion is a
product of men reflecting on this world.

Marx, building upon Feuerbach’s suggestion, developed
the idea that the driving force in the world is not
spiritual but material in nature. Economic conditions are
the key to all history. Marx postulates that under the
capitalist system, laborers do not work for themselves but
for those who own private property. Marx writes, "Private
property... as wealth, is compelled to preserve its own
existence and thereby the existence of its opposite, the
proletariat." He further notes:

The possessing class and the proletarian class

represent one and the same human self-alienation.

But the former feels satisfied and affirmed in

this self-alienation, experiences the alienation

as a sign of its own power, and possesses in it
the appearance of a human existence. The latter,

29

however, feels destroyed in this alienation,
seeing in it its own impotence and the reality of
an inhuman existence. (Marx, 1972, 104)

The capitalist system, he believes, has been

externally imposed and has created a class system which
exploits the workers. Therefore, according to Marx,
revolution is necessary to overthrow the capitalist system
and install the classless system of communism.

Marx has been among the first to develop a theory on
the relationship between religion and society. He sees
religion as a barrier and against social change in the
industrial society. He believes that religion is making
something sacred out of social stratification. It is a
means employed by the dominant class to oppress the lower
classes. He calls it the "opium of the people."

He notes that those politically in charge are from the
society’s dominant religion. Furthermore, religion
emphasizes the idea that hard work leads to success and the
"here and now" is not as important as the "hereafter." He
believes these teachings of sacrifice and hard work only
benefit the ruling class. If the lower class remains
satisfied with their life situation, then religion is an
instrument for the maintenance of inequality. In this sense
he believes that religion legalizes the social class system.
"Marx called for the abolition of religion. He felt without
religious beliefs the masses could understand more easily
they were oppressed and would unite to overcome their
oppressors." (Wallace, 1985, 442) Because his concepts look

'within the social structure for seeds of self-destruction

30

and social change it has been called a "conflict" approach to
social theory.

The German sociologist scholar Max Weber (1864-1920)
concerned with the roots of the Industrial Revolution and
approached the concept of the class system differently. He
believed a capitalist spirit or mentality was the foundation
of the revolution. He published these ideas in 1952 under
thetitleTheEmsestantEthieanethefiniritefCahiteliem.

Weber sees capitalism as emanating from the idea that
making a profit is morally right and the duty of the
individual is to increase his capital. (Weber, 1952, 24) In
establishing this thesis Weber links Protestant Reformation
ethics with capitalistic spirit. Obviously the Protestants
of the Reformation Era had no intention of establishing
worldly capitalism. Weber believes they accidentally caused
capitalism. (Weber, 1952, 90-92)

During the Middle Ages and prior to the Reformation,
traditional religious belief held that worldly work was of
little significance and accumulation of wealth was wrong.
The Catholic Church taught the pursuit of material gain
beyond one’s personal needs was wrong. During the
Reformation John Calvin taught that all people were
predestined at birth to either heaven or hell. The outward
or visible signs of the "elect" of God were great works
flowing from one’s spirituality. The elect could not earn
their way into heaven. They had to clearly demonstrate

their godliness. This translated into being successful in an

31

earthly station or calling. Weber notes, "Thus the
Calvinist... creates his own salvation, or, as would be more
correct, the conviction of it." (Weber, 1952, 115)

A second component to this belief was living a life of
frugality. The outward display of wealth had been rejected
by the leaders of the Reformation. "Weber, therefore,
defines the two core components of the ‘Protestant ethic’ as
a drive to worldly success to prove one’s ‘elect’ status,
combined with frugal lifestyle." (Weber, 1952, 170-171)

Weber believes this combination of diligence and
frugality leads inevitably to the accumulation of wealth.
The resulting spirit and methodology that follow these
"elect” become a driving force and spirit in the development
of capitalism, which is, in turn, a driving force in the
development of industrialization. Different than Marx,
Weber believes one function or consequence of religion is to
legitimate the economic order. This theory has been
interpreted as similar to a structural-functional one. This
means the theory attempts to understand how the social
structures function to keep the society stable.

In his work The Seeielegy efi Religieh, Weber makes some
general statements about the religious activity of those in
the class system. He notes:

The more agrarian the essential social patterns of

a culture... the more likely it is that the

agrarian element of the population will fall into

a pattern of traditionalism and that religion, at

least that of the masses, will lack ethical
rationalization. (Weber, 1963, 81)

32

He further states:

Yet it is still in theory that the middle class,

by virtue of its distinctive pattern of economic

life, inclines in the direction of a rational

ethical religion... (and) the urban man’s life has

a far more rational essential character... (Weber,

1963, 97)

He also notes that those of the "economically
disprivileged social groups" place a specific importance on
salvation religion. Furthermore, the lower the social
class, "the more radical the forms assumed by the need for a
savior..." (Weber, 1963, 102) However, those who have high
social and economic standings will avoid the idea of
salvation in religion and replace it with a religious system
that legitimizes their pattern of life and worldly
situation. (Weber, 1963, 106-107)

Weber’s theory, which is supported by H. Richard
Niebuhr (1929), indicates that the lower the social status
and the closer to the rural life, the more apt the religion
will be traditional, emotional, and salvation prone. And,
the higher the social status and the more urban its make up,
the more rational, self justifying, and less other—worldly
the religion. Weber’s theory on social status gives a
clearer picture to the nature of secularism and enables us
to better understand the appeal of sectarian religion for
the lower classes, (in this group Weber includes the
Calvinists, reformed Baptists, Mennonites, Quakers, and
Pietists) especially as it applies to the Methodist and

holiness movements such as the LHA. Next I will review the

theological concerns of the dissertation.

 

C

Idliqfl

33

VIII. FUNDAMENTALISM AND MODERNISM

The issues relating to the era covered in this
dissertation (1905-1925) pertains to a debate that arose in
the church around the turn of the century. It was called
the Modernist-Fundamentalist Controversy, and the issue cut
across all denominations.

Modernism means a new trend. In the religious
controversy it pertains to a new trend of thought and
doctrine in the Christian religion. Its teachings
culminated by the beginning of the twentieth century.
However, the doctrines had been developing for several
years.

Fundamentalism was a national religious and theological
reaction to secularism and modern (liberal) religious
thought. It was organized following World War I. It is
generally thought the Movement received its name from a
series of books entitled The Fundamehgele; A Teegimehy e:
The Tznhh, (1910-1912). (Ferm, 1959, 291) These books were
published with a grant from Lyman and Milton Stewart, two
wealthly laymen of California. These men felt the twelve
indoctrinational volumes would be a defense of the
”old-time" gospel. Over three million copies of the volumes
were circulated throughout the nation and in foreign
countries. 300,000 were sent to ministers and missionaries.

(The Fundamentals. 1988. preface)-

The mid-century successes of nineteenth century

34

American evangelicals appeared to be bringing in the Kingdom
of God. However, by century’s end many believed it would
never happen. (Frank, 1986) Many of the great orthodox
traditions were crumbling under an assault of modern
theology. This condition did not erupt suddenly: it was a
gradual development following the Civil War. Modernism’s
origin was rooted in the Enlightenment and resulted in an
attempt to reconcile the differences between orthodoxy and
intellectualism and science.

Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) has been called
the "Father of Modern Theology." He believed he could
convert the modern despisers of Christianity if he could
help them understand its "essence" and not its orthodox
trappings. Thus they "could in intellectual integrity
return to the Christian Faith." (Ramm, 1973, 76) In 1799
Schleiermacher wrote Oh Religieh; Speeehee he The QQlLQIQQ
Deepieeze in which he addressed the Romantics with the
message that they were not so far from religion as they
thought, stating his belief that religion is the "feeling
and intuition of the universe." (Schleiermacher, 1958, 14)
The resulting affair was to make orthodox Christianity
palatable to the new age of scientific and philosophical
intellect. The outcome was the denial of many of its
cardinal doctrines.

The following points were at the crux of the issue: the
historic division between the natural and the supernatural,

supernatural miracles, Divine revelation, the total

35

depravity of man, the divinity of Christ, his virgin birth,
his atoning sacrificial death, and his bodily resurrection
and ascension. In addition to these orthodox doctrines, the
liberals rejected the church’s position on subjective faith
in Christ as Lord and traditional eschatology including the
final division of the lost and the saved. Finally, Ramm
notes:

In rejecting Holy Scripture as the revealed,

inspired, infallible, and authoritative Word of

God and relocating its normative character in the

religious experiences... (the Liberals were)

turning man to his own reason and experience...

(Ram, 1973, 83)

Fundamentalism was an evangelical response to religious
liberalism also known as modernism. (In this dissertation I
will use of the term liberal as I would modern, modernism,
or modernist.) The Fundamentalist did not view liberalism a
new version of historic Christianity. He believed it to be
the denial of orthodoxy. According to Ramm, the evangelical
response proceeded at two levels: first, the fundamentalist
ministers, evangelists, and Bible teachers: and second, the
learned theologian (such as Machen and Warfield).

Fundamentalist attacks on liberalism moved on many
fronts. They used Bible Conferences, Bible Institutes,
publishing concerns, evangelical and revival crusades,
fellowships and associations and the radio. They focused
themselves on teaching the inerrancy, dependability,
authenticity, and truthfulness of the Bible. (Kantzer, 1978,
37) By employing the scriptures as the revealed truth of

God, they emphasized the traditional doctrines of the

36

church. (Cole, 1963; Kantzer, 1978; Sandeen, 1978; Rausch,
1979: Marsden, 1980; for complete reading see The
Fundamentals; A Teetimenx to the Tmth. Vols. 1-4. [1988])
The movement attacked the Modernistic teaching of Higher
Criticism and Evolution. The Fundamentalist believed these
teaching eroded the foundation of the authority of the
scriptures.

Marsden has noted that there are two ways of viewing
fundamentalism: as an "extreme and agonized defense of a
dying way of life" and as an "outgrowth of the ‘Millenarian’
movement that developed in late nineteenth-century
America..." (Marsden, 1980, 4) With regard to the former,
H. Richard Niebuhr (1929) viewed fundamentalism as closely
related to the conflict between urban and rural cultures.
Smith agrees with Niebuhr’s thesis. Smith notes one
component of "Wesleyan-fundamentalism" was the farmer’s
feeling that the urban world had passed him by playing all
the while a demonic "Pied Piper’s" tune which his children
could not resist. (Smith, 1962, 308) The Millenarian view
was propounded by Ernest Sandeen (1970) who took issue with
Niebuhr’s thesis. However, Marsden, like Niebuhr, views
fundamentalism as an organized protest group.

Obviously there are many different perspectives from
which to view the Fundamentalist Movement. One gets the
impression he is looking through a kaleidoscope when
reviewing the topic. However, Niebuhr, Marsden, and Sandeen

all have relevance when viewing the attitudes of the

37

Laymen’s Holiness Association.

IX. PRIMARY LITERATURE SOURCES

The primary reading focused on an eight year period
(1917-1925) of the publication of The Heliheee Leymen. (The
Methediet and The Heliheee Meeeehger were other names of the
paper as well.) This was the product of The Laymen’s
Holiness Association (formerly the Jamestown Camp Meeting),
and J. G. Morrison was the editor from 1910 to 1925. The
materials reveal the progress of his and LHA ideas and the
intensification of their positions. It moves progressively
from speaking out about liberalism within the Methodist
Church to a Wesleyan-fundamentalist position.

Other souces included pamphlets and articles Morrison
wrote for other Holiness papers, such as the Hezeld ef
ugliness, the offical paper of the Church of the Nazarene.
Morrison was a frequent contributor to the Hereld following
his joining the Nazarenes. Still other souces included the
memoirs of Ira Hammer -- an individual who worked with
JMbrrison in the LHA. Hammer’s information fills in the gaps
as to the attitude of the LHA, but is one sided.
Occasionally his dates are incorrect. Other memoirs include
ffiorace Cowan, who joined the Nazarenes in 1910. His
errsonal recollection gives the Nazarene view when the LHA
joined the church in 1922. Again, his dates are not always

correct. I also consulted district and conference minutes

 

38

for correct dating and census records for LHA
population/class data.

Timothy Smith is the chief historian for the Church of
the Nazarene. His work, called Unte Helineee; The Stezy ef
the Nazatenee; The Eetnatiye Xeate (1962), is the standard
history for the denomination. It is very complete but very
broad. He was required to cover the origins of seven
holiness groups that merged with the Church of the Nazarene
between 1907 and 1922. Time nor space did not permit him to
go into much detail for the smaller groups such as the LHA.
Often Smith depended upon the dates given by Ira Hammer
which were incorrect. Overall the work is correct and the
analysis accurate. However, Smith’s work is cumbersome and
students find its arrangement confusing. (This is a personal
opinion having used the work several times in teaching
denominational history courses.) M. E. Redford’s work, the
Riee at the thteh at the Nazarene (original 1948), is very
brief and lacks specifics. Redford was commissioned to write
the history for the denomination’s Christian Education
Department. Its purpose was to give the laymen a quick
overview, which is does. Dr. J. B. Chapman, Editor of the
Herald 91 Helineee and General Superintendent of the Church
<3f the Nazarene, wrote the first general history of the
(lenomination in 1926. His information lacks detail but was
1helpful in giving an understanding to the attitude of the

early Nazarenes and their relationship to the Methodist

<3hurch .

39

It is Smith (1962) who orginally propones the concept
of Wesleyan-fundamentalism. He realized this group combined
the issues of the Fundamentalist Movement with Wesleyan
principles. However, Smith did not give much support for
his.idea. Marsden (1980) approaches the holiness issue
within fundamentalism from the Keswickian side. This
interpretation of holiness doctrine orginated in England and
supports the concept that the power of sin is broken, not
removed or destroyed as the Wesleyan position holds. "It is
rather, more closely related to the idea of positional
holiness as taught by the Plymouth Brethern." (Wiley, 1952,
Vol.11, 463) This dissertation will demostrate how the LHA
visa via Morrison made the attachment of Wesleyan Holiness
to fundamentalism.

To summarize, the development of religious
organizations from protest group to sect generally begins
when a group reconizes the process of secularization within
the host group. The result is a high degree of tension
between the protest group (generally from the lower class)
and the host group (middle class or higher) which (according
to church-sect theory) results in a breaking away of the
iprotest group from the host. This in turn creates a new
:Sect. As the internal processes of secularization begin to
lmave their effect on the sect, its tensions with the culture
aInd cultural values begin to decrease. It slowly takes on
tflhe values of the existing culture, and in time it evolves

to a higher class standing. The characteristics of the

group and
denominat:
This resu
the cycle
had its e
organizat
protest 9
however,

Fundament

doctrine

40

group and its members begin to be described in
denominational or church terms rather than sectarian terms.
This results in another protest group evolving and starting
the cycle over again. Pluralism and secularization have all
had its effect on the organization. The LHA is a model
organization which travels though the process of moving from
protest group to sect. Its articulates its protest,
lhowever, in terms of a national concern, the Modernist -
.Fundamentalist Controversy and attaches its Wesleyan

doctrine of holiness to fundamentalist creeds.

 

 

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Churc
Amer.
Angl
In t
serv
thrc
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the
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19

BC

We

CHAPTER TWO
THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN METHODISM

AND THE HOLINESS MOVEMENT

Before the Revolutionary War, Methodism was just a
group of loosely connected societies under the Anglican
Church nd directed by John Wesley (who never visited the
American organization). However, during the War many of the
.Anglican priests, being Tories, fled to England and Canada.
In the absence of official priests, Methodist lay leaders
served the needs of many of the Anglican congregations
through their class meetings. Following the war, Methodism
broke away from the Anglican church and began to take a
leadership role alongside the Baptists and Presbyterians in
the frontier revival efforts. The first 50 years of the
nineteenth century were American Methodism’s greatest hour.
Sydney Ahlstrom notes Methodism emerged as a "semisectarian

secession from Anglicanism during the late eighteenth
century, . . . had become by the dawn of the twentieth the
largest Protestant denomination in America." (Ahlstrom,
1972, 47)

Wesley is the spiritual father of Methodism and most
Holiness sects have sprung from its roots. However,
Wesleyan theology went though revisions and
reinterpretations throughout the nineteenth and early

vwentieth centuries. The members of the LHA considered

41

 

themse
is, th
sancti
tion c
Hoveme
charac
comin<
meeti:
pract
Aneri

devel

I. T}

ener:
Thes
foun
its
Peri
Cent
the
the
leac

Chu:

42

themselves "old fashioned" Methodists theologically. That
is, they believed in the doctrine and experience of entire
sanctification as a second work of grace. This interpreta-
tion of Wesley was rooted in the theology of the Holiness
Movement. Furthermore, many of the LHA’s revivalistic
characteristics were based upon the methods and practices
coming out of nineteenth century Methodist and Holiness camp
meeting traditions. In order to better comprehend these
practices and theological traditions I will briefly survey

American Methodist history, Wesleyan theology, and the

 

development of the Holiness Camp Meeting Movement.

I. THE DEVELOPMENT OF WESLEY’ S CHRISTIAN PERFECTION

John Wesley (1703-1791) was a man with boundless
energy, holy zeal, a keen mind, and a determined will.
These characteristics enabled him to establish the
foundations for the development of the Methodist church and
its doctrine of freewill, prevenient grace and Christian

perfection in both England and America during the eighteenth
century. In the New World, Methodist preachers challenged
the established work of the Calvinists in New England. On
the rugged western frontier the circuit riders and class
leaders planted Methodism where the established Eastern
Churches were slow to go. (Peters, 1956: Weisberger, 1958)
By the close of the nineteenth century, the Wesleyan

doctrine of Christian perfection had left its imprint on

f’mericen Protestant thought.

 

Ac<
holines:
has com
uninter
centuri
correct
indicat
persona
Latoure
1978)
Ages, f
the Ca
Middle
manife
such a
they 1
$81f-<
Perfe
mothe
and d
Chris
°rdai
"reve
Comme
23)

noted

43

According to H. Orton Wiley, an early twentieth century
holiness theologian, "The doctrine of Christian perfection
has come down to us from apostolic day as a sacred and
uninterrupted tradition through all the Christian
centuries." (Wiley, Vol.II, 449) It would appear Wiley is
correct for a survey of several theological histories
indicated early Christian divines had a deep concern for
personal holiness and purity of heart. (Jessop, 1938;
Latourette, 1970: Walker, 1970: Turner, 1977: Bromiley,
1978) (During the patristic period and the early Middle
Ages, personal holiness took on the form of asceticism among
the Catholic and eastern monks. In the latter part of the
Middle Ages and into the early period of the Reformation, it
manifested as mysticism. The writings of French Catholics
such as Fenelon and Madame Guyon indicate the strong desire
they had for personal purity and sanctification through
self-denial and consecration to God. [Lawson, 1970, 81])

The formation of John Wesley’s doctrine of Christian
perfection began under the puritanical influence of his
mother and father. Suzanne Wesley’s moralistic teachings

and disciplined living started him on the road toward

Christian perfection. (Tuttle, 1978, 46) Samuel Wesley, an
ordained Priest with the Church of England, taught him to
”revere the patristic age as containing the best
commentaries upon the apostolic writings," (Keefer, 1984,

23) Reflecting on the influences of his early life Wesley

{’0th :

 

We
biblica
devotic
work of
Jeremy
of more
deep e:

regula

WHArTf'fH’UH

Chris

44

From a child I was taught to love and reverence
the Scripture, the oracles of God: and, next to
these to esteem the primitive Fathers, the writers
of the first three centuries. Next after the
primitive church, I esteemed our own, the Church
of England, as the most scriptural national Church

in the world. (Wesley, XIII, 272)

Wesley was schooled in the classics at Charter House,
biblically trained at Oxford University and read the
devotional literature of the early eighteenth century. The
‘work of the mystics William Law, Thomas a‘ Kempis, and
Jeremy Taylor especially appealed to Wesley’s personal sense
of morality. (Tuttle, 1978, 102) Each of their works had a
deep effect upon his life and he devoured them with

regularity. (Peters, 1956, 23) Wesley writes:

In the year 1726, I met with Kempis’s "Christian’s
Pattern." The nature and extent of inward
religion, the religion of the heart, now appeared
to me in a stronger light than ever it had done
before. I saw, that giving even all my life to God
(supposing it possible to do this, and go no
further) would profit me nothing, unless I give my
heart, yea, all my heart to Him. (Wesley, 1966,

10)
And again he notes:

.A.year or two after, Mr. Law’s Christian
:Perfection and Serious Call were put into my
liands. These convinced me, more than ever, of the
absolute impossibility of being half a Christian;
and I determined, through His grace (the absolute
laecessity of which I was deeply sensible of), to
be all devoted to God, to give Him all my soul, my
kxody, and my substance. (Wesley, 1966, 10)

Phirthermore, the practical application of primitive
(3111' iStianity, as taught in the scriptures, was modeled by
his OXford Holy Club. It was because of the rigid

d ascipline and methods the Holy Club applied to their lives

 

in seeki
were ca]
Wesley’s
shaped l
and Angi
was als'
We

on his
the mid
noted t
his ret
an orde
They v:
religi.
with i
holine
contac
"Alder

Peters

45

in seeking a Holy lifestyle that Wesley and his followers
were called "Methodists." Studying the development of

Wesley’s Christian perfection, one soon realizes he was

 

shaped by many different forces including Catholic, Lutheran
and Anglican teachings. However, his converting experience
was also formed by the Moravians.

Wesley’s first encounter with these German pietists was
on his 1735 voyage to the American colony of Georgia. In
the midst of a storm at sea, and afraid for his life, he

noted the calmness of a group of these men and women. Upon

 

his return to England in 1738, Wesley came in contact with
an ordained Moravian missionary by the name of Peter Bohler.
They visited frequently and had many conversations about
religious faith. Bohler insisted that "saving faith brought
with it both dominion over sin and true peace of mind - both
holiness and happiness." (Peters, 1956, 23) It was Wesley’s
contact with the Moravians that lead to his famous
"Aldersgate" conversion experience. And, according to
Peters, they also taught him about "a second crisis
subsequent to initial regeneration which brings ‘deliverance
from every fleshly desire, and from every outward and inward
3111’" (Peters, 1956, 26) George Cox adds:
... the Moravians gave him (Wesley) a clearer
concept of how holiness is attained. His
e)(perience of conversion in May, 1738, and
Subsequent experiences convinced Wesley that
jllstification and sanctification are by faith and
are instantaneous. (Cox, 1964, 18)

Wesley’s doctrine of sanctification blossomed during

Y} ls Years of ministry. He defined it as being "renewed in

the imaq
(Wesley,
experier
its obta

En‘
regener.

Burtner

46

the image of God, ‘in righteousness and true holiness.’"
(Wesley, 1966, 41) While he never testified to having

experienced entire sanctification, nevertheless, he preached
its obtainability.
Entire sanctification, for Wesley, began in

regeneration and continued as a gradual growth in grace.

Burtner and Chiles quotes Wesley saying:

From the moment we are justified, there may be a
gradual sanctification, a growing in grace, a
daily advance in the knowledge and love of God.
And if sin ceases before death, there must, in the
nature of the thing, be an instantaneous change:
there must be a last moment wherein it does exist,
and a first moment wherein it does not. "But
should we in preaching insist both on one and the
other?" Certainly we must insist on the gradual
change: and that earnestly and continually. And
are there not reasons why we should insist on the
instantaneous also? ... Therefore whoever would
advance the gradual change in believers should
strongly insist on the instantaneous. (Burtner and
Chiles, 1954, 182)

Lindstrom clarifies what Wesley means by instantaneous

sanct if ication :
The gradual process is interrupted, that is, by
'the direct intervention of God, which in a single
instant raises man to a higher plane. It is this
(combination of the gradual and the instantaneous
‘that particularly distinguishes Wesley’s
conception of the process of salvation.
(Lindstrom, n.d., 121)

Wesley taught instantaneous and gradual were both
legitimate methods of experiencing the grace of God. "It is
130111! the one and the other. From the moment we are
justified, there may be a gradual sanctification, a growing
in grace, a daily advance in the knowledge and love of God."

(Wesley, VIII, 329) However, once achieved, the individual

experie1
desire :
other.
speaks
sanctif
attempt

Ne

47

experiences real inward change. It appears to be Wesley’s
desire not to stress one aspect of the experience over the
other. However, in reading the materials, one gathers he
speaks more of growth in grace than of instantaneous
sanctification. Nevertheless, it must be said, Wesley
attempts to kept both in delicate balance. He states:

Neither dare we affirm, as some have done, that

all this salvation is given at once. There is,

indeed, an instantaneous, as well as a gradual

work of God, in His children; and there wants not,

we know, a cloud of witnesses, who have received,

in one moment, either a clear sense of the

forgiveness of their sins, or the abiding witness
of the Holy Spirit. (Wesley, 1966, 30)

In response to the question "When does inward

sanctification begin?" Wesley responds:
In the moment a man is justified. (yet sin
remains in him, yea, the seed of all sin, till he
is sanctified throughout). From that time a

believer gradually dies to sin, and grows in
grace. (Wesley, 1966, 42)

'Wesley did not believe that sanctification was absolute
Perfection or infallibility. To accuse him of such is to
miSunderstand his definition of sin. Wesley taught that
sin, "properly so called," was a "voluntary transgression"
Of a know law of God and must be repented. Involuntary
transgressions, while they broke the law of God, were
c(“lull-itted in ignorance and came under the atonement of
chrj-8‘t:. Wesley states:

II believe there is no such perfection in this life

as excludes these involuntary transgressions which

II apprehend to be naturally consequent on the

gnorance and mistakes inseparable from

mortality... Therefore sinless perfection is a
Phrase I never use, lest I should seem to

cor

Fir
Perfect
project
depravi
is not
no powe
gracior
prevenf
qracior

insist:

s;
amp-MHHHO
A.

in do:'
one's
teaCh.
win,
th8011
defen
Conve
the01

Wesle

48

contradict myself. (Wesley, 1966, 54)

Finally, to appreciate Wesley’s concept of Christian
Perfection and the high level of redemption and holiness he
projects for man, one must understand his concept of

For Wesley, mankind is totally depraved. There

Man has

depravity .
is not one part of man that is not infected by sin.

rue power in himself to do good. However, because God is

gracious, he has given to man his grace. This grace,

prevenient grace, makes it possible for man to choose God’s

gracious offer of forgiveness and eternity life. Wesley

insists:

When he turns to God, it is grace (prevenient)
co-operating with grace (redemptive). And this
redemptive grace is conceived of as infused rather
that imputed. It effects not simply a changed
relationship but a changed nature. And it is
sufficient to effect man’s complete salvation.
is this high doctrine of grace which makes
possible in a single system a synthesis of total
depravity and Christian perfection. (Peters, 1956,

43)
‘Wesley believed if one loved God then one would delight

It

in doing his will. As one’s love was perfected, so would

one'ss doing the will of God be perfected. While Wesley’s
teacniing and views concerning Christian perfection, free
"ill . and prevenient grace were consistent with his
theology, the individual responsible for organizing and
defending these thoughts was John Fletcher (1729-1785).
conVerted under Wesley’s preaching in 1755, this brillant

theologican, years later, clearly articulate the official

Wesleyan position and defended the Methodist doctrine.

II. J0}

A:
the 17!
Method
Armini.
a Heth
traini

in 176

Engli:
The r.

HethOt

“reg:

49

II. JOHN FLETCHER’S CONTRIBUTION TO WESLEYAN THEOLOGY

As the English evangelical revival progressed through
the 1760’s, two theological camps began to develop within
Methodism. It was divided between the Calvinists and the
Arminians. (Mattke, 1968, 39) The Countess of Huntingdon,
a Methodist of the Calvinist division, desired to open a
training school for ministers. She founded Trevecca college
in 1768 and called Fletcher to be its President.

In the 1770 preachers’ meeting Wesley stated, "We have
leaned too much toward Calvinism." (Fletcher, I, 8) When
this statement was printed in the minutes of the meeting, a
rupture was created between the two camps. This division,
called the Antinomian controversy (1770-1778), resulted in
the Countess dismissing Fletcher from the school. As a
consequence of this breach Fletcher was encouraged by Wesley
to write a defense of the Arminian position. Wesley wanted
his position of freewill, as stated in the minutes,
Clarified. Furthermore, he wanted to check the spread of
the Calvinists’ teaching of election within the Methodists
societies. Thus, Fletcher wrote his work entitled Qheeke te

Fletcher’s writings were beneficial to Wesley and the
English Methodists, as well as to the American Methodists.
The first issues of the gheeke were in the hands of American

Methodist ministers by 1791. They were welcomed by the

s
truggling colonial societies. By 1816 they were placed on

the Ger
until I

histor:

»~ rv a=cn

First,
viewed
(Matti
clarii
in tn.
enpha
anthr
enplo
awake
enahl
(Smit
the (
a Se]
birtl
neCe:
Peri

PrEp

“GUI

LQaC

50

the General Conference Course of Study where they remained
until 1880. (Knight, 1978, 22) Of these works, Methodist
historian, Abel Stevens notes:

... more influential in the denomination than

Wesley’s own controversial writings on the

subject. They influenced, indirectly through

Methodism, the subsequent tone of theological

thought in much of the Protestant world.

(as quoted in Mattke, 1968, 38)

The result of Fletcher’s accomplishment was fourfold.
First, it systemized Wesley’s thoughts. Fletcher has been
viewed as the first systematic theologian of Methodism.
(Mattke, 1968; Knight, 1978; Smith, 1980) Second, it
clarified John Wesley’s position on free will and resulted
in the development of his doctrine of prevenient grace. The
emphasis in this case was shifted away from theocentric to
anthropocentic categories. (Knight, 1978, 19) "Fletcher
employed the same argument Wesley used that the Holy Spirit
aWakens in human beings the dormant spiritual senses,
enabling them to perceive and enjoy spiritual reality."
(Smith, 1980, 69) Third, Wesley and Fletcher feared "that
the Calvinists’ theology would lead to antinomianism, or to
a Separation of doctrine and life, justification and new
birth." (Knight, 1978, 15) The gheeke would emphasize the
necessity of a holy life, and teach that Christian
perfection was teleological, that is an experience in
preperation for heaven. (Cubie, 1976, 22)

It must be noted that Fletcher’s teleological emphasis

would differ from other nineteenth century holiness

t . .
eachinge in America such as Phoebe Palmer’s. Wh1le

 

 

attempt
instant
stresse
(Fletch.
the bapi
of event
Glory. (
sane Wes
cleansing
follows:

Orig
nonc
none
faii
qra<
the
rem
and
as
na1
no
a
re
"E

W}
of fin;
from a;
0ccurs

referrec
Huw'dga
We; 1'” g

fining)

Km"

51

attempting to maintain Wesley’s balance of both gradual and

.instantaneous sanctification, (Fletcher, II, 636) Fletcher

stresses the baptism of the Holy Spirit in justification.

(liletcher, II, 633) Similar to Wesley, he also teaches that

time baptism with the Holy Spirit is repeated in a succession
of? events beginning with the new birth and concluding with

Glory. (Fletcher, II, 632) According to David Cubie, this

same Wesleyan balance is seen in Fletcher’s teaching on the

cleansing of original sin. He paraphrases Fletcher as

fol lows:

Original or indwelling sin is not a single-
nondivisible entity which is wholly present in one
moment and then removed in a single, radical
faith-grace event. Instead, it is removed
gradually, the Comforter "expelling according to
the degree of our faith"... Inward sin may be
removed gradually by a process of "feeble faith
and feeble love" which are "so frequently repeated
as to become strong, habitual, and evangelically
natural to us"... Though gradual perfection is
normative, all sin may be removed in an instant by
a single full baptism of the Holy Spirit in
response to a single act of full faith.

”Both ways are good." (Cubie, 1976, 25)

What is consistent in both Fletcher’s and Wesley’s view
of final sanctification is the belief that a final cleansing
from all sin will be achieved before death. This usually
Occurs during a long gradual process of maturity, sometimes
referred to as "ripening." Both Fletcher and Wesley deny
that death, man’s last enemy, can "perfect" the soul before
er‘tering heaven. Thus the sanctification process will be

concompiete before the Christian’s physical death-

I<night states:

3v
:7 *3 t: r? a) #6 C)

helped
'turn t
doctrin
Th
thought
theolog
as almo
the the
twice ;
oi Vlha
hmtinc
Hriti
the n
14) a

Step

III.

It

 

 

52

Although in some ways Fletcher’s understanding of

Christian perfection was perhaps more balanced, as

for example in holding together both the gradual

and instantaneous aspects, unquestionably his

treatise on perfection, as well as all his Checks,

wielded great direct influence in shaping Wesleyan

Theology in America particularly during the first

half of the 19th century. (Knight, 1978, 23)

Finally, according to Timothy Smith, Fletcher’s Checks
helped to hold the loyalty of his Methodist followers and
"turn the tide of popular sentiment in England toward the
doctrine of Christian perfection. (Smith, 1980, 69)

The work and influence of Fletcher upon Methodist
thought cannot be underestimated. His writings gave a
theological foundation which is universally accepted today
as almost a matter of course. Wesley was so impressed with
the theological stature and holiness of this man that he
twice asked him to be his successor (1773 and 1776). Most
Of what Fletcher wrote was written during the eight years of
Aritinomian controversy, 1770-1778. According to Knight, the
Writing of those eight years gave Wesleyan Methodism one of
the "strongest bulwarks" it has ever found (Knight, 1978,

14) and organized Wesley’s theology. However, Wesley’s next

Step was to organize his movement in America.

111 - THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF THE METHODIST MOVEMENT

It had never been John Wesley’s idea to create a new
denomination. He was a loyal churchman and would remain so
all l”lis life. The driving force in his spirit was to revive

the <3hurch of England. Likewise, his appointees in

FIE
ac‘
Br
Ph;

Suz

53

America, Richard Boardman, Joseph Pilmoor, and Francis

Asbury were on a similar mission. However, it soon became

evident to Asbury that a stricter control would need to be

exercised over the societies. During the Revolutionary War,

in the absence of the Anglican Priests, lay-preachers began

administering the sacraments as well as preaching to

abandoned Anglican congregations. If this continued Asbury

believed these men needed to be ordained and he needed more

authority in controlling the organizations. (Rudolph, 1966)

The next few steps of the Methodist society were logical.

The spirit of denominationalism, democracy, and freedom had

helped give Methodism its birth as a church.

The official organization of the American Methodist

church was held in December of 1784 at the Lovely Lane

Chapel in Baltimore. This famous meeting of nearly sixty

young backwoods preachers, Mr. Asbury, and Dr. Coke has

beCome known as the Christmas Conference. (Ferguson, 1971;

Norwood, 1974)
The issues moving the Methodists from a society to a

Church in the United States were akin to the problems facing

the Anglicans from which it was born. For more that 175

If a

Years, the Anglicans had no bishop in the colonies.
man desired serve as a priest in the Church of England and
administer the sacraments, he would need to journey to the

B"zit-ish Isles and be properly ordained. The lack of the

phYSical presence of a Bishop for the overall control and

supervision of the colonial church compounded the problems.

For

laym

lead
with
PhYS
made
mean
96)

Lond.
His 1
the 1
ensla

ratic

f01101
Dr. n
Superj

Wesle3

54

For example, the local priests were often dominated by the

laymen. (Isaac, 1982)
Wesley had struggled with the problems of authority,

leadership, and ordination in his British movement. Now

vuith the growth of the American work and his inability to
physically oversee its development, a decision had to be

made. "Since he was opposed to lay administration, this

meant providing some form of ordination." (Norwood, 1974,

96) Wesley was forced into a corner when the Bishop of

London refused to ordain one of his Methodist preachers.
His next step was to search the scriptures to prove he had
the right to ordain and thus no longer "entangle” nor
enslave his movement to the Church of England. His

rationale seemed quiet logic as Norwood notes:

Hence, he now acted in accordance with his
understanding of his position as an ordained
minister of the Church of England and as the
superintendent of the People called Methodist.
This position, in his view, coincided with the
position of the bishops of the primitive church as
he found it in the New Testament and the writings
of the early Fathers. A bishop, he concluded, was
a presbyter who exercised authority over a diocese
or segment of the church. More particularly, he
saw himself as comparable to a the itinerant
bishop, the chorepiscopos. He was a presbyter in
apostolic succession. He was also an administrator
of a large movement. This made him a "scriptural
episcopos," as he put it. (Norwood, 1974, 96)

lHe had resolved this long-standing dilemma. Wesley
followed by ordaining Whatcoat and Vasey and designating
Dr - Thomas Coke and Mr. Francis Asbury "general
superintendents" of the American Methodist movement.

W
esley’s letter dated September 10, 1784 and addressed to

the l

lattn

frici
that
minis
Dries
disag

admin

demon

three

Super
the 0
Some

welC01

CIErg‘

55

the North American "Brethren" justified his decision. The
latter part of the letter reads as follows:

It has, indeed, been proposed to desire the
English Bishops to ordain part of our Preachers
for America. but to this I object, (1.) I desired
the Bishop of London to ordain only one: but could
not prevail. (2.) If they consented, we know the
slowness of their proceedings: but the matter
admits of no delay. (3.) If they would ordain
them now, they would likewise expect to govern
them. And how grievously would this entangle us!
(4.) As our American brethren are now totally
disentangled from the State, and from the English
hierarchy, we dare not entangle them again, either
with the one or the other. They are now at full
liberty, simply to follow the Scriptures and the
primitive church. And we judge it best that they
should stand fast in that liberty wherewith God
has so strangangely made them free. (Wesley;§

£9235, Vol. XIII, 252)

This equipping of his field lieutenants would stabilize the
fritrtion caused by Robert Strawbridge of Maryland. He held
that: an unordained lay preacher had the authority to
Minister the sacraments in the absence of an ordained
Priest. Though unordained himself, Asbury strongly
disagreed with Strawbridge’s position and practice of
administering the sacraments to those on his circuit.

irhe 1784 Christmas Conference was the beginning of
denoIllinational form for the Methodist church in America. In
three days Asbury was ordained deacon, elder and general
s“pet'intendent. Twelve other men were ordained elders, and
the Organization of the work of a "church" commenced. While
some feared this to be planting seeds of episcopacy, others
welcomed this new status that would help the Methodist

c:
lergy minister to the masses on the frontier. One could

speCL
Meth:
poli‘
the 1
Stray

could

his 01
separe
eccles
t0 jus
Church
instii
meeti-
Orgar
Jesu1

1929

IV.

Ohi
nine
90m.
C0D S 1 0
Wasazd
3%,,

”2%13

 

56

speculate had Wesley not made his decision, the American
Methodists could have followed the congregational form of

polity and vested authority in the local congregation for

the purpose of ordination. The influence was strong and

Strawbridge’s practices and the anti-episcopacy sentiment
could have pushed the church in that direction.

Wesley’s decision to take the ordination issue into
his own hands was a clear step in the direction of
separation from the Church of England. By stepping over

ecclesiastical roadblocks and formulating a scriptural basis

to justify it, Wesley’s move appeared right. The Anglican

Church, more concerned with the preservation of its own

institution, was not transcending the social conditions and

meeting the spiritual needs of the people. Wesley’s

Organization arose to preach the "uncompromising ethics of

Jesus" to the poor. A new sect was in the making. (Niebuhr,

1929, 21)

IV. THE CAMP MEETING BECOMES A METHODIST INSTITUTION

Those who made the journey westward into Kentucky,
Ohio. and Tennessee just before the beginning of the
nineteenth century were a younger and less inhibited
population. It took a brave and hardy people to even
co“sider making the long and grueling trek westward. Life
was difficult and the pioneers always lived on the edge of

survival. There were constant threats from both wild

a O
lfilmels and hostile Indians. The circuit riding preachers

suff
fror
Alsc
scat
Cart
labc
not

wild
(Car
foll
cont
"Chr
Heth=

agent

intru
land:
fron‘

diSpj

n6ed
fer m

into 1

57

suffered alongside the pioneers. A common response to the
frontier Conference roll-call was "Killed by the Indians."
Also, the population of the young territories was sparse and
scattered with few major commercial centers. Peter
Cartwright noted that those brave people of the interior
labored under many "disadvantages and privations: and had it
not been for the fertility of the soil and the abundance of
wild meat, they must have suffered beyond endurance."
(Cartwright, 1856, 22) However, the itinerants also
followed the westward movement. W. H. Daniels, a close
contemporary of the times, notes the Midwest owes its
"Christian civilization" to the efforts of those early
Methodist itinerants, "more than to any other human
agency..." (Daniels, 1880, 570-72)

The camp meetings of the Second Great Awakening
introduced a new principle of evangelism into the American
landscape. These protracted meetings focused on the
Such

flf'<>r'nt::iersman and evoked displays of wild emotionalism.

displays should not be surprising.

(The pioneer) ...lived, worked and died hard. It
was natural that he should convert hard: that he
should cry aloud in wrestling with his guilt: and
that he should leap and twist and shout in
rejoicing over his forgiveness." (Weisberger,

1958 , 29)

The camp meeting filled both a religious and social
need for frontier people. "The camp meeting gave occasion
for men to meet their neighbors, brought some excitement

i . . .
“to their monotonous lives, and prov1ded an outlet for

their
notes
becot
furni
from
(Niet
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58

their pent-up emotions." (Cameron, 1961, 121) Niebuhr

notes, "emotionalism... was the only way religion could
become real to the class which composed the movement; it
furnished that group with a psychologically effective escape

from the drudgeries of an unromantic, unaesthetic life."

(Niebuhr, 1929, 62) The camp meeting revival of the Second

Great Awakening became a pattern for evangelism in

antebellum America. Its characteristics were unmistakable:

simple and persuasive preaching and people emotionally
converted to an evangelical faith (Noll, 1983, 173)

While camp meeting excesses were deplored by many
churches, the need of frontier-revivalistic-style-evangelism
was evident to the Methodists. They quickly adapted the

methods of the camp meeting to carry the gospel to the

common man located on the edge of the expanding West. The

Methodists, with their experienced itinerant ministry, were

well adapted for this style of preaching. In fact, the camp

meeting became a Methodist institution during the first half
0f the nineteenth century. "It was not long before every
Drasiding elder’s district held such a meeting. It has been

est-‘i-lluated that by 1812 at least four hundred Methodist camp

meetings were being held." (Rose, 1975, 29) The Western

conference of the Methodist Church profited from this form
Of Ji‘evivalism and made great gains in its membership.
(Nora-wood, 1989, 157) The genius of the Methodists was their
ability to use methods which were in "consonance with

popular needs, and became, as a consequence, a church of the

59

people." (Cameron, 1961, 123)

V. NINETEENTH CENTURY REVIVALISM AND ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION

American Protestantism and frontier revivalism are

generally thought of as one converging stream. In a general

sense that is true. All Protestant churches were prospering

from a general revival of interest in religion. The Great
Awakening in the Connecticut River valley in the 1740’s
paved the way for the Second Great Awakening on the western

frontier. While the former affected the Congregationalists,

creating a spirit for Separatism, the latter affected the

Methodist by giving them a vehicle for growth.

Frontier Methodists were generally characterized as
lacking education and displaying undisciplined emotionalism.
Their message centered on "Wesleyan Christian Perfection,"

Which seemed to fit the revivalistic atmosphere of their

Primitive surroundings. Although Wesley and Fletcher taught

sanctification as both an instantaneous and a gradual

Process, their successors destroyed the delicate balance

they tried to achieve. A lopsided emphasis could be seen as

early as 1820’s. (Peters, 1956, 121) Three Methodists,
pastor-theologian Richard Watson, evangelist-theologian Adam
Clarke, and evangelist-lay-woman Phoebe Palmer, began to
separate sanctification into one of the two emphases.

Clarke and Watson were second generation, nineteenth

century Methodist theologians. Each emphasized

s O 0 o I O
anc1::Lf1cation from different perspectives, Watson stressed

gra

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the

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60

gradual and Clarke stressed instantaneous.

Watson (1781-1833), a British Methodist, was the
younger of the two, but was a brilliant scholar. He is best
known for his Theological Institutes which was completed in
1829. While his work was better known in England than in
the United States, it was, nevertheless, a part of the
course of study for American Methodist clergyman.

Watson stressed initial sanctification, that is, the
process of sanctification begins in the work of
justification. His emphasis, as such, blurred the
distinction of two works of grace. Watson, more so than
Clarke, tended to stay with the traditional Wesleyan
balance, however, his overall teaching placed more stress on
Sanctification as a gradual process. Peters notes:

Although Watson grants in the Institutes the

logical and scriptural grounds for the

instantaneous aspect of Christian perfection, he

expresses himself with more self-consistency and

assurance when in his other works he presents the

gradual phase of the doctrine. (Peters, 1956, 108)

Watson’s interpretation of sanctification shifted
Wesley’ s balance to the right. Furthermore, the influence
Of his writings as part of the course of study, did, no
doubt, represent, next to Wesley himself, a semi-Official
theological statement of the American Methodist Church.

Clarke (1762-1832), on the other hand, was also a man
of impressive scholarship but was primarily an evangelist.

He was a popular personage in America and his commentaries

were on the course of study for Methodist ministers as early

as 11
he "a
unde:
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61

as 1827. (Knight, 1978, 22) However, some scholars believed
he "attempted too much to be sufficiently thorough in his
undertakings." (Peters, 1956, 103) His rather dogmatic
emphasis on the instantaneous phase of sanctification

opposed Watson’s view. Clarke writes:

In no part of Scriptures are we directed to seek

holiness gradatim. We are to come to God as well
for an instantaneous and complete purification

from all sin, as for an instantaneous pardon.

Neither the seriatim pardon, nor the gradatim

purification, exists in the Bible. It is when the

soul is purified from all sin that it can properly

grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord

Jesus Christ. (Clarke, 1967, 207)

As noted above, Watson’s inclination to merge
;jtistification and sanctification blurred the distinction of
1:11e two elements of the doctrine. Clarke, however, made
assinctification a distinctly separate work of the Holy Spirit
following regeneration, thus shifting his view to the left.
The nineteenth century holiness movement, through the
teaching of Mrs. Phoebe Palmer, adopted a Clarkian
.iritzerpretation of the doctrine of sanctification. Thus, the
Precarious doctrinal balance Wesley attempted to achieve was
1081: within fifty years of his death.

In 1839 Timothy Merritt’s Guide to Christian Perfectign
talight "the instantaneous attainability Of the experience of
e"it-ire sanctification." (Peters, 1956, 109) Instantaneous
Sane'tification was a doctrine whose time had come. By the
nui<i‘-1830’s Palmer (1807-1874) and her sister Sarah Lankford
(1806-1896), Methodist lay-women, were teaching

IJ‘ES‘Lantaneous sanctification in their parlor for a ladies’

Bil:
sta
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Spi
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62

Bible study. Their Bible studies became so popular that they

started the "Tuesday Meeting for the Promotion of Holiness."
{Their personal experiences in receiving the gift of the Holy
Spirit had evolved out of a revival in their local church,

the Allen Street Methodist in New York, and aseries of

personal tragedies for Palmer. Lankford testified to being

sanctified in 1835 and Palmer two years later. Palmer’s

personal quest for heart holiness passed through key Bible

passages and books of instruction including works by Wesley,

Fletcher, Clarke, Hester Ann Rogers, and Timothy Merritt.

Charles White notes:

She thought of her commitment as the ‘living
sacrifice’ God required, and she became convinced
that God had accepted her offering. She then
realized that what had happened to her was the
entire sanctification her Methodist heritage had

taught her to expect. (White, 1986, 231)

Melvin Dieter also notes:

Out of that experience (professing an experience
of entire sanctification) and a study of the
Bible, she put together a series of Old and New
Testament passages to create a new scale sangta by

which the Christian believer could be cleansed
from all the remains of inbred sin and enter into
the Canaan land of perfect love. It represented a
blend of the accepted Wesleyan standards ... in
interaction with other forces at work creating the
currents of revivalism and reform which had been
surging through the national experience of the

day. (Dieter, 1985, 63)

Because of the intensity of their personal inquiry into
the experience of entire sanctification, Palmer and Lankford
began to instruct and persuade others to seek the Holy
spiIl:'it. Their meetings began a revival of interest in the

doctrine of instantaneous sanctification that swept the

63

United States and touched Europe.

In regard to the "new measures" introduced by Palmer,

White notes:

In place of believing in instantaneous entire
sanctification and waiting for it by practicing
Wesley’s generalized Christian discipline, Phoebe
Palmer substituted a "shorter way" to holiness.
All one needed to do was follow this simple three-

step process for being sanctified: (1) entire
consecration, (2) faith, and (3) testimony.

(White, 1986, 136)

Palmer's sometimes controversial phrases "the altar
sanctifies the gift" and "believe it is done and it is done"
received an indirect rebuke from the 1852 General
Conference. In addition to her short way to holiness, she
Eilstered Wesley’s doctrine of sanctification by insisting
that the gift would have the witness of the Holy Spirit.
(Finite, 1986, 141) This, White suggests, led the way for
the Pentecostal developments of speaking in tongues as a
Viistness of the Spirit. (White, 1986, 158) Regardless of the
(zcxntroversy that surrounded her theology, it did not
minimize the power of her influence that spaned both the
lkrrtebellum and post-Civil War periods.

Charles G. Finney (1792-1875) the Presbyterian -
Congregational evangelist, whose "new methods," created
great controversy, was "deeply influenced by Wesleyan
perfectionism." (Norwood, 1974, 157) We carried the
Wesleyan doctrine to a broader section of the American
P1=‘<>'t:estant community. Finney preached a theme of

sarnotification and perfection during his revival crusades

64

(1824-1850). His, so called, "Oberlin Theology" (named
after the location of his theological school in Ohio) must
be considered one of the most influential perfectionist
doctrines outside of Methodism. His fame and message of
sanctification gave the doctrine more national appeal.
Finney believed entire sanctification to be a full
obedience and entire consecration to God and could only be
attained by faith. Furthermore, he saw it as a continued
and abiding consecration. He maintained that this
experience was not a state in which a man could not sin or
not need the grace of Christ to prevent him from sinning.
He believed an individual would not struggle with
temptation, but neither would he be in a state where he
would not need to mature, progress or grow as a Christian.
(Finney, 1946) Finney believed that every person must be
committed to make a total abstinence from sin. For him
"nothing is holiness short of full obedience... to the moral
law...(for) holiness consists... in obedience of the will to
the law of God, as it is revealed in the intellect, that it
is expressed in one word love..." (Finney, 1946, 402)
Finney clearly saw sanctification as a work of grace
following justification. He would call it a condition of
permanent justification, but only as long as a "full-
hearted" consecration continued. If the individual fell
from his first love into the bondage to sin (backslides) he
was condemned and must repent and do his "first work" and

return to Christ by repentance and renewal of his faith and

65

love. In this sense, salvation was conditional. Finney’s
views were very close to traditional Wesleyanism. By
mid-century, instantaneous sanctification was being preached

both within and without the Methodist camp.

VI. HETHODISH IN SOCIAL TRANSITION

Nineteenth Century American Methodism was moving along
H. Richard Niebuhr's church-sect theory continuum.
Beginning in the 1780’s, it manifested many sect-like
characteristics. Among the dominant features was its
emphasis on a highly personalized salvation. Methodism
believed that social reform would come through the
perfection of its members who experienced "holiness of heart
and life." It denounced social sins such as slavery and
alcohol and filled its ranks with the lower classes
inhabiting the backwoods and unsettled areas of the western
frontier. The maintenance of the small Methodist societies
depended upon the work of lay-preachers who were in charge
until the circuit rider returned. Their religious services
were emotional and their uneducated ministers preached in a
fiery evangelistic style.

As the frontier tamed down so did the Methodists. Log
cabin churches were replaced by brick structures, stain
glass windows, and tall spires. Considered to be a church
of the lower class in the early nineteenth century,
Methodists had become the "fashionable" middle class church

of the last half of the century. Its clergy were more

66

educated, lay-leadership dropped off, and its organization
became a bureaucratic. According to Moberg, by the 1930's
it was one of the largest denominations in the United
States.

The membership was widely dispersed: they were but

little different from non-members. Discipline and

expulsion of members were rare; joining involved

mere compliance with certain formalities. Groups

were highly organized in an interlocking hierarchy

of structure, Both lay and professional

leadership were specialized... Increased formality

and more elaborate forms of ritual characterized

religious services. (Moberg, 1984, 103)

Historically, the Civil War was the watershed for the
old and new America. 'From 1865 to 1899 vast changes
affected American churches, theology, practices, and
life-styles. These changes, in part, were brought about by
the steady flow of European migrants not of British descent.
American Protestantism became less dominant as the ranks of
Catholic, Jewish, and Orthodox faiths increased. Science,
technology, and an evolutionary thought were suddenly thrust
into the intellectual climate. This challenged Reformation
orthodoxy and the authority of the Bible. The industrial
revolution quickly changed the center of power from the
agrarian to the urban influence. While the Protestant
churches grew externally and continued to claim a greater
percentage of the American people as members, nevertheless,
they felt the pressure of their new environment.

On the intellectual scene, prior to the Civil War most

American colleges were affiliated with a denomination. These

67

colleges maintained a religious orientation and had little
problem relating the Christian faith to romantic and
idealistic thought. Furthermore, the authority of the Bible
had not been widely challenged. However, following the war,
science had gained prestige and Darwinism had made its
debut. As mentioned above, once Darwinism had the attention
of the country, it made a dramatic impact on American
thought and theology. It caused an intellectual revolution
that led the way for humanistic alternatives to religious
traditions and scattered the seeds of materialism and
secularism. Technology, the tempo of travel, and
communication were all growing rapidly. Science not only
spawned new expressions of thought but was also helping to
reshape American life.

Protestantism, long secure in the rural small towns of
the agrarian North before the Civil War, now faced rural
depression, large urban communities, a new industrial order,
laboring masses, city slums, and a general fragmentation of
life. In the South the conditions were not much different.
The state governments were bogging down under a general
weakness of leadership and corruption. Those efforts
attempting to "reconstruct" the South were either delayed,
confused, or of short duration. The Union had been restored
but the South remained emotionally and intellectually
isolated from the North. Furthermore, those denominations
which had split before the war had dismantled all

organizational ties and any attempt to reunite them was out

68

of the question. Smith, Handy, and Loetscher (1963) note
the southern churches served as the only institutional link
the South had to bind itself together. Post war changes in
both the North and the South resulted in an isolation from
the larger urban Christian community of the nation and a
major resistance to any fundamental change in thought and
practice. Methodism, like other major denominations, was
attempting to address this cultural maelstrom.

Industrialization and the swift expansion of the
American economy had its affect on the Methodists too. As a
greater number of new members joined the church, it became
more focused upon the middle class and the wealthy. Melvin
Dieter notes:

By 1875 the Methodists were swiftly becoming a

middle class church. They began to glory in the

mass and beauty of their buildings, in their

political influence in local communities as well

as in national affairs, and in their status among

other established churches in the religious

community of the nation. (Dieter, 1980, 204)

Niebuhr makes an interesting observation of American
Methodism at this point in its history. He believes it
illustrates a church of the poor who casts aside its
original endowment and puts on the cloak of its new-found
economic status. He notes:

Religious enthusiasm declined in later days

because Methodist Christianity became more

literate and rational and because, with increasing

wealth and culture, other escapes from the

monotony and exhaustion of hard labor became

available. The substitution of education for

conversion, finally, played its part in making
revivalism less important... (Niebuhr, 1972, 63)

69

Another factor confronting the church was the growing
alienation between the individual member and the ministers
who graduated from the theological seminaries. Holiness
advocates charged too little was taught about Wesley and too
much was wasted on "theological questions." According to
Dieter, "the ‘holiness question,’ ... was often sloughed off
as an irrelevant irritant..." (Dieter, 1980, 206) Along
with the rapid postwar growth of the church was the
complication that one—third of the pastors had less than ten
years of experience. "Many of those new men were neither
indoctrinated in, nor interested in the issues which entered
into the holiness controversy." (Dieter, 1980, 207)
Furthermore, many of these new pastors were given positions
of leadership that would normally have been given to
seasoned men.

There was a concurrent, gradual relaxation of the

prohibitions against worldly amusements, fine

dress, dancing, etc.: revivalists had consistently

inveighed against such involvements as totally

incompatible with sincere Christian commitment."

(Dieter, 1980, 207)

The holiness advocates believed nothing short of a
major revival of Christian holiness, especially among the
ministry, could stop the church from being overwhelmed by
worldliness.

As late as 1872, according to Smith, "half of the
Methodist bishops were well known as strong advocates of...

(instantaneous sanctification)." (White, 1986, xiii)

However, by the mid 1880’s, with the avalanche of scientific

7O

discovery, the new challenges of liberalism in theology, and
excesses and emotionalism within the holiness ranks, the
bishops began to reconsider their stand on this doctrinal
emphasis. (Smith, 1962; Dieter, 1980) Furthermore, the
National Camp Meeting for the Promotion of Holiness began to
intensify the tensions that were developing over the
doctrine of entire sanctification.

An article in "Answers to Inquiries" section of The

Christian Adyeeete, August 10, 1899, may help us understand
the changing attitude of the bishops.

Q. Recently a person in advocating holiness said
to the congregation: "If you are only justified,
it will not save you. Getting converted is the
smallest and most insignificant thing in the
religious life." Several laymen indorsed (sic)
the sentiment. Is it true?

A. It is an utterance of unbridled fanaticism,
contrary to the Scriptures and vigorously
denounced by John Wesley. It is a heresy of such
magnitude and so demoralizing in its effects that
many ministers uttering it should be brought to
trial as quickly as if he should declare that the
Book of Genesis was written by twenty-six authors.
A justified person, if he dies is that state, is
certain of heaven as it is possible for a human
being to be: and conversion, in the Methodist
sense of the word, is the greatest thing that can
ever happen to a human being. "Christian
perfection," "entire sanctification." "higher
life,“ is the completion of that wonderful work
that translated the sinner "out of darkness into
His marvelous light." The difference in kind:
according to Methodism and according to the Bible,
the difference between a justified believer and
the highest possible attainment of Christian
experience is a difference in deg:ee.(1he

Christian M August 10- 1899 p2)

Statements like the one above, would have moved the
bishops to oust the radicals from the church. However, it

is likely that good was mixed with bad and many in the

71

holiness ranks who were labeled extremists, were not.

VII. THE HOLINESS CAMP MEETING MOVEMENT

By the beginning of the nineteenth century concerns
were being voiced that the M.E. Church was failing to be a
witness to the doctrine of entire sanctification. A decline
in the doctrinal emphasis had seemingly begun around 1812.
Peters records "In 1819 a commentator on American Methodism
could say: ‘How few and feeble are the efforts of ...
ministers of the gospel in particular, to raise the standard
of Christian perfection in the Church’." (Peters, 1956, 99)
However, by 1825 some evangelists, pastors and laypersons
revived its importance. The bishops were cordial to the
reemphasis. However, as I have noted earlier, by 1850’s,
Methodism was in theological and sociological transition.
Obviously, it was attempting to adapt itself to the changing
cultural environment. The traditions of the frontier era,
the class meeting, the protracted camp meeting, and the
perfectionistic message, were passing from popular use.
Many Jeremiads were denouncing the church and its failure to
continue on the "old paths.” Those who gave the forebodings
took one of two courses of action. They either helped start
a reform movement within the church, or, they help create a
new sect. The Free Methodist and the Wesleyan Methodist
churches scared the denomination with their schisms. Peters
(1956) believes the doctrine of Christian perfection played a

significant part in both schisms.

72

The rupture of the church over the doctrine of entire
sanctification came as early as 1859. The center of the
debate was in the Genesee Conference of western New York
state. Rev. B. T. Roberts and other ministers began to
voice concerns over what they believed to be a spiritual
decline in the church. For example, quoting from the 1846
Discipline, they condemned the church for the pride it
exhibited in boasting about its new buildings and members of
social status and fashion. (Roberts, 1879, 45) However,
Roberts also focused on the doctrine of entire
sanctification. He notes:

They had not learned to explain away the plain

precepts of the Word of God. These, too, held to

the doctrine of holiness as taught by Wesley -

that entire sanctification was to be sought by

faith, subsequently to pardon. Others opposed

making holiness a distinct issue, and were content

with preaching it only in a general way, and

carried the idea that it was to be obtained

gradually. (Roberts, 1879, 46)

The protests made by Roberts and others led to a schism
in the conference and the establishment of the Free
Methodist Church. While slavery had been a major concern
during the Wesleyan Methodist division, this was not the
major issue for the Free Methodist split. Criticism of the
church’s social segmenting, slavery, the doctrine of entire
sanctification, and Robert’s charismatic presence all
contributed to this division. "Free" Methodism originally
meant free pews and free soil, however, the issue of entire

sanctification as second work of grace pointed to a rising

concern in some sections of the church that a general

73

decline in this emphasis of the doctrine had begun.

Within a decade following the Civil War, renewed
concerns were expressed over the spiritual state of the
church. In 1867 a group of Methodist ministers met in New
York City to discuss a common concern -- the backslidden
state of the church. At the suggestion of Rev. John A.
Wood, the concept of a holiness camp meeting was born.
This, no doubt, was a nostalgic attempt to recapture the
revivalistic spirit of the western frontier. Under the
dynamic leadership of Rev. W. B. Osborn and Rev. John Inskip
the idea took root and the National Camp Meeting Association
(NCMA) was born. It resulted in a series of holiness
meetings that began at Vineland, New Jersey on July 17,
1867. (McDonald, 1965; Smith, 1962; Rose, 1975) The NCMA
intensified the message of entire sanctification on a
broader scale than the work of Finney and Palmer. They had
laid the foundation for the doctrine of entire
sanctification in the antebellum era. The NCMA, creating
its own inertia, organized as an association to promote the
holiness message. Furthermore, it sponsored nearly 200
holiness evangelists who criss-crossed the country holding
local holiness revivals and area NCMA meetings.

In 1887, while reflecting on the triumphs of two
decades of national holiness camp meeting work, William
McDonald, a member of the NCMA, reported:

The fruit of national camp meetings in the

spiritual uplift of the churches from a state of
almost utter backsliding as the result of the

74

Rebellion, in the inspiration it has given to the
work of evangelization and missionary zeal, in the
valuable holiness literature it has given to the
churches, and in the new era of spiritual song

with which it has flooded the land, ...their

influence for good has been unprecedented in

modern times. (McDonald, 1965, viii)

While the NCMA meetings had an interdenominational
appeal, the majority of the attendees between 1867 and 1890
were Methodists. The association printed and circulated
holiness books and other literature. It also organized
state and local associations to support members whose
churches did not preach the holiness message. While the
intentions were good the results were divisive. Because
many radicals of the movement were the outspoken and
condemned the church, the organization began to be looked on
with disdain. (Smith, 1962) Some radicals began to advocate
"come-outism," (an attempt to restore the true church to its
primitive holiness by voluntarily separating from the parent
body). On the other side, D. D. Whedon, editor of the
Methodist Quarterly Review spoke out against what he saw
happening:

The holiness association, the holiness periodical,

the holiness prayer-meeting, the holiness

preacher, are all modern novelties. They are not

Wesleyan. We believe that a living Wesley would

never admit them into the Methodist system.

(Peters, 1956, 139)

T. J. Wheat, a presiding elder boldly stated:

The leaders in the holiness movement are all, or

nearly so, zealous advocates of come-outism. For

the last ten years... Holiness Associations have
been a standing menace to the spirit of the Gospel
of Jesus Christ. As associations they have been,

and are today, religious anarchists. (Peters,
1956, 141)

75

Charges were met with counter-charges as the war of
words continued to fuel passions on both sides of the
holiness issue. In congregations where resentments and
passions ran white-hot, holiness people were told to leave
the church. In other cases members simply left the church
because they felt it was too backslidden to be saved. Still
others, not wanting to leave, felt they were being "crushed
out," that is, forced out by the leadership of the church or
conference. Between 1885 and 1900 the great Methodist
Church was fractured by many holiness schisms.

While some holiness advocates were leaving the M. E.
Church and forming sects, many other holiness advocates were
remaining loyal to the denomination. Daniel Steele, William
McDonald, William Nast, and Bishop Willard Mallalieu are all
examples of denominational loyalists. Timothy Smith notes
four factors that entered into a decision to stay or leave:

(1) the persistent opposition of ecclesiastical

officials to independent holiness associations and

publishing agencies: (2) the recurrent outbursts

of fanaticism among persons who were members of

the associations but not of the churches: (3) the

out break in the 1890’s of strenuous attacks upon

the doctrine of sanctification itself: and (4) the

increasing activity of urban holiness preachers in

city mission and social work. (Smith, 1962, 27)

The majority of the holiness people who separated from
the Methodist Church did so for two reasons. One revolved
around a theological issue centering on the interpretation
of the doctrine of entire sanctification. (Smith indicates

the controversy surrounding the interpretation of the

doctrine of sanctification had became quite heated. [see

76

above] This is no doubt true. The ghrietien Adyeeete,
April 2, 1891 printed a interpretation of the Wesley’s
statements on the subject. The article begins "The views of
our founder upon Christian perfection have been the occasion
of much controversy both within and without the Church."
[p.3]) Those who promoted Christian perfection also
challenged the churches’ apparent drift from the holiness
revival spirit present in an earlier era. Second, they were
made to feel unwelcome and unwanted in local congregations
and at conference gatherings. Instead of bringing revival
to the denomination, the holiness movement brought revolt.
They preached heart purity but were purged from the
denomination. The result was the formation of many holiness
churches in which the doctrine of entire sanctification was
preached and the bonds of ecclesiastical power were broken.
The American interpretation of the doctrine of entire
sanctification had reached its climax in the Clarkian
tradition. Palmer and Finney had added revivalistic
dimensions and new measures to it. Outstanding
Methodist preachers (William McDonald, A. J. Wood, Jesse
Peck) and teachers (Daniel Steele, et a1) were writing books
on the holiness doctrine, however, there was no single voice
formulating the doctirne of the holiness movement during the
last 25 years of the nineteenth century (An actual holiness
theology was not written until 1931). What did result,
however, was the crystallization of all the teachings into

six main concepts. First, the state of justification

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included a full pardon from sin, a spiritual rebirth, and a
full renunciation of sinful habits, Second, entire
sanctifiction was a work subsequent to the work of
regeneration and was preceded by an act of "solemn and
complete consecration." This included the total eradication
of inbred sin (the carnal nature), perfect love, and the
indewelling presence of the Holy Ghost. Third, it was the
absolute duty of the sanctified to testify to the experience
of entire sanctification. If one withheld testimony to
entire sanctification, a great darkness would engulf his
soul. Fourth, one must manifest a holy character and live
by the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount and the
thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians. Fifth, the
sanctified would manifest the attractive graces, which are
the fruits of the spirit as described by the Apostle Paul
(Gal. 5:22-23). Finally, the sanctified would grow in
grace, which should be rapid, constant and palpable.
(Peters, 1956, 119)

By the end of the nineteenth century, a practical
holiness theology was in place. Though not formalized by
one theological statement from one major denomination, it
was a hybrid of Wesley’s original intent. The Holiness
Movement was an advocates of this interpretation of Wesley.
They rightly claimed a Wesleyan theological tradition and
therefore they believed themselves to be orthodox as well.
As we shall see, the members of the LHA were also Wesleyans

in this same traditional interpetation. In the next chapter

78

I will explore the development of a holiness sect, the
Church of the Nazarene, the denomination the members of the

LHA joined in 1922.

CHAPTER THREE
THE DEVELOPMENT OF A HOLINESS SECT:

THE CHURCH OF THE NAZARENE

The emergence of the holiness sects in the last decade
of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century
demostrated a general revolt within Methodism over the
doctrine of entire sanctification as a second work of grace.
The Church of the Nazarene, whose roots are in Methodism,
emerged during this time as protest movement. It began as a
mission with a concern for the poor. As the sect grew it
merged with other holiness sect across the country. The LHA
united with this body in 1922. At the same time pentecostal
(Tongues Movement) sects began to spring up across the
nation. This movement also had its roots in Methodist
doctrine and experience. The Assemblies of God was formed
to merge the various independent pentecostal sects into a
national movement. In this chapter, however, I will only
survey the origins of the Church of the Nazarene.

The Church of the Nazarene is a simple, primitive

church, a church of the people and for the people.

It has no new doctrines, only the old, old Bible

truths. It seeks to discard all superfluous forms

and ecclesiasticism and go back to the plain

simple words of Christ. It is not a mission, but a

church with a mission. It is a banding together

of hearts that have found the peace of God, and

which now in their gladness, go out to carry the

message of the unsearchable riches of the gospel

of Christ to other suffering, discouraged, sinsick
souls. Its mission is to everyone upon whom the

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battle of life has been sore, and to every heart

that hungers for cleansing from sin. Come. (Smith,

1962) (The above statement was taken from the

first pamphlet advertising the Church of the

Nazarene in 1895.)

Dr. Phineas F. Bresee (1838-1915), founder of the Church
of the Nazarene in Los Angles, was raised in south central
New York during the antebellum era of the perfectionistic
evangelists Charles Finney and Phoebe Palmer. He was
converted at a Methodist revival on the Central New York
Conference, and immediately felt called to be a minister. A
few years later his family moved to Iowa where he began his
pastoral ministry. He pastored on this conference several
years and served as both a presiding elder and a member of
General Conference. Following an embarrassing personal
financial disaster in 1883, he moved his entire family to
southern California. However, he overcame that
embarrassment and was soon pastoring the more prestigious
churches in that conference.

Bresee was a hard driving pastor-evangelist and kept
his churches in a continual spirit of revival. It is not
surprising he became affiliated with the National Camp
Meeting Association as one of their more popular pastor-
evangelists. (Bresee’s earliest contacts with the Camp
Meeting Association were in 1887 following his appointment
to the Pasadena Methodist Church. William MacDonald, the
president of the associaton and Rev. J. A. Wood were brought

in for revival meetings. The date 1887 also appears in the

Association’s book, The quhie 99:3. which features one of

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Bresee’s sermons.) His Nazarene associate, I.G. Martin,
notes Bresee did not wait for an evangelist to bring
revival. The work of the evangelist was simply to "swing
the revival to a higher tide of victory." (Martin, 1937)
His fervency for holiness evangelism in the churches he
pastored on the Southern California Conference, where he had
been the presiding elder, had brought down the wrath of the
bishops. (Girvin reported that following a holiness campaign
on the Los Angeles District directed by Bresee and
MacDonald, Bishop Fowler was intent to "have Dr. Bresee
removed from the District." [Girvin, 1916, 95]) Bresee’s
strong holiness position of sanctification as a second work
of grace, wedded to his powerful evangelistic style and
strong support of the National Camp Meeting Association, had
brought him into disfavor with the Methodist Bishopric. It
was just a matter of time until he was out on his own.
Bresee was no doubt influenced by American utopianism,
and attempted to resurrect a primitive New Testament Church
in a historical Wesleyan fashion. The influence of the
Holiness Movement had given him the perfectionistic message
and doctrine. Furthermore, the resistance of the Methodist
bishopric to that doctrine and their denial of his request
for a supernumerary relationship to the conference caused
him to request a location, which was given without debate.
(The 1884 Qieeipiihe indicated a supernumerary relationship
pertained to those preachers whose health temporarily

impaired them from their effective work as a pastor or

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wished to retire. [Dieeipiine, 1884, 115] Bresee no doubt
tried to stretch the interpretation of this provision in
order to maintain his relationship with the conference, keep
his credentials, and at the same time work in an inner-city
mission work under a holiness banner. When this request was
denied he decided to take a location, in which he left the
Church without his ordaination papers.)

On Sunday, October 20, 1895, Bresee started the Church
of the Nazarene in a rented hall in downtown Los Angeles,
with eighty-six faithful followers. This was to be a church
for the poor. This fifty-five year old, former high ranking
Methodist clergyman, was now out on his own without the
support of the great church to which he had given his life
for service.

As Bresee’s new church began to take shape, its mission
became its identity. From the outset, the church focused on
a social ministry as well as holiness evangelism. He
stated, "It had been my long cherished desire to have a
place in the heart of the city, which could be made a center
of holy fire, where the gospel could be preached to the
poor." (Girvin, 1916, 99) According to Tom Nees, Bresee’s
desire and spirit was inspired by the work of the post-Civil
War Holiness movement which had responded "to the new social
problems of industrialism in the growing cities" (Nees,
1976, 7). He further notes:

Holiness churches and their city missions were

motivated by the Progressive ideal of saving

people from the evils industrialism had brought
upon society, while preparing society for the

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soon-to-come "Christian Century" when America

would achieve its destiny of righteousness.

Utopianism was shared equally by the advocates of

the social gospel and the leaders of the holiness

movement. (Nees, 1976, 7)

Smith lists five characteristics of the early
Nazarenes. First, the government of the church was
thoroughly democratic. This action put the power of the
church back into the hands of the congregation. Second, the
chief aim of the church was to preach holiness to the poor.
Third, the discipline of the church depended primarily upon
the work of the Holy Spirit. (This meant that a sanctified
person would follow a narrow life style which demanded
members avoid identification with worldly practices, such as
drinking alcoholic beverages, smoking tobacco, profaning the
Lord’s Day, indulgence of pride in dress, avoidance of the
theater, the ballroom, and circus, etc.) On the whole,
Bresee adapted historic concepts of the Methodist Qieeipiine
from the "General Rules," and included them in the first
Nazarene Mendel. Fourth, the church creed was brief and
made the doctrine of perfect love central. According to
Smith, Bresee’s doctrinal policy was "liberality in all
matters not, in his view, absolutely essential to salvation"
(Smith, 1962,17). Finally, the Nazarene worship service was
to be "joyously free."

Girvin, quoting from an early leaflet produced by the
church, reflects upon testimony of the spontaneity of the
people:

The voice of prayers and hallelujahs trembling on
the lips: the shouts of those who conquer, are no

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infrequent things in the Church of the Nazarene...

The presence of the Lord is often so manifest as

we are gathered together, that not only do our

hearts burn within us, but our tongues are tuned

to praise, and triumphant hallelujahs fill the

house - to Jesus be all the glory. (Girvin, 1916,

124)

According to Martin, an early Nazarene song leader,
Bresee "constantly and persistently stressed the necessity
of holy enthusiasm - of living under the unction and
anointing of the Holy Spirit. ‘We must have unction; it is
the sword that pierces between soul and spirit... it is your
enduement of power: you must receive it fresh by the breath
of God, or you are nothing.’" (Martin, 1937, 18-19)

The church experienced rapid growth during its
formation years. The great majority of its membership,
however, was the result of its mergers with other holiness
sects. In his 1929 unpublished doctoral dissertation,
Christian Perfeetieniem in Ameriee, Merrill Gaddis notes,
"The period of 1893 to 1907 is known as ‘the stage of sect-
formation in the holiness movement.’ Twenty-five holiness
sects sprang into existence during this time in the United
States..." (Gaddis, 1929, 450, 458) It was the dream of
Bresee that the Church of the Nazarene would be the unifying
force of the scattered holiness sects in the country.
However, the independent character of many of the groups and
their desire to reform the Methodist church retarded the
progress of this dream. Chapman believed "if they (holiness

converts) had not been so resistant to the idea of leaving

existing churches and proceeded at once to form one great

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holiness denomination, they might have begun with over a
million members" (Gaddis, 1929, 458).

Bresee’s vision, however, began to come into focus in
1906 with a revival he conducted in Chicago. His contacts
there led to the merger of his Church of the Nazarene and
H. F. Reynold’s Association of Pentecostal Churches in 1907
to form "The Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene." This was
followed in September of 1908 by C.W. Ruth’s former and
lesser known group, the Holiness Christian Association of
Pennsylvania. The most heralded merger was the Holiness
Church of Christ on October 13, 1908 at Pilot Point. (This
date is considered, for all practical purposes, to be the
natal date of the Church of the Nazarene. The main reason
being this was the largest single merge involving the three
main groups.) The fifth and sixth groups to join the
Nazarenes occurred in 1915, the Pentecostal Mission of
Nashville and the Pentecostal Church of Scotland founded by
George Sharpe. Finally, in 1922 the North Dakota based
Laymen’s Holiness Association, under the leadership of
J. G. Morrison, joined the swelling ranks of the young
church. By the sixth General Assembly, The Church of the
Nazarene, (Pentecostal had been dropped from the official
name of the organization in 1919 to avoid confusion with the
tongues movement), had grown from 99 churches and 6,198
members in 1907 to 1,304 churches and 50,631 members in
1923. (Minutes, General Secretary, Church of the Nazarene)

Also important to our understanding of this rapid

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growth is the movement’s appeal to members of the Methodist
Church. It could be safely assumed that the early Nazarenes
viewed themselves as neo-Methodists: that is, a new
expression of old-fashion Methodism. (Nazarenes and the
members of the LHA considered themselves to be
conservatives. They believed they were perserving the
orthodox Wesleyan faith and doctrine. They also believed
they were in the mainstream of orthodox protestant
theological tradition, visa via, Wesley and the reformation
fathers.) In 1912, Hereid sf Heiiness editor, B.F. Haynes
wrote "The Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene, in point of
doctrine, of experience, of evangelistic activity and mis-
sionary belief and endeavor, is Mr. Wesley’s legitimate and
historic offspring and the direct successor of the Wesleyan
movement.” (Haynes, 1912, 3). Chapman also wrote about this
in 1926, stating once the momentum of the movement got
underway the Nazarenes drew most of their members and doc-
trine from Methodist religious bodies. He notes:
... It is likely that more Nazarenes are of Methodist

extraction than of any other one denomination...

(and) from the standpoint of doctrine and purpose,

the Church of the Nazarene is Methodistic and a

summary of Methodism and her legitimate offspring

will in the future, no doubt, include the

Nazarenes." (Chapman, 1926, 23).

Finally, the formation period was doctrinally
apologetic and intensely revivalistic. The defensive
position of most sects results from a type of superior

self-perception for its legitimacy for existence. (Niebuhr,

1929: Pope, 1942) The Nazarenes believed they were picking

87

up where the Methodists had left off and they had good
reasons to believe this.

Just leaving the Methodist Church did not guarantee the
Nazarenes and other Wesleyan sects triumph. However, like
the Methodist circuit riding preachers of the early western
frontier, the evangelists were the vanguards of the new
movement. Their courageous efforts took the sects into new
and formally Methodist-dominated communities. With their
primitive Wesleyan message, they challenged the religious
apathy of the members of the Church. Following this
tradition and methodology, early Nazarenes were intensely
revivalistic and their leaders Bresee, Ruth, Reynolds, and
Jernigan, were vivid models of holiness preachers.

As I have asserted, the early Nazarenes believed
themselves to be the resurrection of the Methodist Church in
the true Wesleyan spirit. Its rate of growth and its
mergers gave it a sense of success and divine blessing. The
evangelists spear headed the revivalistic assaults on the
communities and became the spiritual heroes of the movement.
Its preachers and deaconesses were social activists,
focusing their work on the poorer sections of the urban
centers. As long as the spirit of the nation was
optimistic, Nazarenes would believe in the probable success
of their holiness message. They would cleanse men’s hearts,
correct social wrongs, and revive the Christian principles
of the country.

After more than a century of national prominence the

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influence of evangelical revivalism was beginning to wane.
During the latter half of the nineteenth century,
conservative religion was beginning to lose its dominance in
America’s spiritual life. Its theological position was
being challenged by evolution, modernism and higher
criticism. The consolidating force confronting this newest
challenge became known as fundamentalism. Although it was
fighting on a new front, revivalism was still the chief tool
for recruiting members and indoctrinating converts. In the
post-millennial spirit of the utopian age, many believed the
church would usher in the Kingdom of God. However, with the
coming of the First World War, the obvious failure of
prohibition to reform society, and a theological shift from
post to premillennialism, the Church of the Nazarene moved
from the confidence that social reform was possible to an
attitude of retrenchment and isolationalism. (Nees, 1976)

The post-WWI decade of the twenties proved to be a time
of great social upheaval for the nation and for the church.
The old familiar religious moorings produced by a dominate
Protestant middle class were crumbling. The older leadership
of the Church of the Nazarene, most of whom were ingrained
in Methodism and other churchly traditions, were passing the
reins of leadership to a younger group of leaders who "had
known neither bishops nor councils, nor a church broadly
responsible for the welfare of society." (Smith, 1962) The
new generation of denominational leaders were "more

conservative, sectarian and preoccupied with the internal

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life of the denomination, including educational and
missionary interests." (Nees, 1976) A prevailing attitude
of rural conservatism now dominated the church, began to
lead it from the battle fields to the fortress.

Smith lists three reasons for the increasing influence
and attachment to the rising star of fundamentalism.

One was fear (of a changing society). Another was
the farmer’s feeling of alienation from urban
culture. The third was the heightened sense of
human tragedy with World War I and its aftermath.
(These together) which in other days had yielded
first place to the perfectionist idealism dominant
in Wesleyan faith." (Smith, 1962)

Nazarene revivalism began to shift its theme from the
conversion of all mankind to a premillennialism and the
Second Coming of Christ. It now appeared that only God’s
supernatural intervention could save the world and society.
Coupled with this was the a call to personal piety. Charles
Jones notes:

Popular culture left its deepest mark on holiness
teaching in the area of personal conduct. In much
the same way that the exuberance of the camp
meeting had permanently impressed itself upon
holiness worship, the denial of fashion left a
lasting mark on later holiness teaching.

Rejecting intellectual formulas such as the social
gospel, the higher criticism, the theory of
evolution, and socialism, holiness spokesmen
vigorously contended for "the Old Paths." They
identified the holiness movement with ideas and
customs then past or passing, rejecting as
"modern," worldly, and un-Christian much of their
present environment. (Jones, 1974, 85)

According to Smith (1962), Nees (1976), and Jones
(1974), the social gospel was regarded as theological

liberalism and began to suffer from a "steadily increasing

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neglect." By the second decade of the twentieth century
Smith notes a change in the face of the once socially active
church:

Rescue homes and missions disappeared from
district programs. Pronouncements on social
issues, when made at all, were buried in the
reports of committees on public morals whose real
preoccupation was standards of personal behavior
among church people. The order of deaconesses,
once a great source of spiritual power in the
denomination, declined in both numbers and
influence. Even the ancient commitment to
prohibitionism was restated in terms of personal
rather than social regeneration. (Smith, 1962,
318)

Nees discovered a similar attitude in his research:

After 1919 these committees ("State of the Church

and Country" and "Temperance and Prohibition")

began to merge and narrow their interests. By the

seventh Assembly in 1928, only three committees

remained: Social Welfare and Orphanage, Deaconess,

and State of the Church and Public Morals, the

latter of which had assumed the interest of the

prohibition cause. In 1932 there was just one

committee reporting about social welfare or rescue
work... The committee on Social Welfare,

Orphanage, and Deaconess work continued to

function with declining interest until dissolved

after the 1948 Assembly. (Nees, 1976)

The Nazarenes as well as other holiness groups
continued to describe themselves as poor: however, they had
made their flight from the needy. Their justification was
the saving of their children and the conserving of the
converts. (Jones, 1974, 133) Furthermore, the focus of the
developing ethic was on the "joyous freedom" one could
experience when fully sanctified. This freedom generally
meant dying out to the opinions of the world, a rejection of
worldly pleasures, a dependence on the Holy Spirit, and

being cleansed from all sin. Those individuals who had

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experienced this sanctifying grace created a family-like
fellowship in the churches. This fellowship provided both
the discipline and enthusiasm for the maintenance of group
solidarity and support for the attitudes of retrenchment and
isolationalism.

The Pentecostal Movement had its origins in the same
theological root as did the Nazarenes and the LHA, the
Wesleyan holiness movement. The distinct difference between
the two was the former’s emphasis on speaking in tongues as
the evidence of receiving the Holy Spirit.

The non-tongues tradition of the Holiness Movement, the
Wesleyan Methodist, the Free Methodist, the Nazarenes and
the LHA, disagreed with the tongues doctrinal emphasis. As
I have already mentioned the Nazarenes dropped Pentecostal
from their name in 1915 to avoid be confused with the
Tongues Movement. There was an attempt to control fanatics
within the church. Especially those who tried to "work up"
the emotions of the people. Chapman wrote in the Herald sf
Holiness:

But it is easily possible for even holiness

evangelism to become shallow, so that it will

attempt to substitute fuss and noise for Holy

Ghost power, and so that it will hasten its

seekers to a profession without using the fullest

means to get them through to "the rock." Death

bed stories and hair raising tales may sometimes

get up a "stir," but they will not produce the
permanent results that follow the preaching of the

QOSPelo (Herald of ugliness. Jan. 14. 1925.
Vol.XIII, no.42)
Pentecostals, however, were a natural and logical

result of doctrine of Holy Ghost power as taught by the

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Holiness Movement. As we shall see the language of Palmer
and Finney and the pessimistic world view that was taking
over the churches was set the stage for what became the
Pentecostal expression of the Holiness Movement.

The development of the Pentecostal expression in the
Wesleyan holiness movement began before the Civil War. As
noted in chapter two, a distinct shift in the theological
emphasis of Wesley was made by Clarke. Furthermore, Palmer
popularized Clarke’s concepts and added her own "altar
theology." This shift from an emphasis on the perfection of
love to salvation from sin and form progressive
sanctification to instantaneous sanctification became an
American holiness standard. These new nuances created by
Clarke and Palmer show the extent of the "contextualization
of Wesleyan thought within American Revivalism." (Dayton,
1987, 70) Donald Dayton notes:

These developments were a necessary prelude to

what would follow. Once "crisis" overwhelms

"process" to make sanctification primarily an

event occurring at a definite point in time - that

is, when sanctification has been largely absorbed

into entire sanctification - and once the

teleological thrust of Christian perfection is

transmuted into an initiatory experience has been

set for the reemergence of the Pentecostal

formulation of entire sanctification. (Dayton,

1987, 70)

By the end of the nineteenth century a shift in the
attitude away from the ability of human effort to solve the
growing social needs of the nation began to effect many

religious groups. While the concepts of perfection have

always been controversial, it appears those of the lower

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social classes began to radicalize holiness ideas and
created a "spiritual" way to cope. (Dayton, 1987, 78)
Holiness groups began to multiply and search for a "power"
to confront the growing complexity of the social climate.
Several features began to develop as a part of this shift in
attitude. "Baptism with the Spirit" terminology began to be
associated with the experience of entire sanctification. An
emphasis on divine healing began to be emphasized in
Holiness meeting in general. This reflection of "divine
power" had become a common feature in the movement by 1895.
(In the very beginning of the movement the Church of the
Nazarene adopted, and still maintains, divine healing as one
of its fifteen points of The Articles of Faith.) Finally,
the pessimism of the age had created a stage for a
premillennial hope in the sudden return of Jesus Christ.
This theme of divine deliverance reflected a subtle
conclusion that evangelism was becoming less a tool for
transforming culture and more a process of "calling out a
‘select few,’" to prepare to meet the Bridegroom. (Dayton,
1987, 162) Thus a Pentecostal theme had developed as the
emphasis of cleansing shifted to an emphasis of power. When
the Tongues Movement broke out in 1901 the only theological
difference between it and the traditional holiness groups
was its stress on speaking in tongues as evidence of
receiving the Holy Ghost.

Thus the Holiness movement had given birth to two great

ecclesiastical organizations, the non-tongues and the

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tongues speaking movements. Both consolidated small
fragmented Holiness sects into a denominations. Wesleyan
holiness theology, within the context of the American
culture and influenced by freedom of religion,
denominationalism, and revivalism, produced a hybrid that
one wonders if Wesley would have recognized as his child.
Next I will discuss the rise of the Holiness Movement (non-

tongues speaking) in North Dakota.

CHAPTER FOUR
THE DEVELOPMENT OF NORTH DAKOTA METHODISM AND

THE JAMESTOWN CAMP MEETING

Tracing the development of the Laymen’s Holiness
Association (LHA) leads one directly through the history and
spirit of early North Dakota Methodism and the development
of the Jamestown camp meeting movement. The origins of this
movement are unmistakably Methodist, their roots deep in the
life of the primitive frontier. The Jamestown camp meeting
grew out of the successful methodology employed by early
Methodist circuit riders who planted the church on the great
open prairie of the territory of the Dakotas. (This is the
same methodology employed so successfully by Bishop Asbury
as he lead the Methodist itinerants into the wilds of the
new American frontier in the early nineteenth century.)
Those who became the vanguards of the movement were honed
razor sharp by the difficulties of their primitive
surroundings, the severe climate, and the intense religious
competition for the sparse population who were in most cases
of foreign extraction and Lutheran or Catholic in religious

preference.

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I. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DAKOTA TERRITORY

North Dakota is probably best known for its wide-open
spaces and gently rolling prairie in its mid-section and its
Badlands of canyons, gorges, ravines, bluffs, and buttes in
the western part of the state. 200 years ago the region was
the home of many nomadic Indian tribes, chiefly the Mandan,
Sioux, Crow, Cheyenne, Chippewas, and Hidatsas. These
tribes followed the migrations of the countless buffalo who
roomed these treeless plains.

The first recorded white man to visit this area of
North America was the French-Canadian fur trader and
explorer LaVerendrye and his sons in 1738. He contacted the
Mandans who were encamped along the Missouri River just east
of the present city of Bismarck. However, it was nearly 50
years before other fur traders began to penetrate into this
territory. In 1801 Alexander Henry, a fur trader with
Canada’s North West Compnay, made the first permanent
settlement at Pembina and opened up the Red River Valley to
the south.

The greater part of the area now known as North Dakota
was acquired in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. President
Jefferson chose Lewis and Clark to lead an expedition and
explore this new American territory. They departed from St.
Louis in 1804 and used the Missouri River as a primary
passageway. They spent more time in North Dakota than any
other region through which they passed and have left

historians a valuable account of the Indian cultures of

97

North Dakota. It was at their winter camp of Fort Mandan
that Lewis and Clark secured the services of the Indian
women Sakakawea, who served as a guide for their journey to
the Pacific Ocean.

Following the Lewis and Clark Expedition, fur trading
began to expand in the area. The Yellowstone, the first
steamboat to navigate the Missouri River began its journey
in 1832. These boats became an effective means of
transportation for the fur traders. This means of
transportation dramatically increased when gold was
discovered in Montana in 1863. (Ngzth Dekete, 1950, 43-44)

Dakota Territory was organized by Congress in 1861 and
opened to settlers. However, it was the farmers, not the
miners or the cattlemen, who became the dominant force in
taming this part of the wild west. The first area to be
settled in North Dakota was west of the Red River, near the
present city of Fargo and its natural border with Minnesota.
The Homestead Act of 1862 provided that any head of a family
who was a citizen or intended to become a citizen, could
acquire 160 acres of surveyed land. The land then could be
acquired by paying a small registration fee and residing on
it for five years. "So rapid was the response to this
invitation that by 1880 almost 20 million acres had been
entered by those who claimed to be homesteaders." (Krout &
Rice, 1977, 37)

With the opening up of this territory to white

settlers, the years 1862 to 1880 saw many clashes with the

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Indians, the settlers and the soldiers sent to protect the
settlers. The Indian was fighting to protect his way of
life which was being threaten by the slaughter of the
buffalo and the encroachment of settlers on his lands.
(Ellis, 1970, 33) North Dakota history is replete with
stories of Sioux Indian wars with the American Calvary under
General Alfred Sully and General John Pope. Entire towns
were abandoned in 1862 when a white exodus was created by
the Sioux uprising known as the "Minnesota Massacre".
"Dakotans were concerned that ‘these savages block the way
to the whole system of Northwestern development...’" (Ellis,
1970, 27) Moses Armstrong, a member of the territorial
legislaute suggested "the territory might ‘die for want of
government protection.’" (Ellis, 1970, 25) While many
whites wanted the Indians contained on reservations, others
would have them exterminated. General Pope, who had been
moved from the Civil War battle fields to the "great
American Desert," believed the American goverment needed a
wise and humane policy for dealing with the red man shall
save him "from complete and violent extinction..." (Ellis,
1970, 34) However, Pope’s concerns were unheeded.

When gold was discovered on the Sioux Indian
reservation in the Bad Lands in 1974, the army allowed
thousands of prospectors to come into the hills. This break
of the Larimore Treaty caused the Sioux, under the leadership
of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, to leave the reservation

and defied the government’s orders to return. The effort to

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force the Indians back to the reservation lead to the Battle
of the Little Big Horn in the summer of 1876.

In 1890 the fear of another Indian uprising called the
"Fearquakes" raged though the western half of the state.
White settlers demanded protection and weapons. This was
brought about by the "Ghost Dance" rituals being preformed
by many tribes of western Indians. While the ritual dance
was intended to bring about the coming of an Indian messiah
who would resurrect the dead braves, drive out the white
man, bring back the buffalo, and restore happiness and unite
all Indian tribes. The Sioux interpreted this message in a
militant fashion. The military was called in. The wild
reporting of the papers, the general hysteria of the
settlers, and an accidental shooting of a soldier all
culminated in the massacre at Wounded Knee, South Dakota in
December, 1890. This battle brought to closure the Indian
wars in the west. (Pfaller, 1972, 4-17)

The coming of the railroad lead to the great "Dakota
Boom" of the 1880’s. (The Dakota Boom [1878-1886] saw the
population increase almost sixfold.) The Northern Pacific,
a land-grant railroad, was given 23.9% of the entire state
of North Dakota (10,700,279 acres). The land was sold to
investment companies and the profits were used to finance
the railroad. (Cotroneo, 1970, 79) As the Northern Pacific,
Great Northern and 800 Line railroads built their way west
and south across the state, homesteaders quickly staked

their claim near the rails. Bismarck and Fargo were

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connected by 1870, Minot by 1884,and Montana and Canada by
1894. The great buffalo herds were slaughtered and driven
west by 1875, and the Sioux and other plains Indian tribes
were contained in reservations by 1895. Congress granted
both the northern and southern divisions of the territory
statehood in 1889 and the "great influx of settlers, west of
the Red River Valley and away from the main lines, came
between 1890 and 1915." (Sometimes called the Second Dakota
Boom) (Armstrong, 1960, 12) By 1915 little free land was
left in the state. The massive and rapid settlement of the
western areas of the United States caused the Bureau of the
Census (1915) to announce the end of the American frontier.

While the bulk of the settlers in the prairie states
came from older settled native areas, the State of North
Dakota was heavily populated by German-Russians, Polish,
Russians, and Norwegians. Their religious traditions were
either Lutheran, Catholic, or Greek Orthodox. The
population, on the whole, was basically of a lower social-
economic strata. (Armstrong, 1960, 11) They had little
money but much courage and a willingness to sacrifice as
they faced blizzards, grasshoppers, prairie fires, and
unending toil in establishing their prairie farms. The
frontier spirit of stubborn individualism, inventiveness,
and sense of freedom did much to shape the attitudes of
those who lived on the Dakota prairie.

The farmers dependence on wheat as a cash crop unified

and strengthened the populist revolt against eastern

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monopolistic practices. Revolts against outside explotation
reached a climax soon after the period of pioneer settlement
ended in 1915. Farm radicalism was kept alive with
movements like the Nonpartisan League (NPL) elected to state
office in 1918 and the Farmers Union organized in 1927.
These examples speak of the North Dakotan’s determination to
remain independent and somewhat reflect an attitude of folk
wisdom and the general conservatism manifested in the
Layman’s Holiness Association.

The development of the religious customs of the
evangelical protestant preachers who followed the westward
movement, can be understood by comparing their work to the
pioneer circuit riders of early Methodist history. Warren
Sweet notes:

... Old customs were strangely out of place amid

the new frontier condition. The social graces of

the older community became impractical in the

primitive log cabin and sod hut. Moral restraints

were often left behind, too, as the frontiersman

headed west, and freedom frequently ran over into

license. (Sweet, 1964, 641)

Peter Cartwright stated:

The great mass of our western people wanted a

preacher that could mount a stump, a block, or old

log, or stand in the bed of a waggon (sic), and,

without note or manuscript, quote, expound, and

apply the word of God to the hearts and

consciences of the peOple. (Sweet, 1964, 642)

Cartwright’s description of the rigorous conditions on
the Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois frontier in the 1820’s

parallels the primitive circumstances in the Dakotas during

the late 1800’s. The pioneer preachers of both eras were a

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rugged group. Sermons were packed with absolutes and
well-defined moral standards. These Methodist preachers
stressed the need for personal salvation and the experience
of entire sanctification. Their style was intensely
evangelistic and revivals and camp meetings were their chief
means for recruiting members for the circuit churches.

The primary work of the Dakota Methodists centered on
native born Protestants whose ethnic background was
Canadian, British, and northern European. Many of the
native born, due to the lure of free land, migrated to North
Dakota from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and
Nebraska. However, the native stock were a minority group.
(Armstrong, 1960, 13) There was intense competition for the
religious affiliation of the native stock Protestants and
this was shared by the Methodist, Presbyterians,
Congregationalists, and Baptists. Stories are told of
Methodist preachers riding on the cowcatchers of the
locomotives in order to be the first to reach new
settlements and set up preaching points. With such a
limited available population, the native-born Lutherans were
often proselyted to start new congregations and Sunday

Schools. (Armstrong, 1960, 13)

II. THE ORIGINS OF NORTH DAKOTA METHODISM

Before 1860 the Dakota Methodist work was the
responsibility of the Iowa Conference. Later it was

designated the Red River District of the Upper Iowa

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Conference. The first missionary preacher sent into the
area was Rev. S. W. Ingham, who evangelized was South Dakota
Territory. Rev. James Gurley preached the first Methodist
sermon in North Dakota in 1871. He was followed by
Methodist missionary, Rev. John Webb who served under the
auspices of the Northern Pacific Mission. He was responsible
for organizing the first congregation in the state at Fargo
in 1872. A second church was organized in Grand Forks in
1873. A third church was organized at Casselton in 1874,
followed by churches at Valley City, Jamestown and Bismarck
in 1876. Fourteen more were organized over the next six
years. In 1877, all the work in North Dakota was
transferred from the Upper Iowa Conference to the Minnesota
Conference. As the state developed, first in the east, then
in the west, so did the Methodist church. By 1883 North
Dakota was organized as the North Dakota and Red River
Mission District and held its first Mission Conference in
1884. In 1885, within fifteen years of the first Methodist
sermon ever preached in the state, the Annual Conference of
North Dakota was organized. (Armstrong, 1960, 17-30)

The rapid growth of the church in the state called for
the organization of three districts in 1888 with a total of
sixty-five charges. A fourth district was added in 1889.
However, in 1881 major concerns arose concerning a spiritual
decline within North Dakota Methodism. Presiding Elder
G. R. Hair reported "We have more than 30 Sunday Schools and

they are doing well. Class meetings are poorly attended."

104

(Armstrong, 1960, 24)

Similar concerns were voiced in The ghsisgien Adyeeete
by L. B. Wilson. He cites that the reason the church was
losing members was due to their loss of the "subpastoral
care of the class leader." He reminds the readers that "no
organization yet devised has compensated for the practical
setting aside of that time-honored institution." (The
Christian Advocate, May 12, 1898, 772) His point was well
taken, the class meeting served as a social as well as a
spiritual event that guided persons from probation to full
membership.

Henry Rack believed the source of "dissatisfaction and
tension was the declining intensity of religious experience,
which caused the class to be boring, repetitive, and viewed
with resentment." (Dean, 1981, 41) William Dean disagrees,
pointing out Rack is using Troeltsh’s church-sect model and
implying this decline was inevitable as Methodism moved from
being composed primarily of lower class members to that of
middle class respectability. Dean feels to explain/blame
the decline of the class meeting upon the spiritual decline
of the group is too simplistic.

What actually happened, however, was that the web

of circumstances that gave the class meeting

functional significance in the eighteenth century

eroded, leaving an institutional shell without a

clearly manifest purpose, except that attendance

was the door to membership. (Dean, 1981, 43)

Dean’s point is well taken. The arguments and blame

leveled at the church for spiritual decline may well be

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social circumstances that are beyond the control of the
church. However, Niebuhr notes "Rarely does a second
generation hold the convictions it has inherited with a
fervor equal to that of its fathers, who fashioned these
convictions in the heat of conflict and at the risk of
martyrdom." (Niebuhr, 1929, 20) Each generation must have
its own convictions for the cause it fights for or the
program it maintains.

Some programs, like the revival meeting, which
succeeded in one generation will not work for the next; yet
all too often they are institutionalized as though sacred.
(The evangelistic Sunday evening service is still being
practiced by the Church of the Nazarene but has been in
steady decline for the last twenty years. Many view it as a
mini-Sunday morning service. Forty years ago it was a tool
for outreach and winning new converts, now for the most part
it is just another service.) As we shall see, the LHA
attempted to maintain the success of the "holiness revival"
only to be faced with other problems which compounded the
difficulty of their organizational independence.

In 1882 pastors Hobart, Spates, and Tucker brought
charges against Rev. A. G. Wilson for holding to doctrines
that were contrary to the Methodist Church and the Bible.
They claimed Wilson preached

...that man was developed from the lower forms of

life: that the Darwinian was the only thinkable

theory... that there was no personal Devil... that
there were men on the earth before Adam... that

man would have died a natural death if he had not
sinned. (Armstrong, 1960, 24)

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The Bishop found Wilson guilty of the charges, however,
he passed his character when he recanted. We can see how
pervasive the influence of scientific thought had become.
It was penetrating the rural churches of North Dakota, but,
it immediately brought on a volley of protest from this
conservative conference.

Between 1888 and 1890 the Conference recorded its
support for the "dry cause" in the state. North Dakota
Methodists were ardent prohibitionists. They seldom failed
to blast the liquor trade and often took on the "bootlegger"
and the "blind piggers" (a legitimate business used as a
cover to secretly sell or transport liquor). It was not
uncommon for them to include tobacco in the same
denunciation. Armstrong noted at Conference:

Sabbath desecration, modernism, under the label

”failure to preach the old-fashioned doctrines of

the Holy Bible," the waywardness of the young, all

came in for proper resolution. “The wicked flee

when no man pursueth," but he runs a lot faster

when a militant Methodist is after him.

(Armstrong, 1960, 35)

The dedication of the missionary pastor-evangelists of
the North Dakota Conference equaled that of the early
circuit riders in the days of Wesley and Asbury. Their
passion for the souls of men drove them through drifted
snow, blizzards, mud, and drought. They traveled on foot,
by mule, horseback, buggy, sled or train to visit the sod

hut of a prairie farmer or to hold an evangelistic meeting

in a school house, depot, barn, saloon or dance hall. It

107

was not uncommon for their circuits to be 60 to 100 miles in
length. Methodist circuit riders would leave their homes on
Saturday to reach their preaching points for the Sunday
morning service, travel several miles to the afternoon
service, and travel again to the evening service only to
arrive home early Monday morning. The wives were often
alone to raise the families while the preachers were away
visiting their church members by day and holding services at
night. The parsonages were cold during the harsh Dakota
winters. In some cases the parsonage families would have to
share a room in the homes of church members. The pay was
meager and cash was scarce. Methodist preachers were often
paid with food items for their families and animals. Yet,
the sacrifice of these dedicated missionary pastors built
the church. (Armstrong, 1960, 35-50)

The North Dakota Conference grew from 47 charges and
four preaching points in 1886 to 175 charges in 1910. The
Sunday school statistics showed a similar growth: "1890 -
4,731; 1895 - 5,979; 1900 - 8,483: 1905 - 11,493: 1910 -
18,173; 1915 - 26,866." This reflected a peak of 269 Sunday
schools and a 600% increase in twenty-five years. Church
membership grew from 5,376 in 1900 to 11,557 in 1911. The
Conference roll of ministers reflected a similar growth,
recording 83 members in 1911 and reaching a peak of 164
active members in 1918. (Armstrong, 1960, 65) 1915 reflect-
ed the crest of Methodist strength in the state.

Following 1915 Sunday School attendance began to

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decline. In 1920 the attendance had slipped from 26,866 to
23,899, and to 20,899 in 1925, and fifteen years later was
at 12,969. Armstrong explains these losses were due to the
Lutheran church beginning church schools to compete for the
children of their members (children formerly proselyted by
the aggressive Methodist Sunday school workers). The roll
of minister slipped from 164 in 1918 to 120 in 1919 and to
106 in 1922 (the date the Laymen’s Holiness Association
joined with the Church of the Nazarene). The plight of the
national economy also had its affect on the work of the
church.

The scourge of the Great Depression closed banks,
foreclosed on farms, and wreaked havoc on the farm economy.
The depression was worse in North Dakota because it was
coupled with a severe drought (1932 - 1940). "In 1929 North
Dakota stood second... from the top of the list in the
percentage of people owning their own homes. (By
1940) ...the state was very near the bottom." (Armstrong,
1960, 69) No one will deny the Depression greatly affected
the church. Economic issues curtail building programs (many
of the building programs on the conference had occurred
around the turn of the century), missionary giving, district
budgets and pastoral support. The church was affected in
the rural areas by a great migration from the farm. Between
1930 - 1940, according to Armstrong, 40,000 people left the
state and another 40,000 moved into the cities. "This, of

course, closed up many rural and small town churches and

109

many Sunday schools. The minutes recorded 182 churches in
1930 and 155 in 1940." (Armstrong, 1960, 69)

While these external events had an effect on the growth
and development of North Dakota Methodism, growing
opposition to the emphasis placed on the doctrine and
experience of entire sanctification at the Jamestown
Methodist Camp Meeting, begun by S. A. Danford, created
internal strife. I believe it is more than coincidental
that the origin of the Laymen’s Holiness Association (LHA)
coincides with the decline of North Dakota Methodism. The
infiltration of liberalism within the church, resistance to
the conservative position of the LHA, and the abuse of
ecclesiastical authority all contributed to a form of lay
rebellion within the Conference. In many cases there was a

separation of both clergy and laity.

III. THE ORIGINS OF THE JAMESTOWN CAMP MEETING MOVEMENT

Rev. Samuel Alexander Danford move to North Dakota from
Ohio in 1885. Taking a Methodist charge in Sargent County,
in the extreme southeast corner of the state, he was soon
elected County Superintendent of Schools. He served in that
capacity four years and established the first normal school
in the state. Danford received his PhD from Taylor
University, an independent holiness college in Upland,
Indiana and a Doctor of Divinity from Northern Ohio
University, a Methodist college in Ada, Ohio. He served

North Dakota Methodism for thirty years (1885 - 1915),

110

eleven years as a presiding elder (district superintendent).
Danford is credited for the organization of the Jamestown
Camp Meeting, for which he served as president until 1917.
This camp gave birth to the Laymen’s Holiness Association
(LHA) O

Danford was sanctified (for explanation see page 70)
while a pastor at Jamestown. This experience evidently
created an intensity in his ministry. The Jamestown church
grew and resulted in his 1904 appointment by Bishop Joyce as
presiding elder of the Fargo District. Danford was a
friendly man who possessed the ability to inspire his
preachers to endure the hardships of the Fargo and Bismarck
Districts. He was a gifted administrator who organized his
"forces" to accomplish the work of building the church.
Armstrong notes:

This latter experience (sanctification) made him

the greatest preacher of "Scriptural Holiness" or

"sanctification" the Conference ever had. He was a

great builder of churches and parsonages. He

believed in the revival method of winning people

for Christ... He believed in and taught tithing.

Many of the churches in the Slope country still

show in their giving the results of his teaching

and preaching. Without a doubt, he induced more

young men to dedicate their lives to the ministry

than any other Superintendent. (Armstrong, 1960,

94)

According to Rev. Ira Hammer, a North Dakota Methodist
pastor, an evangelist for the LHA, and eventually an elder
in the Church of the Nazarene, the origins of the Jamestown

Camp Meeting Movement began at White Rock, South Dakota

(1905) in a revival meeting with Holiness Evangelist, Dr.

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Beverly Carradine. The pastor, Rev. E. M. Isaac, had
recently experienced sanctification and "was consistently
pressing the privileges of this great grace of the ‘victory
life’" (sic) at his church. (Hammer, 1955, 10)

Danford heard about the Carradine meeting and Isaac’s
efforts in holiness evangelism. However, this work was in
South Dakota, and Danford knew Isaac would not receive any
encouragement to promote holiness evangelism from the
superintendent on that district. Therefore, Danford
encouraged Isaac to begin a camp meeting project which he
personally would support. It was Danford’s intent to
propagate "the work of holiness within the Methodist Church"
from the beginning of his appointment to the
superintendency. (Hammer, 1955, 15) In his district report
in October, 1905, Danford reported one hundred converted and
"five young men called to the ministry" in the White Rock
Meeting. (Danford, 1913, 12) According to Hammer, Danford
became the natural leader for the camp meeting effort. He
encouraged several of his pastors from the southern edge of
the Fargo District to attend the services. It appears some
of those who did (Rev. W. R. Morrison, Rev. C. A. MacNamara,
and Rev. J. N. Loach) were spiritually revived and later
became strong supporters of the Lay Movement that arose out
of this camp meeting. (Hammer, 1955, 12)

While District Superintendent, Danford encouraged a
revival spirit on his own district. In addition to this

camp meeting at White Rock, South Dakota, revivals were

112

"held on nearly every charge on the district." (Danford,
1913, 23) Valley City held a revival and 250 were
converted, in a revival at Oakes, 150 were converted. In
his first Annual Report to the Fargo District in 1905
Danford totaled almost 700 converted in revivals and nearly
800 received into probationary and full membership. The
next year he reported nearly every church on the district
had held a revival. However, he also reported "a good old
fashioned camp meeting (the White Rock Camp Meeting moved to
the North Dakota District) was held at Fargo in June (1906),
which resulted in great good to preachers and churches."
(Danford, 1913, 23) In 1907 he reported:

The Revival work on the human side has been

persistently and carefully fostered, and the Holy

Spirit has honored the work by many conversions...

Judging from reports of pastors, there has been

over a thousand converts this year on the

district.

He continues:

We have been careful to keep out wild fire and

fanaticism of any sort and have placed my vote

upon several evangelists who have asked to come to

us. I am as much afraid of dead, cold formality

and Unitarianism as I am of fanaticism, but we

need not have either. (Danford, 1913, 29)

In his Third Annual Report of the Fargo District,
(1907), Danford reported the North Dakota Methodist Camp
Meeting was held at Jamestown in June. He noted that about
one thousand people attended the meeting "representing nine
states and one hundred and ten towns. (Danford, 1913, 36)

The camp meeting started at White Rock in 1905 was becoming

a popular event and under the inspiration of Danford, was

113

specifically Methodist in its organization.

In a circular letter to the pastors of the Fargo
District, dated October 28, 1908, Danford states:

The statistics this year will show that our

District has increased in membership from 1589

full members four years ago to 3920 this year, or

a gain of 2341 full members. This gain has come

largely through revivals. (Danford, 1913, 113)

The spirit of Holiness evangelism was upon the
District. Pastors were not only encouraged to have
revivals, but it was proving to be the best way to recruit
new members. The revival was believed to be successful
because it was a return to "old fashioned Methodism" (the
preaching of sanctification as a second work of grace and
emotionalism and enthusiastic responses from the
congregation). Phrases often repeated were "Holiness unto
the Lord," "Pentecostal Evangelism,“ "Back to the Bible and
Wesley," and Wesley’s "God... raised up the Methodist Church
to... spread Scriptural Holiness over all the lands."
(Danford, 1913, 113 - 115) Furthermore, any preacher
wanting to come to the district was not admitted unless he
could answer in the affirmative that: one, he had saving
faith in Jesus Christ: two, he was going on to perfection:
three, he expected to be made perfect in love in this life;
and, four, he was earnestly striving for perfect love
(entire sanctification). (Danford, 1913, 114) Danford made
it very clear he was seeking only those preachers who were

"soundly" converted and seeking after Holiness. His

reasoning for the strict control was obvious. Church

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members were dying for the lack of the preached word and
sinners were dying for the lack of help.

Danford had now made a distinction between holiness and
non-holiness ministers. His action began to set in motion a
segregation of liberal (non-holiness and anti-revivalistic)
and conservative (holiness and revivalistic) pastors. This
kind of separation, as Gasper notes, is how fundamentalism
began. He states, "Historically, fundamentalism may be
defined as that ‘movement which arose in opposition to
liberalism, reemphasizing the inerrancy of the Scriptures,
separation and Biblical Miracles,...and the Substitutionary
Atonement.’" (Gasper, 1963, 13)

In 1909 Danford gave his fifth and final report for the
Fargo District. He reported "over six thousand converted
and two thousand people sanctified..." (Danford, 1913, 64)
Revival had swept across the district and the Methodist Camp
Meeting at Jamestown was at the heart of it all. That same
year, Danford reported:

This camp meeting has been the rallying ground for

old time religion on this district and has been

one of the strongest factors in spreading

"Scriptural Holiness..." No fads or side tracks

have been allowed and some of our best and

wealthiest people look forward of this annual

feast of tabernacles with great delight. (Danford,

1913, 54)

Reporting again following his first year as Superintendent
of the Bismarck District (1910), Danford notes:

The Jamestown Camp Meeting continues to grow in

power and is the rallying ground of the entire

district. Thirty-two pastors attended the meeting
this year and caught the fire that burst into

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revival on many to the charges (in churches) when
they went home. (Danford, 1913, 77)

In his 1911 report he declared the Jamestown Meeting
was a "Methodist camp meeting straight down the middle of
the road..." Danford believed the meeting taught nothing
except the gospel and enunciated it in Wesleyan terms.
(Danford, 1913, 84) By 1912 he declared that the total
results of the Jamestown Camp Meeting, the "heart throb" of
Methodism, could never be told. The testimonies of
spectacular conversions of local colorful personalities like
"Pool Hall Jack", "Rattlesnake Dick” and others, who turned
their lives away from "wicked living," convinced the
revivalists’ supporters it had God’s blessing. The dynamic
preaching of popular evangelists such as "Uncle Bud"
Robinson, Dr. Beverly Carradine, and Rev. C. W. Ruth kept
the camp meeting alive with seekers after old-fashioned
Wesleyan "holiness." Following the meeting, pastors and
people returned home in all directions spreading "revival
fires" back to their local churches. Hammer indicates, "but
for the fervent experience, generalship, and heaven-blessed
ability of Dr. S. A. Danford, the movement would have ended
where it began, and never would have spread further."

(Hammer, 1955, 13-14)

IV. THE JAMESTOWN MOVEMENT BECOMES DIVISIVE

However, it is at this point that tensions begin to

build between the Holiness and Anti-revival groups. One

116

indication is the declaration by Danford that "no fanaticism
or come-out-ism" would be tolerated by the Jamestown
Methodist Camp Meeting. Armstrong notes a division being
created in the conference:

The trouble began at about the turn of the

century. One group of ministers believed that the

evangelistic meeting, or revival meeting type of

program, was a major method in winning converts

and building the churches. Most of them believed

and preached with great zeal the doctrine of

sanctification, scriptural holiness, or second

blessing as it was sometimes called. They were

not indifferent to the values of the Sunday

School, Epworth League, training classes, and

pastoral work: but they placed a lesser value upon

them than upon the evangelistic campaign.

(Armstrong, 1960, 52)

A division began on the North Dakota Conference between
two groups of ministers. One group stressed the pastoral
duties and educational aspects of the ministry. The other
group stressed the evangelistic and holiness teachings of
"old fashioned" Methodism. The Jamestown Camp Meeting was,
in fact, at the heart of the issue.

Furthermore, each group tried to control the Conference
Meetings. If the meeting was held in the church of a
non-holiness pastor, the special speakers were to their
liking and criticize the holiness group. If the meeting was
in the church of a holiness advocate, the special speakers
were holiness evangelists and the services were
evangelistic. Armstrong notes from personal experience:

The first Annual Conference the writer attended

was held at Bismarck. The first evening session

featured a very gifted evangelist and advocate of

seeking the second blessing. The writer was
stirred and went forward in the altar service.

117

After the meeting was over, one of the more
liberal members of the Conference took him out for
a walk, warning him that he had better watch his
step and telling him his side of the Conference
controversy. The next night the writer did not go
forward in response to the altar call. Then after
the meeting, one of the holiness faction took him
out for a walk and warned him of the danger of
losing his soul if he followed the other
faction... Many of the young ministers were
likewise puzzled. (Armstrong, 1960, 54)

At this point, I see no difference in this controversy
than in those of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Then the divisions were New Lights versus Old Lights, pro-
revivalists versus anti-revivalists, New School versus Old
School. (See Gaustad, 1957: Goen, 1962) However, while
Armstrong interpreted the issues to be educational rather
than theological, the accounts of the holiness revivalists
show the issues to be theological. In fact, they centered
their attack on the influence of "German rationalism,"
"higher criticism," and "modernism." (Morrison, 1910:
Hammer, 1955, 28) These, they believed, had a grip upon the
Methodist schools and seminaries. Summarizing the position
of the holiness advocates Hammer states:

Notwithstanding there was much of the modernistic

literature coming from Methodist presses,

scattered through the Sunday-school literature and

was (sic) prominent in the required course of

study for young ministers...

He further notes:

... instructors in Methodist educational

institutions were advocates of "new theories,"

ridiculing Blood (sic) atonement for sin, denied

the necessity of the new birth, and scoffed at the

"Baptism (sic) with the Holy Ghost" for heart
cleansing..." (Hammer, 1955, 28-29)

118

In 1915 Danford gave his eleventh report as a North
Dakota Conference District Superintendent, and his sixth and
final to the Bismarck District. Methodist conference rules
dictated that a district superintendent could not serve the
same district more than six consecutive years. He had been
promoting the holiness cause as a District Superintendent
since 1905. However, he had been experiencing increased
"opposition from his neighboring district superintendents,
and from the new presiding bishop," for his stand on the
doctrine of holiness. (Smith, 1962, 301)

In his report, which appeared somewhat guarded, he
credits the revivals on the district for giving it the
membership gains it had enjoyed. He indicated, in no
uncertain terms, the Jamestown Camp Meeting was owned and
run by the Camp Meeting Association. Furthermore, it had
been the rallying ground for the work on the district over
the past decade (According to Hammer, the holiness doctrine
had not been preached much in the North Dakota territory
until Danford made it his priority). He indicated the camp
that summer had an attendance of nearly 1,500 people, over
500 people professed definite experiences. He was obviously
silent as to what kinds of experiences they received.
(Danford, 1915) A very successful career in North Dakota
was coming to a close and Danford seemed to be aware of the
impending storm for the "old fashioned Methodist" work.

The holiness and liberal groups had grown further apart

and the district was clearly divided between the liberal and

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conservative forces. The breach had developed to a

critical stage. (Armstrong, 1960, 56) The liberal forces
had the backing of many wealthy and powerful laymen in the
conference. In addition, they had the sympathy of the
presiding Conference Bishop William A. Quayle. (While I
could not find official statements concerning a division or
cleavage between liberal and conservative forces in the
conference, Armstrong, Hammer, and Morrison all agree that a
tension did in fact exist.)

Quayle, a renowned orator, outstanding scholar, former
educator and president of Baker University in Baldwin,
Kansas (Holt, 1974, 1971), was the 1915 Conference Bishop.
That year he ordained the Conference’s "second largest group
of Deacons and Elders, in the history of the Conference.
(Armstrong, 1960, 56) Many of these ordinands, were a
result of the work of Danford.

The 1915 Fall Conference for North Dakota was held at
Fargo. As mentioned above, there was a show down during
this Conference, between the "conservative" and the
"liberal” forces. Hammer states The Bishop took the side of
the liberal forces in the Conference vowing to "destroy the
holiness element." (Hammer, 1955; Corbett, 1955) The
pro-holiness forces knew this Danford’s last year so they
secured the signatures of over 1,000 laymen and gained the
support of 40 ministers, and requested the appointment of
Dr. J. G. Morrison as district superintendent of the

Bismarck District. Morrison had been an active supporter

120

and officer of the Jamestown Camp Meeting Association. He
had been a successful evangelistic pastor and strong
advocate of the holiness doctrine. However, instead of
appointing Morrison, Bishop Quayle appointed Rev. J. G.
Moore, District Superintendent of the Grand Forks District.
Moore, according to Hammer, was an outspoken critic of the
holiness cause in the Conference. (Hammer, 1955, 44) (Smith
[1962] states this occurred in 1917 following Morrison’s
return to North Dakota from Florida. This does not seem
likely in that he returned to North Dakota to assume the
position of President of the LHA. Furthermore, the
Methodist annual conference minutes and Armstrong place this
event at the fall conference in 1915. No doubt Smith was
relying on Hammer’s account of the situation. I found
Hammer’s recollection of dates often unreliable.)

According to the 1915 North Dakota Annual Conference
Minutes, Danford took a temporary position with the state as
a Humane and Juvenile Officer. His name appears in the 1916
minutes as transferred to Oregon. Smith notes he was
appointed to the First Methodist Church in Eugene, Oregon, a
church with several hundred members. (The Methedist, July,
1917, vol.x, no.1: Smith, 1962, 301)

Morrison was transferred to Larimore in eastern North
Dakota. (Earth Daksta sgnfsrsnss Minutes. 1915) He
observes:

At this conference the bishop took me out of my

good "station" appointment, and sent me clear

across the state putting me back onto a "circuit."
Greatly disappointed, I nevertheless went, and

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started some holiness fires in that North Dakota

village, to which I had been appointed. (Corbett,

1955, 41)

The Bishop also appointed Rev. J. M. Taylor, Rev. A. M.
Wiley, and Rev. Ira Hammer, all leaders in the holiness
movement on the district, to non-supporting charges and on
other districts, out of state, and under district superin-
tendents who were not supportive of the holiness cause.
(Hammer, 1955: Armstrong, 1960)

Concerning the appointment of Moore, Hammer notes:

He had long been an outspoken opposer of the

Wesleyan doctrine of holiness. Soon after taking

the work on the Bismarck District, he declared he

would kill holiness on that district (sic).

Accordingly, he forbade any church or pastor on

the district to engage an evangelist that preached

holiness as a second work of grace. He ridiculed

the doctrine to his pastors and discouraged them

from preaching it... (Hammer, 1955, 44)

Soon after coming into office, Moore attempted to gain
control of the Jamestown Camp Meeting, however, because the
camp grounds were owned and operated by the association and
not the Methodist Church, he was legally restrained from
doing so. (Hammer, 1955, 44) The final move in attempting
to rub out the holiness element was to establish a
conference rule that would bring to trial any minister who
refused to take his appointment. (Hammer, 1955) This
resulted in two men being suspended from the conference.

Hammer strongly indicated the Bishop’s authority of
appointment had been recklessly abused and focused its wrath

upon the proponents of holiness movement. (Hammer, 1936)

Two articles "A Revolt Against Despotic Bishops" and

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"Episcopal Tyranny" published in the December 1917 issue of
The Methedist, a holiness paper printed by the Laymen’s
Holiness Association, focused on the efforts of the Bishops
to control the church through autocratic rule and to forbid
Methodists from attending the Jamestown Camp Meeting,
stating that "it was a dangerous place." (The Methedist,
December, 1917, vol.x, no.6) These were strong charges
against the bishopric, but this same sentiment existed among
many Methodist holiness advocates across the nation as well
as those who had aborted from Methodism in previous years.
(Smith, 1962: Norwood, 1970: Alstrom, 1973)

The liberal element had used the power of the
appointment system and had influenced the Bishop to select
someone more to their favor with the intent to disperse the
holiness element out of the Conference. To those not
accustomed to the appointment system, the power of the
bishopric to appoint pastors as they pleased may seem
strange. However, it has been a part of Methodist polity
since its earliest days. It began with Wesley and was
maintained as part of the American Methodist system. Since
itinerancy was fundamental to Methodism’s means of growth
and maintenance of the frontier church, preachers would
generally change circuits "every six months, by the order of
the presiding elder..." (Bucke, 1964, 9) Originally Francis
Asbury made all the appointments, "changing men or leaving
men placed as seemed best to him." (Bucke, 1964, 9) By

1836 the General Conference changed the appointments to two

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years in length. It was changed again to three years in
1864 and to five years in 1888. Appointments were generally
made in consultation with the district superintendent for
the good of the pastor and the congregation. However, as
stated above, the 1915 North Dakota Conference appointments,
in my opinion, were proof of the abuse of power for the
expressed purpose of dismantling the holiness movement.

This only served to drive a wedge between the two groups and
intensify their differences. This action helped stimulate
the plan for a independent association outside the power of
ecclesiastical authorities.

The turmoil on the North Dakota Conference over the
holiness question, ecclesiastical authority, liberal trends
in theology, and revivalistic methodology were no different
than those confronted by the Methodists on other districts
in the late 1890’s and early twentieth century. The origins
of the Church of the Nazarene were based on a similar issue
but more focused on one individual, Dr. P. F. Bresee. In
the North Dakota, the issues focused on theological
questions of a more Fundamentalistic nature. Modernism,
German Rationalism, and higher criticism were direct
assaults on the authority of the scriptures -- the very
foundation of orthodox conservative faith. For the holiness
advocates, it was more than the defense of the "old-
fashioned" Methodist doctrine of perfection. They had been
dragged into the Modernist - Fundamentalist controversy as

‘well. More than a thousand laymen and many pastors would

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not allow the church they had fought to establish to be
swallowed up by Modernism. They were convinced holiness
revivals, which had given them their past success, would
enable them to maintain their success. If they could not
save "old-fashioned" Methodism through its leadership, then
they would revive it though the work of associations. By
1917 the laymen of the Jamestown Camp Meeting Movement had
organized themselves into an association for the expressed
purpose of reforming the Methodist church. Next I will
discuss the rise and development of the Laymen’s Holiness

Association and its president, Dr. Joseph G. Morrison.

CHAPTER FIVE
JOSEPH GRANT MORRISON

AND THE LAYMEN’S HOLINESS ASSOCIATION

The evolution of the Laymen’s Holiness Association
(LHA) from the Jamestown Camp Meeting was not surprising.
The tough prairie farmers and the equally tough North Dakota
circuit riders had braved the elements and suffered great
privations to establish the Methodist work in the young
territory. The leadership of S. A. Danford and his right-
hand man Jamestown pastor, Rev. J. G. Morrison, continued to
champion the success of holiness evangelism on the Fargo and
Bismarck Districts.

The Jamestown Meeting was becoming a well known
holiness camp. (Hammer, 1955; Smith, 1962) Smith notes:

Visitors to the camp meeting rarely failed to

report in some journal the unusual fact that at

Jamestown the superintendent of a district as

large as the state of Ohio stood at the head of

the work, and that all of his fifty-six pastors

were advocates of the "second blessing." (Smith,

1962, 301)

While church growth was resulting from holiness
evangelism, many anti-holiness clergy and lay leaders from
the conference felt its emotionalism and excesses were
becoming an embarrassment. Furthermore, The Hersh Dekete
Methedist, a holiness newspaper established (1908) by
Danford, edited by Morrison, and supported by the Jamestown

Camp Meeting, sharply criticized the influence of liberalism

125

126

within Methodist educational institutions. (The earliest copy
to survive calls for the preaching of the "gospel fundamen-
tal" and a return to "old doctrines of Methodism" which had
made her "great and strong" in the past. [Nezth Qekete
Methedist, Aug. 1, 1910, Vol.II, no.14])

Before the end of the 1915 North Dakota Conference, it
was conjectured the Bishop might attempt to dissolve the
holiness confederacy, and indeed he did. In 1916 Danford
was appointed to a pastorate in Eugene, Oregon and Morrison
was appointed to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida (Std dehns Biyez
genfezenee Minutes, 1916) (Smith states Morrison was
appointed to Sebring. That is incorrect, Sebring was the
sight of the next Annual Conference, 1917, but Morrison was
never appointed there to pastor.) Pastors of the strongest
holiness works were transferred to obscure country circuits.
(Hammer, 1955: Smith, 1962, 301) However, both Danford and
Morrison retained their positions with the camp meeting,
although the former resigned his post as president of the
association in 1917. It is at this time that Rev. J. G.
Morrison, editor-preacher, left his Florida pastorate to
assume full-time responsibility for the leadership of the

budding independent work of the LHA.

I. THE DEVELOPMENT OF A LEADER

Joseph Grant Morrison (1871-1939), was born the tenth
child of his Scotch-Irish, Congregationalist parents, James

and Amanda Shaw Morrison. The New Hampshire, ancestral farm

127

adjoined the farm that marked the birthplace of Daniel
Webster, the hero of New England. (Morrison, 1934, 10)
Joseph’s parents, who married in the 1850’s, were "grub-
staked" by Grandfather Morrison and moved to Oskaloosa,
Iowa, in the land rush of that decade. Joseph’s father
invested in a soft coal mine and began to work it to earn a
living for his growing family. Joseph was the final child
of the family, born March 27, 1871, following his father’s
military service in the Civil War. (Corbett, 1955; Hammer,
1955) According to Morrison, those were "raw pioneer days"
and his parents had to "root, hog, or die." (Morrison, 1934,
10) In those early days on the frontier, families were
often without religious influence. Morrison relates his
parent’s lack of religiosity:

They were irreligious in those days. Reared in a

stiff New England Congregationalism, out of which

they secured no personal Christian experiences,

they drifted utterly away from all Churches (sic)

in their early western life. All longings for

some sort of religious comfort and all homesick

yearnings for white painted neatness of New

Hampshire farmsteads, were smothered in the

frantic scramble for mere existence. (Morrison,

1934, 10)

Following the Civil War, Methodism began to make its
impact on the Oskaloosa area. Mrs. Morrison took the family
to a local Methodist revival and was converted.

Mr. Morrison, though hardened by his war experiences,
soon followed his wife’s example and was also converted in

the same Methodist church. (Morrison, 1934, 10) The

Morrisons were pious Methodists who maintained strict

128

religious observances such as regular family devotions,
prayer, and Bible reading, and regular attendance at Sunday
and revival services. However, they suffered a financial
disaster in 1873 when their coal mine was flooded with
water. Therefore, forced to start over, they relocated.

The Morrisons moved to Dakota territory, which was just
opening up for homesteading. Moving the family 400 miles
north, James settled his family near Sioux Falls and, like
their neighbors, built a sod hut for a dwelling place. The
trials and tribulations of this new location included harsh
winter blizzards, grasshopper plagues which ruined their
crops, and a prairie fire that destroyed their new barn,
killed their horses, and burned their haystacks. Yet, their
phenomenal courage enabled them to continue to wrestle a
living from the land. Their faith undaunted, James and
Amanda continued to point their children toward the goodness
and faithfulness of the Lord. Although there were times
when the family did not see a potato for three months, nor
earn more than a hundred dollars for the entire year, they
never complained nor failed to pay their "quarterage" tithe
for the support of the church. These would be special
memories for Joseph and no doubt helped shape his "achieving
faith" philosophy of life. (Morrison, Beyheed, n.d.:
Corbett, 1955)

Young Joe grew up a hardworking cowboy and was in
demand by local ranchers for his labor. However, from a

very early age he knew the Lord was calling him to preach.

129

When his older brothers and sisters would tease him and call
him "mamma’s little preacher boy" he would become very
angry. At the age of sixteen Joseph was converted in a
Methodist revival and this sealed his call. In 1887 the
family moved to DeSmet, Dakota Territory where Joe entered
the local high school. To assist with expenses of going to
high school he worked for the DeSmet News and learned the
printer’s trade. The next year (1888) he was ready to go to
college.

While his father believed young Joseph should put his
hand to the plow and stay on the farm, it was his mother who
interceded, believing that a preacher needed all the
training he could receive. In 1888 he entered the new
"struggling" university at Vermillion, Dakota Territory.
During his second year at the University, Congress granted
statehood to the territory. He was now a resident of South
Dakota. It was during his student days he met Henrietta
Robertson, a music teacher and member of the faculty. Soon
after his university career (it is not certain he
graduated), he married Miss Robertson and moved back to
DeSmet to work in the newspaper office. Corbett notes that
God was preparing Morrison through his experiences in the
newspaper office. His work "in the field of journalism
during this period were of untold value to Morrison, and
left him an understanding in this field that served him the
rest of his life." (Corbett, 1955, 18)

Morrison gleaned many lessons of co-operation and

130

helpfulness from being raised in a large family and as a
prairie farmer. He faced hardships and learned to be
frugal. The atmosphere of the family altar, Bible reading
and prayer in the home, created a faith in God to face
difficulties. This prepared Morrison for the different
roles he would play in his adult life. Those would includea
Methodist pastor-evangelist, president of the Laymen’s
Holiness Association, district superintendent in the Church
of the Nazarene, president of Northwest Nazarene College,
General Secretary of the Foreign Missionary Society, and
General Superintendent of the Church of the Nazarene.
Morrison received a call from the Lord to be a minister
when he was sixteen year old. While in college he struggled
with other choices. He wanted to be a attorney or
jounalist. He even qualified for an appointment to West
Point to start a career in the Army. His struggle ended
when he chose to obey the call of the Lord he received years
before. With the support and encouragement of his wife, he
wrote the presiding elder of the area for an appointment.
Morrison began his ministry in 1893 at the Methodist
Episcopal Church in Webster, South Dakota. His second
pastorate was a circuit of five preaching places, and his
third was a pastorate at Faulkton, South Dakota. (Senth '
Dakete genfezenee Minutes, 1893) It was at this pastorate
that Rev. Morrison was sanctified, following his angry
outburst and rough treatment of a team of horses. It

appears a farmer’s wife pointed out his "unsanctified" anger

131

and this put him under conviction. She taught him how to
seek the experience of sanctification. Morrison explains:

Seated there in the kitchen of a South Dakota farm

home, I saw as by the illumination of the Spirit

the truth of the second work of grace. That there

was a gunpowdery, carnal disposition left in my

heart after conversion: that it was the purpose of

God to cleanse this away... (Morrison, H93 1

Eeund. n.d.)

Morrison tells how he sought after the experience for
many months following that occurrence in the farm house
kitchen. He not only sought after the experience, he
preached its attainability and testified he was seeking
after it. After many weeks of seeking, God "baptized" his
heart with fire while he was praying in his study. It came
upon him like a "great spiritual light" and "melted away all
the feverish, gunpowdery, carnal disposition" that he had.
(Morrison, H91 1 fenndit, n.d.) This sanctifying experience

occurred in 1895, about the same time he was ordained a

Deacon by Bishop Isaac Joyce. (Seuth Daketa tenferenee
Minutes. 1895)

Morrison served the Methodist Episcopal Church for
twenty-two years. During that time he served pastorates in
North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota. Furthermore,
Morrison never failed to preach the doctrine of a second
work of grace. He notes:

After receiving the blessing of entire

sanctification, I continued to serve in the

Methodist Church as pastor for twenty years. At

the beginning of each new pastorate I cautiously

but systematically and faithfully preached the

definite second work of grace. I clearly outlined
the doctrine, showed how it belonged to Methodism,

132

and was the central truth proclaimed by John and

Charles Wesley... When I left each pastorate for a

new one there remained a devoted band of

sanctified people at each place. These bands

later became churches when the Nazarene movement

came our way. (Corbett, 1955, 38)

Morrison made a reputation for himself as a "holiness"
preacher. When Danford was appointed superintendent of the
Fargo District by Bishop Joyce, an advocate of Wesleyan
Holiness, the two worked together to move Morrison from
Minnesota to North Dakota. When the Bishop appointed
Morrison (1910) to the Fargo District it was to the
strongest Methodist church on the district, Jamestown, the
home of the Jamestown Methodist Camp Meeting.

Morrison, with his bias for the second work of grace,
quickly became immersed in the promotion and operation of the
Camp Meeting. "8. A. Danford was president for about ten
years; Morrison was his close collaborator, serving on
important committees and having offices through the years as
secretary, treasurer, and vice-president." (Corbett, 1955,
39) At times, Morrison, who was musically talented, lead
the singing at the camp meeting as well.

In 1911 Taylor University, an independent holiness
college in Indiana, conferred the honorary degree of Doctor
of Divinity upon Morrison. (Corbett Correspondance, Ayres,
Oct. 5, 1954) This honor was bestowed because of his work as

a iioliness preacher, his involvement with the Jamestown
‘Methodist Camp Meeting, and Danford’s influence. However,

that same year Danford was appointed to the Bismarck

District and soon arranged for his friend Morrison, the hard

133

working holiness preacher, to come to the Dickerson
Methodist Church on that district. He served this charge
from 1911 to 1915. This was the high water mark of his

Methodist career.

II. THE EVOLUTION OF A MOVEMENT

Following his failure to be appointed District
Superintendent, Morrison was transferred to Larimore, a
small circuit in eastern North Dakota. (Metth Qaketa
Qunfierense Minutes, 1915) The next year, 1916, Morrison was
appointed to a church on the Miami District (Saint Jehns
Rigs; Qenfezense, 1916) at Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He was
dissatisfied with his Larimore charge and was seeking a
warmer and healthier climate. When Danford and Morrison
both moved out of state, the anti-holiness forces appeared
to have the advantage. These two men were the most
influential leaders of the Jamestown Camp Meeting Movement,
the president and the editor of the newspaper. Now each of
them were thousands of miles from the holiness work they
were so instrumental in promoting.

The holiness work in the conference was more than just
the preaching of sanctification in the local churches. The
.Bismarck District had a rallying point for its holiness
work, the Jamestown Camp Meeting. The camp meeting at
Jamestown had grown from the sparse attendance of the first

meeting at White Rock, South Dakota to a large annual event

134

which brought in nearly 1800 people and some of the best

evangelists in the holiness movement. In 1908 Dr. Danford

started a monthly paper, entitled Merth Qaheta Methedist,
(The name of the paper was changed to The Little Methedist
and by 1917 it was renamed The Methedist, in 1919, The
ugliness Layman, and finally in 1924, The Hgiiness
Messenger. The paper was dissolved in 1925 and the
subscription list given to the Nazarene publication, Herald
9: ugliness: Morrison was promised one page per issue for
the LHA readers.) to promote the holiness doctrine and the
work of the Jamestown Camp Meeting. Morrison, with his
newspaper experience, was a natural choice for the job of
editor (1910). At the time of the showdown at the 1915
North Dakota Conference, the movement was well organized and
well supported by the Methodist laymen in the state.
Furthermore, the Camp Meeting Association was independent of
the Methodist church and would continue to operate with or
without the approval of the Conference. However, with the
turn of events (the refusal of the Bishop to appoint
iMorrison as Bismarck District Superintendent), the laymen of
the Association were determined not to yield to the
pressures of the Bishop and those who opposed the holiness
revival. At the 1917 Camp Meeting the laymen formed an
alliance of their own. Morrison notes:

The laymen in attendance at camp called a meeting

composed only of their own number. They organized

a "Methodist Laymen’s Holiness League," financed a

new extension department of the camp meeting and

prepared for aggressive work. This movement on
the part of the laity is taken to conserve

135

orthodoxy, prevent come-out-ism, and promote the
interests of the Methodist Episcopal church.

(The Methedist, July, 1917, vol.x, no.1)

In July, during the camp meeting Morrison resigned as
editor of The Methedist, and planned to stay in Florida "for
health reasons." (The Methedist, July, 1917, vol.X, no.1)
The laymen of the camp meeting, however, pledged a "salary
and expenses to support an executive field secretary
position, and asked Morrison to fill the post." (Smith,
1962, 301) After much prayer, he responded favorably to the
offer. He returned to North Dakota to assume the duties of
the new office and left his Ft. Lauderdale pastorate in the
hands of a "well qualified elder from North Dakota... for
the remainder of the year." (The Methedist, Jan., 1918,
Vol.x, no.7; Hammer, 1955, 49) This however, was a breach
of conference rules, not in leaving, but in failing to
receive the permission of the Bishop. (The Methedist, Jan.,
1918, VOl.X, no.7)

Enthusiasm and excitement filled the July issue of The
Methedist as Morrison announced his three part plan for the
work of the Extension Department of the Laymen’s Holiness
League. Its primary mission was to "fight for orthodoxy."
Morrison criticized the Methodist Sunday School literature
calling it poison. It was his firm conviction it was
causing the spiritual ruin of boys and girls. (I surveyed
several issues of The christian Adyesateis Sunday School
papers for youth and found one article that suggested an

evolutionary teaching.) Although he had attacked it before,

136

his critique of the Methodist Preachers’ Course of Study was
much sharper this time. He accused it of being filled with
"the poison gas of destructive criticism." (William Sweet
[1933] confirms that this was a concern within the church
and the issue was more widespread than North Dakota. He
notes "conservative attack(s)" came at the General
Conferences of 1916, 1920, and 1924. He also indicates the
main centers of "agitation" were in the New Jersey,
Philadelphia and Baltimore Conferences. [Sweet, 1933, 392])
Morrison indicated that the LHA would be fighting for the
removal of the influence of "modernism" from the training
institutions and the publications of Methodism. In October
The Methedist stated, “Let every earnest layman solicit his
neighbor laymen for the good fight for orthodoxy and old-
fashioned Methodism." (The Methedist, October, 1917, vol.x,
no.4) Morrison believed the great heart of Methodism was
sound but the principles of the ”old-fashioned faith" would
need to be fought for if they were to be maintained. He
notes:

This fight is one to the death. The orthodox

people in the Methodist Episcopal church are the

REAL Methodists. THE HIGHER CRITICS AND THEIR

SYMPATHIZERS ARE NOT METHODIST. We propose to

wage a tremendous warfare to drive the critics out

of control of the church. (The Methedist, Oct,

1917, Vol.x, no.4)

The second part of the extension plan was to teach and
preach the doctrine of sanctification as second work of

grace. This, Morrison proposed, could be accomplished

though "conventions, parlor meetings (a mimic of Palmer’s

137

‘Tuesday Meeting’), chair talks, revivals, and ‘gum shoe’
(house-to-house work) campaigns anywhere and everywhere."
(The Methedist, July, 1917, vol.x, No. 1)

"Holiness Revivals" (Meetings where the message of
sanctification as a second work of grace was stressed.) were
made the primary evangelistic tool of the Association."
Holiness meetings were the strategy of former District
Superintendent Danford and were conducted with great success
on the Fargo and Bismarck Districts. Because this program
(Smith coined it the "North Dakota Idea") initially worked
so well, it was Morrison’s intent to continue using it. As
he perceived the mission of the Association, the LHA would
continue to utilize John Wesley’s methodology for building
the Kingdom of God. This technique was holiness revivalism:
in his opinion the method the mother church and its
leadership had rejected. Now, through the work of the LHA,
holiness revivalism would be orchestrated outside the
control of the Methodist Bishops and antagonistic district
superintendents.

Between the years of 1917 and 1922 the work of the LHA
expanded until it employed nine association evangelists,
(most of whom joined the Church of the Nazarene in 1922).
Calls for holiness revival meetings came from Methodist
churches in the Midwest and on the West Coast. Therefore,
Morrison organized the work into districts, (Kansas,
Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota,

and a Wisconsin Scandinavian work) and appointed

138

superintendent evangelists over each district. Although
each evangelist was supported by the Association, they were
expected to raise money for their support equal to the
amount guaranteed by the Association. According to Hammer
(1936), the plan was successful.

The third aspect focused on the publication of The
Methedist. This organ served as the voice of those who
advocated a return to "Methodist orthodoxy" (The belief that
sanctification was experienced as a second definite work of
grace). Morrison believed the LHA publication would counter
the "liberal" literature coming from the presses of
Methodism. He also inferred that The Methedist would help
generate the reforms needed in the great mother church.

It should be noted that the members of the LHA did not
view themselves as a sect, in fact, they deplored the idea.
Morrison was emphatic that his organization would not
tolerate "come-out-ism." He recommended all new converts
be channeled to local Methodist churches for nurturing and
care. To answer the critics’ accusations of extremism
Morrison wrote a challenge.

We challenge anybody to show instances where the

promoter of the North Dakota Methodist Holiness

movement have indulged, tolerated or allowed any

kind of fanaticism. No "Tongues," no "Third

Blessing," no "Come-out-ism," no strange

contortions, no fanaticism of any kind has been

given aid or comfort. Our only line of
regeneration and entire satisfaction, both

witnessed by the Holy Ghost. (The Methedist,
October, 1917, Vol.x, no. 4)

Morrison and the LHA were intent on reforming the

139

Methodist church. They wished to return to the theme of
Wesley’s "grand depositum," the message and experience of
entire sanctification as a second work of grace. They
believed this would correct the liberal course of the church
and, like Phoebe Palmer believed, correct national social
ills as well.

Smith notes three institutions that gradually linked
this Association with the National Holiness
Association: the camp meetings, the holiness colleges, and
the holiness papers. (Smith, 1962, 300) However, the main
thrust of National Holiness Association’s work and influence
as a feeder organization was in the latter half of its most
successful era. As noted above, Gaddis (1929) saw 1893-1907
as a period of "sect formation". Furthermore, as an
Association, the proponents of the North Dakota Idea would
fail to realize their dream. Morrison and other LHA members
began to discuss merging with a holiness denomination as a
viable alternative for the continuation of their methodology
of holiness evangelism.

The euphoria of the July 1917 issue of The Methedist
and the later distress of the January and February 1918
issues of the paper are noteworthy. Morrison’s decision to
accept the position of Executive Field Secretary meant he
‘would.need to take a leave of absence from his appointment
in Ft. Lauderdale until the next conference. While he made
his district superintendent aware of his leave of absence,

jhe did not obtain permission from Bishop Leethe. The Spring

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Conference was over and it would be nine months before the
conference would convene again. Even though Morrison found
a replacement for his church, his leave and a complaint from
a district superintendent in North Dakota, brought down the
wrath of the Bishop.

In November Morrison received Miami District
Superintendent, L. S. Rader’s letter. The Bishop brought
charges of desertion against him. Rader outlined the

charges:

Miama (sic),Fla., Nov. 22, 1917

Dear Brother Morrison: I had tried to arrange a
way out for you with Bishop Leethe and the
brethren, but a District superintendent (sic) in
North Dakota complains to Bishop Leethe that "you
are harming their work." So Bishop Leethe wrote
me to "notify Dr. Morrison that he will be tried
at Sebring, Fla., January 9, for deserting his
work without my permission. Also, inform him that
the trial will go on whether he is there or not,
unless he can get the Bishop in North Dakota to
transfer him back, and do you (sic) prepare
charges as to his leaving without my knowledge or
consent.”

Yours Fraternally,
L. S. Rader, District Supt.

(The Methedist, January,1918, vol.X, no.7)

Morrison responded to this letter and wrote his defense
which he sent to Rev. Rader. Because he believed this to be
another form of antagonism of the Bishopric toward the
holiness work in North Dakota, he published his response in
the January 1918 issue of The Methedist. His defense was as
follows: first, he had the approval of the district

superintendent and was on a "leave of absence" from his

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charge and he had every intention of returning: second, he
had a "spotless" record of twenty-four years with the church
and the charges seemed overly severe for a first offense:
third, he had properly notified the district superintendent
and supplied him a preacher for the charge in his absence;
fourth, the laymen of the Dakota Holiness Movement urged him
“to accept a position of (overseeing)... for the purpose of
keeping it (the LHA) loyal to the Methodist Episcopal
Church"; fifth, if the Bishop insisted on pursuing the
charges against him, it would offend 2,000 laymen in North
Dakota who were responsible for the outstanding

numerical and financial growth the conference witnessed over
the past six years. They had been offended once by Bishop
R. J. Cooke and this additional misdeed would have a "very
unhappy effect upon this influential body of members of the
Methodist Episcopal Church"; and sixth, the verdict of a
trial, would in no way affect Morrison’s relationship with
the Jamestown Camp Meeting Association or the Methodist
Laymen’s Holiness Movement. (The Methedist, January, 1918,
vol.X, no.7)

The Bishop responded to Morrison’s letter, stating he
viewed the letter as a threat and out of order. Morrison
realized his situation was tenuous and petitioned the
Conference for a supernumery relationship (a retirement from
active ministry in which the minister maintains his
credentials). However, during the January 1918 Saint John’s

River Conference at Sebring, Florida, Dr. Joseph Grant

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Morrison was given a location (put out of the ministry with
no credentials). Thus his twenty-four year career as a
Methodist clergyman ended, but the second half of his career

and contribution to the holiness movement began.

III. A PROFILE OF THE LAYMEN'S HOLINESS ASSOCIATION

Church-Sect theories state that those who join sects
are generally from the lower social class. (Weber,1963:
Niebuhr, 1929; Pope, 1942: Troeltsch, 1950) In order to
test the social status and other sectarian characteristics
of the LHA, the author needed to obtain a representative
sample of the population. This was not an easy task.
Hammer stated the members of the LHA were in the thousands
and Morrison indicated the same. However, neither Hammer
nor Morrison ever gave an exact number. The only figures
mentioned was the approximate attendance at the Jamestown
Camp Meeting. Theses figure varied from 1,000 to 1,800.
And, Morrison used the statement of “2,000 laymen" in his
letter of defense to Bishop Leethe in December, 1917. The
final estimate of those LHA members who joined the Church of
the Nazarene in 1922 was 1,000. (Smith [1962] says several
thousand.)

The author’s research revealed a comment by Morrison
stating the subscription list of the Heiiness Layman,
(formerly The Methedist) was turned over to the publishing
house of the Church of the Nazarene when the LHA dissolved

in 1925. Unfortunately, it was later discovered the old

143

subscription records were lost in a fire. Therefore, the
author concluded no complete list of LHA members survived.
However, further research at the archives of the Church of
the Nazarene uncovered a 1920 list of approximately 150
"share holders" in the LHA publishing company and a listing
of names in the dgurnal at the Sesend Annual Meeting of 1920
and 1921. (A share holder paid ten dollars per share to
support the publishing of the weekly holiness paper and buy
and maintain its equipment.)

Because these are the only list of names known to
exist, the author presumed that the shareholders were a
representative sample of the membership of the LHA.
Furthermore, it was believed these names represented a more
financially committed (possibility wealthier, one doctor
included) segment, who could afford to provide the support
the movement.

The author examined the most recent United States
manuscript census (1910) for the state of North Dakota to
cross check the 150 names on the stock holders list (The
1920 manuscript census was not yet released for public
access). Thirty names were found to correspond with the
census records. The descent and occupation divisions are as

follows:

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Farmers 11 (U.S. descent)

Children 3 (all children of farmers,
U.S. descent)

Livery 2 (U.S. descent)

Housewives 2 (husbands were farmers, one from
Denmark, one from Norway)

Merchants 2 (Druggist, Furniture dealer,
U.S. descent)

Ministers 2 (Morrison and Hammer)

Bank Cashier 1 (descent unknown, possibly
Scandinavian)

Harness Maker 1 (Swedish descent)

Hired Man 1 (Farm helper, Norwegian descent)

Mechanic 1 (U.S. descent)

Office clerk 1 (Canadian descent)

Printer 1 (U.S. descent)

Student 1 (Canadian descent, 21 year old
son of farmer still in
college)

Teacher 1 (Norwegian descent)

Doctor 1 (U.S. descent)

The average age in this 1910 census was 31.8, the
oldest in the sample was 56 years old and the
youngest, 12 years old. The shareholders’ records
reflect a population sample ten (10) years older.

This profile, while ten years younger than the lists,
reveals the kinds of people who were a part of the Laymen’s
movement. As noted above, (Armstrong, 1960) the people
moving into the territory in the late 1800’s were of the
lower economic status, more foreign born than of native
born, with the Lutherans being the dominant religious group.
The LHA would most likely be of the same ethnic distribution
as the Methodists, with one exception, it did have a
Scandinavian work. The latter would underscore the five or
six on the list of Scandinavian descent. The farm
population information from the 1920 United States Bureau of
Census indicated that 57.9% of the population of North
Dakota, ten years of age and over, was gainfully employed in

agricultural occupations. The LHA sample list of 30

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indicated that 18 or 60% were connected with the farm
occupations (this includes the farmers, wives, children, and
the hired man noted on the above list). The census
percentage for the farm population sample nearly matches
the LHA occupational break down. This distribution gives
strong support to the hypothesis that the sample may be
reliable. On the other hand, one might draw the conclusion
the sample is skewed due its small size and the ten year
lapse between the census and the LHA records. I believe the
risk of error is overshadowed by the results and therefore I
have used the sample for my demographic statistics.

The small variance between the LHA population
distribution and the state distribution indicates the work
of the LHA was urban as well as rural in its basic appeal.
As indicated earlier, this was not true of the early
Nazarene work. Around the turn of the century, Breese’s
Church of the Nazarene was primary an inner city mission for
the poor. While Morrison’s philosophy of evangelism was "go
anywhere," neither the LHA minutes nor Morrison’s writings
in the Heliness Layman indicate any focus on the poor or
inner city work. One must also consider the population
concentrations even in Bismarck and Fargo were not the same
as those of Breese’s work in Los Angeles. Furthermore, the
"Laymen’s Movement" was focused primarily on the Methodist
Church, and I would conclude those most comfortable with
status quo would be the wealthier class attending the

churches.

146

The occupational distribution of the other 40% show
lower to middle class trades and professions. Twelve
percent, the druggist, the furniture dealer, the teacher,
and the bank cashier were middle class occupations and the
doctor would be upper middle class. This reflects a second
generation of Methodists who were upwardly mobile. (Niebuhr,
1929) However, one cannot help but notice (with the
exception of one doctor) the occupations of the upper middle
and upper classes are conspicuously missing from the sample
list. This fact would conform to Weber’s and Troeltsch’s
theory that sects were more favored by the lower classes.
Furthermore, in reviewing the 1930 plat book for Stutsman
County (home to the Jamestown Camp Meeting) The author
checked the four townships (Bloom, Homer, Midway, and
Woodbury) surrounding Jamestown, as well as Montpelier
township to the south, and could not find a single farm
listed in the name of any of the 21 Stutsman County share-
holders. The 1910 census listed W. A. Huffman and A. M.
Wiley as farmers (both became ministers in the LHA), yet
they were not listed as prOperty owners in the 1930 plat
book. Other plat books were not available for the counties
where most of the designated farmers of the 1910 census were
found. While there was a lapse of twenty years between
Huffman’s and Wiley’s listing in the 1910 census and the
property listings in 1930 plat book, it still seems strange
that there was not one property owner listed from the area

having the greatest concentration of contributors to the

147

Heliness Laymen. Regardless of the small sample, the lack
of property ownership, again, appears to point to the lower
class standing of the followers of the Laymen’s Holiness
Association.

The contribution of Morrison to the development of the
LHA cannot be overlooked. His tireless energy, personal
sacrifice, pungent editorials and organizational genius
helped establish the work in the Central Northwest Region of
the United States. The development of the LHA as a protest
movement within North Dakota Methodism can be compared to
the development of earlier holiness works. This would be
true of the sects which joined the Church of the Nazarene in
1908, even though the LHA started two decades later.
Comparing the LHA to the National Holiness Association, its
first attempt was to become a holiness feeder organization
and to prevent come-out-ism. There is no doubt in my mind
that Morrison and the members of the LHA wanted to prevent a
rupture in the church. He was a "loyalist" and would have
remained in the church as a Methodist clergyman had he not
been given a location. The mission of the LHA was, from the
beginning, an attempt to reform the Methodist Episcopal
Church, destroy liberalism, and move it back to, what the
LHA believed to be, John Wesley’s grand old doctrine,
sanctification as a second work of grace. In the next
chapter I will discuss the Wesleyan-fundamentalist emphasis

of the LHA.

CHAPTER SIX
THE LAYMAN’S HOLINESS ASSOCIATION

ADVOCATES OF WESLEYAN FUNDAMENTALISM

In the span of just one generation the residents of
North Dakota had witnessed rapid change. In less than 40
years many of them had moved from primitive sod huts and ox
drawn covered wagons to a modern world with motor cars,
moving pictures, and radios. By 1920 the semi-isolated
communities of this rural region had begun to feel the
negative affects of the devastation of the World War.
Furthermore, a neo-Populist attitude was sweeping across the
region (see chapter four). Many farmers were attempting to
break the grip of the big cities over their countryside.
(Wiebe, 1967, 289)

The North Dakota Holiness Revival (1905-1915) on the
Fargo and Bismarck Districts had been similar to that which
flourished within Methodism in the latter half of the
nineteenth century. Three aspects of this revival served as
its catalyst: first, the charismatic personalities of S. A.
Danford and J. G. Morrison; second, an emphasis upon
holiness revivalism. Not unlike the prevailing attitudes of
the times, the revival in some sense was an attempt to
preserve that which was orthodox and traditional. "Return
to old fashion Methodism" was a repetitive theme of the LHA

publication. Holiness revivalism or old fashion Methodism,

148

149

stressed sanctification as a second definite work of grace.
In the revival meetings evangelists invited the converted to
make a ”second trip" to the altar and have the "old man"
(better known as the carnal nature, depravity, or original
sin) crucified. The gift or baptism of the Holy Spirit was
received by faith and would give the seeker an internal
(subjective) confirmation. The reformation of the
individual from a "carnal Christian" to "entirely
sanctified," promised freedom from passion and pride, and a
host of external sins. It was preparation for heaven and
the second coming of Christ. Finally, its focus was
decidedly rural. There was no announced plans to enter the
cities of the upper Mississippi valley or the Midwest. The
Association seem most comfortable with its focus on the
rural folk. They believed in a Jeffersonian way that
farmers were the backbone of the nation. In an article
”Saving The Country People," Morrison writes:

If the country people become lost to God and

salvation, there is nothing can (sic) save America

from certain revolution and inevitable judgment.

The quiet, conservative farmer folk are the anchor

to windward of our nation. When the anchor drags,

the ship of state is in danger.... There is not a

more patriotic effort that can be made than to

attempt to bring salvation to the people in the

rural portions of the land. If they are saved,

they can steady the awful trend of the city folk
from national and individual perdition.

(The ugliness Lmen. Oct- 28. 1922. vol. XIV. no.

42)

For those living in the prairie states of the north
central region, this was an answer, as simplistic as it may

have been, to what they perceived to be the destructive

150

changes taking place in society as a whole. The people
involved in the Laymen’s Movement believed "holiness" would
rescue the backslidden Methodist Church and, for that
matter, the nation from its apostasy.

When the euphoria of the World War victory subsided,
the LHA and other major conservative religious groups woke
up to a new world. The subtle changes taking place in
society before the war created major rifts in the postwar
post-Victorian rural culture. Marsden notes that the sense
of cultural crisis following the World War shaped and
modified the religious response of the 1920’s. This sense
of crisis intensified feelings, increased militancy and
hardened resistance to change. (Marsden, 1980, 201) Marsden
and Sandeen both recognized the rural-urban tensions that
were a part of the cultural conflict of that era. As that
tension pertained to fundamentalism, they are correct in
asserting it was not the essential issue. However, from my
perspective, rural cultural, religious traditions, and
pietistic moral values played a vital role in shaping the
attitudes of the LHA -- particularly as it pertained to the
maintenance of the holiness revival.

Since 1908 the holiness paper of the Laymen’s movement
had warned that modernist professors at church colleges and
seminaries were corrupting the minds of the youth. They
believed young preachers fresh out of seminary were no
longer preaching John Wesley’s holiness message but

advocating a rationalistic modern theology. Furthermore,

151

the ecclesiastical leadership had all but stopped the rapid
progress of their movement. In such a threatening
environment the Holiness Laymen were reaching out for help.
Fundamentalism offered solutions that were attractive to the
movement. The apocalyptic return of Christ would save the
world from certain destruction and the bride would be
dressed in a spotless robe. However, the wedding was not
between Christ and his church. It was between
Fundamentalism and Wesleyanism.

I will use three characteristics of fundamentalism to
demonstrate its adoption by the LHA. Those characteristics
are the rejection of the teachings of higher criticism and
evolution, the stress upon premillennialism and the second
coming of Christ, and the embracing of a pessimistic world
view which called for separation. The third implies a clash

between rural and urban cultures.

I. PROTESTING THE LIBERAL CAUSE

In studying the publications of the LHA I found
elements of protest, preservation, cultural conflict,
millenarianism and separatism. The LHA was waving the
banners of both Wesleyan holiness and fundamentalism. The
two are often linked together in such a way that it is
difficult to see where one ends and the other begins. The
LHA believed that the results of the teaching of Modernism,

higher criticism, and evolution were profuse. The

descriptions the The Mglinesleayman gave to the theories

152

were replete: Godless, damning, atheistic an well as leading
to atheism, contributing to crime and violence in the
nation, the principle destroyers of Sabbath day observation,
the reason the Methodist Church was no longer revivalistic,
the reason for the World War, leading to rebellion and
Bolshevism, leading to the great apostasy predicted by
Christ, and fighting against Holiness.

The LHA imitated militant fundamentalist techniques and
focused them on the Methodist Church and the Bishopric. A
constant stream of articles filled the issues of
The Methedist (later The ugliness Layman) condemning the
teaching of evolutionary theory, modernism, and the liberal
direction the of the Church. The titles ranged from "A
Decadent Methodism" to "Does Methodism Need A Pentecost?"
During the World War, Morrison’s articles often linked
anti-German and patriotic themes to his condemnation of
higher criticism in the church. For example: "Pitch the
Pro-Germans out of the Pulpits," "Made In Germany," "Piety
and Patriotism," and "German Poison." Using the national
concern over the advance of Communism (the red scare) as a
theme, L. N. Anderson wrote on "Methodist Bolsheviki,“ in
which he condemned the educated leadership of the Methodist
schools. He notes:

... Methodists are not naturally destructionists -

Bolsheviki - but are inclined to follow "the old

landmarks" of the gospel message. However, by

persistence and posing as "Advance" thinkers, and
having a brand of "higher" learning, the

thoughtless who are easily attracted by the
spectacular, began following them in droves and

153

bands. This Bolshevism is now in undisputed
possession of the greater part of our Church
educational system, and particularly our
Theological Seminaries. And to make matters
worse, they... wrested the power to prescribe the
"Course of Study" from our Bishops... (The

Heliness Layman, February, 1920, Vol. XIII, no. 8)

Morrison and his followers searched Methodist Sunday
School literature and the Preacher’s Course of Study for
traces of Modernism. When found they would blast away with
their "holiness batteries,” and condemn the teaching. A
common phrase of ridicule was "Modernistic Poison." Between
1910 and 1921 the articles indicated the antidote for these
tragic conditions was holiness revivals.

The September 1917 issue of The Methgdist featured its
disapproval of the Methodist Preacher’s Course of Study. In
the article "There’s Death In The Pot," Morrison states
"Poison has been introduced into the food for young
Methodist prophets." What could one do about it? He
answers, "Little can be expected from the preachers
themselves. They are brow-beaten by the ecclesiastics." He
advises that the laymen must speak out. "They," he notes,
"are unterrified by ecclesiastical frowns." (The Methedist,
Sept. 1917, Vol.X, no.3)

Morrison was not the only voice crying out against
modernist teaching. His former evangelist, turned Nazarene,
W. G. Bennett wrote his warning in Medernism With the Mask
911. He states:

This leaven of the Pharisees is fast leavening the

Church, the youth, the institutions of learning,

and the State. Wherever this poison streams
flows, moral and spiritual death creeps on like

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fever follows the miasma of the swamps. (Bennett,
1928, 47)

Higher citicism was not alone in facing the pungent pen
of Morrison and the writers of The Meliness Layman. Evolu-
tion was equally condemned in the holiness paper. "Evolu-
tion Up Or Down?" stated that evolution had been "repudiated
by many hundreds of leading scientists and scholars."
Furthermore, some scientists claimed the race was "actually
evoluting downward." (The Heliness Layman, Sept. 28, 1922,
Vol. XIV, no. 38) In April, 1923 W. B. Riley wrote "The
Theory Of Evolution: Does It Tend To Atheism?" In decrying
the teaching of this theory in Methodist Seminaries he
notes:

It can be easily shown that many of our seminaries

throughout the Nation are so affected with the

theories of evolution and destructive criticism

that their graduates are sent forth with a message

that will have a tendency to destroy the simple

faith of the people in the Bible, the saving power

of Jesus, rather than with the spirit of true
evangelism to kindle revival fires and rescue the

perishing. (The figliness Layman, March 3, 1921,

Vol.XIII, no.15)

In a December 1923 article, Rev. Levi Bird, Ph.D.
warned a Methodist professor who wrote a pro-evolution
article for the Detreit Megs, "If you hold such views and
are teaching them in a Methodist college, then you ought to
resign at once and no any longer disgrace old Wesleyan with
any such pernicious nonsense." (The Meliness Layman, Dec.
1923) The LHA’s diatribes against Evolution and Higher

Criticism were only one of the three features which linked

it to fundamentalism.

155

II. THE PREMILLENNIAL FACTOR

The LHA’s second feature was its premillennial emphasis
which developed in sequence with its separatist attitude
toward Methodism and the world. The LHA maintained the view
that the Methodist Bishops generally, and the educators for
the most part were anti-orthodox. By 1920 there were
indications the LHA was losing hope of reviving the Church.
Morrison’s 1917 enthusiasm and attitude of optimism
gradually shifted. In 1920 he was reflecting guarded
optimism and by 1922 advocating come-out-ism. I discovered
this growing pessimism coincided with the frequency with
which second coming articles began to appear in The Meliness
Layman. Out of twenty-one articles given to issues on
eschatology between January 1919 and December 1923, fifteen
were written in the last two year. The earlier articles
covered topics on millennialism, while the later articles
were more apocalyptic in nature. For example, ”The Imminent
Return of Jesus," "Is the Time Short?," "Help Bring Back the
King," "The Mid-Night Cry."

The LHA, unlike the Church of the Nazarene with whom
they would unite, taught unabashed premillennialism. In
taking a jab at the mother Church, "Is Methodism Rejecting
Premillennialism?", Morrison writes, "We earnestly trust
that he (Bishop C. B. Mitchell) will not lead Methodism to
reject so plain a teaching of the Scripture as the
premillennial coming of Jesus." He then quickly adds

”Methodism has enough burdens to carry in her sorry decline

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from original and burning holiness teaching without adding
this also." (The ugliness Layman, Oct. 27, 1921, Vol.XIII,
no.41)

LHA Evangelist J. M. Taylor, an author of three books
on the second coming, a frequent writer for the monthly, and
a preacher who made the Second Coming his hobby, ended a
long January 1919 article on premillenarianism by stating
"WE SHALL REIGN WITH HIM ON THE EARTH, or Jesus’ death and
the prophets’ voice are vain." (The Methedist, Jan. 1919,
Vol.XI, no.7) Taylor strongly protested post-millennial
views calling them unscriptural and stating they had "again
and again been revealed as the ‘Villain’ of every historical
tragedy," and had caused the "wreckage of the lives and
ministry of ten thousand prophets, preachers and
theologians." (The ugliness Layman, March 1920, Vol. XIII,
no.9) In January 1921 he called postmillennialism "the
supreme heresy of modern times" and "it is Satan’s supreme
and final effort to seize the kingdom of God and defeat the
purpose of God to crown our Lord ‘King of Kings.’" (The
Heliness Layman, Jan. 1921, Vol.XIII, no.8) By assaulting
and disavowing Methodism’s nineteenth century position on
postmillennialism the LHA firmly positioned itself as
premillennial association who expected the imminent return
of Jesus Christ.

Smith notes this created a conflict between the pre and
post millennial advocates within the holiness ranks. He

notes:

157

Thereafter, premillennialists attacked even
holiness people who shared the traditional
Methodist view that Christians must prepare a
Kingdom for their King. The editor’s effort to
mediate this controversy collapsed in 1920 and
1921, when leading articles declared flatly the
postmillennialism had "no foundation in the
Scriptures,"... (Smith, 1962, 309)

The LHA not only held to the position of
premillennialism but also subscribed to the teachings of the
secret pre-tribulation rapture of the church. Morrison
writes in "Behold He Cometh," "The Rapture, or catching away
of the Bride of Christ (I Thess. 4:16,17.) may take place at
any time." and again "We are liable to witness at any
moment the mighty miracle of the First Resurrection and the
Rapture of the saints." (The ugliness Layman, March 31,
1923, Vol.XV, no.12) Morrison follows with "The Mid-Night
Cry" in which he states Christ will "stoop down to catch His
waiting Bride away, when calamities become so fearful that
we can no longer exist among them." (The Heliness Layman,
Nov. 17, 1923, Vol.XV, no.42) The premillennial position
also holds that the great tribulation follows the rapture of
the church. Morrison taught this also.

After the catching away of the overcomers, we read

that an angel proclaimed in the midst of heaven,

"The hour of His judgment is come." This is the

great Tribulation. Plagues will be poured out upon

the ungodly. (Rev. 8: 9: 16.) The Anti-Christ

will reign and during that awful time will compel

men to serve him and bow down to him as a god, and
will cause that as many as will not worship him

shall be killed. (The ugliness Layman, March 31,
1923, Vol.XV, no.12)
The LHA’s view of the world and Methodism grew more

pessimistic. By adopting the teachings of fundamentalism,

158

Morrison also painted a bleak picture of the times. This
negative view-point focused on the apostasy of the Methodist
Church, the degradation of contemporary society, and threats
of world disorder.

In 1921 Morrison warned "WE ARE HEADED FOR ANOTHER
SPIRITUAL DARK AGES." He continues "Earnest Methodists are
viewing, with breaking hearts, the conditions prevailing in
that once fiery company of God’s saints. (The ugliness
Layman, May 14, 1921, Vol.XIII, no.36) In "What Of The
Future?” his concern seems more like a nostalgic backward
glance:

The past forty years has seen the passing, to a

large extent among modern Christians, of the

family altar, the earnest prayer meeting that

included the bulk of the church members, and the

class meeting where Christian experience was the
chief topic, and exhortation waited on every

straying soul. (The Heliness Layman, December 1,

1921, Vol.XIII, no.46)

Morrison, Taylor, Bennett and reprinted articles from
Gedts Beyiyalist of God’s Bible School, the Eenteegstal
Herald, edited by Henry Clay Morrison, the Fundamentalist,
and The Ereshyterian intensified the LHA’s branding aspects
of the current apostasy and identifying signs of the
imminent return of Jesus. Romanism, Mormanism, and
Christian Science were identified as shams, and frauds of
the last days. Major world events were viewed as important
pieces of a giant puzzles all fitting together and signaling

the rise of the ten nation confederacy spoken of in the book

of Revelation. The April 6, 1922 issue of The ugliness

159

Layman announced:

The fulfillment of Nahum’s prophecy, the returning
of the Jews to the Holy Land, and the crying of
peace, "when there is no peace," the League of
Nations, and the results of the Disarmament
Conference at Washington, all go to prove that
those who want to be ready for Christ’s coming
should get on the "wedding garment." (The ugliness
Layman, April 6, 1922, Vol.XIV, no.13)

III. SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD

For five years Morrison defended the position of the
LHA as an association of Holiness laymen within the
Methodist church. It was a holiness revival movement that
attempted to keep alive what Danford had started in 1905.
In 1917 he wrote "...once more, let us say, we are not going
to separate from the Methodist Church." (The Methgdist,
Sept. 1917, Vol.X, no.3) By 1920 Morrison’s appeal was for
revivals in any out-of-the-way place. The LHA wished to
maintain the Wesleyan standard of entire sanctification and
revive it within the Church. However, if the Methodists
would not accept the message, they would "reap where they
had not sown." I must point out that by 1918 the North
Dakota Conference was firmly in the hands of the anti-
holiness forces. The pastors who had been sympathetic to
the holiness revival were gone. The "North Dakota Idea" of
establishing holiness bands and holding holiness revivals
began to expand into other states. Methodist Conference
Evangelists, however, had been commissioned in North Dakota.

By 1921 Morrison’s work was beginning to feel the financial

160

pinch. Following the World War boom, farm income had fallen
on hard times. He had increased the number of evangelists
in the field to eight and increased the issues of his
publication by making it a weekly. While their mission was
a fight for the "faith of the fathers," the salvation of
souls, and the rescue of the Church, a spirit of pessimism
was coming through the articles.

Morrison shifted to his new position in 1922. The
ugliness Layman was recommending separation. In an
interesting article entitled "Hatching Chickens for the
Hawks," Morrison quite pointedly implies it was immoral "to
get people converted and then induce them to unite with a
cold, dead, unspiritual church..." His recommendation was
"Come ye out from among them..." and "Either find a real
spiritual church where there can be found the necessary
experiences that will lead you to heaven, or make one of
your own." (The ugliness Layman, April 20, 1922, Vol. XIV,
no. 14)

In May of 1922 J. G. Morrison united with the Church of
the Nazarene in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A year later he was
adamant in his attitude about separation from Methodism.

What is the sad lesson to be learned? That we

cannot depend on the Christianity of the present

civilization. We must head back to the Bible, and

to Bible experiences. It is simply face to face

with this generation to get back to Jesus Christ.

Back to genuine salvation experiences. We must

get away from the modern religion that

characterizes the society, the business, the

education and the church life of to-day.

The Bible says that God’s people MUST BE SEPARATE.
Let the separation begin here and now. Let it be

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pronounced. Let it suffer no lapse. Let it
continue to be in force and effect. Separate from
sin. Separate from the world. Separate from the
ideals of society. Separate from the standards
and spirit of the average business man. Separate
from the view and teachings of the modern
educationalist. Separate from the death struck
churches. Separated unto Holiness. Separated in

anticipation of Heaven! (The ugliness Layman, July

14, 1923, Vol. xv, no. 26)

The calls for separation from Modernist churches
paralleled Morrison’s intensification on social separation.
As the flapper era of the "Roaring Twenties" picked up its
momentum externals (movies, card playing, immodest dress,
bobbed hair, lipstick, and rogue) became a continual topic
of the LHA publication. The articles began in 1919 and
reached their apex in 1924.

As the new decade of the twenties began the LHA
published attacks upon the movie industry. However, as the
decade deepened, the attacks focused on the developing new
life style as well. Morrison’s first alert to the
encroachment of evil was an announcement the Methodist
Church had "formally approved" the viewing of sacred moving
pictures. He warns, "‘The Layman’ believes that such a
course spells calamity for Methodism. This means that pool,
dancing, cards, etc., will speedily be approved of. Alas
how our beloved church has fallen!" (The ugliness Layman,
Aug. 1919, Vol.XII, no.2)

Evangelist Joseph Smith answered a question concerning
the showing of movies at the church to "hold the young
people." His response was pointed:

That preacher is fooled who thinks he has to hold

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frolics to get folks, and he is worse than fooled
when he, for the love of popularity or fear of the
powers above him, panders these to the pleasure
madness of this age, rather than warn men, young
and old, to flee the wrath to come. (The ugliness

Layman, Jan. 30, 1921)

In an article entitled "Church Apostasy Deepens,"
Morrison reflects on the direction in which the Church has
drifted. In its showing of moving pictures and installing
“smokers," it had appeared to have "struck bottom in its
descent toward apostasy." He continues:

This writer does not wonder that worldlings and

unsaved people who now-a-days constitute the bulk

of the membership of the great denominations can

see no farther than to patronize church movies,

church smokers, church courting companies and

church dances. They are lost souls anyhow, and

have no spiritual perception. They must amuse

themselves as they slide steadily toward

eternity’s fearful disclosures. (The ugliness

Layman, May 7, 1922, Vol.XIV, no.19)

He continued his campaign in "America On The Rocks."

The moving pictures are reported to be so vile, so

nasty, so contemptibly beneath decency, that the

attitude of one who professes salvation at all,

can only be that of open hostility." (The ugliness

Layman, Sept. 21, 1922, Vol.XIV, no.37)

But Morrison also advocated a cure for this spiritual
disease. "Salvation of the incipient type, will completely
cure you of the moving picture show habit..." He believe one
could not be saved until "...the soul has realized what a
salacious, foul, filthy thing the average film is, and
refuses no longer to witness one..." (The Heliness Layman,
July 21, 1923)

The LHA’s concern also focused on what was happening to

the young people of their movement. They believed the

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situation was alarming and immorality was rapidly spreading
among the youth. Teachers in public school and colleges
were seen as poor models and teaching modernistic themes.
In his article "The Menace Of The Public School," Morrison
condemned public school teachers stating:
They have their heads crammed with book knowledge,
and their hearts surfeited on the cold east wind
of modern evolution and prevalent infidelity.
They are, largely speaking devotees of the dance,
constant patrons of the filthy film, and in many
instances, (if they are females) they have their
clothing abbreviated at both ends, hair bobbed
like a la Fiji Islander, and faces bedaubed like

the demi-monde "of gay Paree!" And these are the
instructors of our boys and girls for the bulk of

the week! (The ugliness Laymen. Dec. 23. 1923)

He continues "...public school teachers lead the way in
the frenzied march toward a discard of all moral restraint
and a plunge into licentiousness." He predicted that in
twenty years the nation would "reap the whirlwind of
revolution, chaos and old night." (The ugliness Layman, Dec.
23, 1923, Vol.XIV, no.50)

The LHA not only condemned the educational system and its
teachers but it attempted to provide a holiness
alternative. Holiness colleges made regular appearances at
the Jamestown meeting and ads were run in The ugliness
Layman on a regular basis. Those school sited most often
were: Asbury College, Wilmore, Kentucky: Central Holiness
University, Oskaloosa, Iowa; God’s Bible School, Cincinnati:
and Taylor University, Upland, Indiana. The LHA even
attempted to start its own academy but it merged with the

Church of the Nazarene before the struggling school could

164

establish itself.

The LHA was also concerned about worldliness creeping
into the holiness churches. In "Flirting With The World,"
one of the writers attacked immodest dress on women. He
believed those who profess holiness should not wear their
necklines "too low" and their "skirts too high."
Furthermore, if they were painted and powered too much "the
blessed Holy Ghost wouldn’t be able to shine out through
them, even if He should come into their hearts." It was
obvious to this writer fashionable women would not be saved.
(The ugliness Layman, April 21, 1923, Vol.XV, no.15)

During 1924 Morrison’s pen continued to chastise the
American society. Articles entitled "The Present Day
Civilization," "Nakedness Gone Mad," and "These Are Days
That Try Men’s Souls" all focused on the level of national
morals and his evaluation of the outcome. In "Men Needed"
he focused his desire for a called ministry of "red-blooded
men" who would realize they could "change the present trend
of things... (for) If the nation is not to become
demoralized and break into warring socialistic factions..."
it will take real men and "the Ten Commandments and the
Sermon on the Mount" to save it. He continues:

We must have people with big souls these days...

What a to a godly man or woman are the present day

fashions. The semi-nude women, the paint

be-daubed, the lip-stick besmirched, the

pattering, mincing, chattering, half-human

creatures with their affected ways and cigarette

stench - what a should burden they are to the man

or woman who is big enough to see the end

thereof... We need MEN these days, who can scan
the heavenly signs and call men and women to

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repentance and to holiness lest the judgments that
the sings portend shall visit the earth. God give

us MEN! (The Heliness Laymen. Oct. 18. 1924.

Vol.XVI, no.20)

While Morrison attacked the "flapper" he also called on
holiness women to separate themselves from worldly fashions
and the worldly crowd. (Morrison would define "worldly" as
anything that denied biblical teachings and conformed to the
teachings of the age whether secular or religious.) He told
them to practice piety, and imitate biblical models. His
attacks sharply focused in his booklet Sataan Suhtle Attaek
en fleman. After several pages of repetitious denouncations
against bobbed hair (hair cut short), jewerly, bare arms,
etc. Morrison declares, "...it is not so much just the
cutting of your hair, in itself, as it is that you followed
a multitude who hate God... and laugh at religion, and sneer
at the Bible, when you had yours cut." He continues:

What must He (Jesus Christ) think of the insane

anxiety of His holiness women who have tumbled

over themselves, in order to dress like those who

have sneeringly declared that He is a bastard, and

that His Word is myth, folk lore and legend...

What must He think of His so-called folks who have

rushed to spend their money haveing their hair cut

like the worst strumpets in the world? For shame,

for shame! (Morrison, Satantsltl, n.d., 20-22)

To help further the cause of its Wesleyan-
fundamentalism the publishing concern offered books, five of
which pertained to second coming doctrine. The best known
book on the list was Blackstone’s Jesus ls gaming. In
addition Morrison would feature books by Holiness writers

such as Henry Clay Morrison, and association evangelist

J. M. Taylor. Reading materials spread out to his

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subscribers helped propagate fundamentalism to the Wesleyan
readers of the rural mid-west.

In one of the last issues of the LHA publication
Morrison, now a Nazarene District Superintendent, saw hope
for the young people of the Church. In "We’re Different" he
commends Nazarene young people by stating:

THE REAL NAZARENE YOUNG PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT.
Instead of bobbed hair they have burdened hearts.
Instead of lip-stick and rouge they have prayer
laden lips and tear wet cheeks. Instead of
hankering after the beauty parlor they are longing
for the fragrance and beauty of soul that goes
with a sanctified life. They can even turn
happily and cheerfully away from legitimate
pleasures, and choose the prayer meeting, the
watch night service and the revival instead. What
could induce a young man to leave his tennis
court, his croquet set, his base ball diamond,
etc., etc., for prayer meetings and watch night
service? Why, only that he has been born again,
and set on fire of the Holy Ghost. AND THAT MAKES
HIM DIFFERENT!

(The ugliness Messenger, Feb. 1925)

As I have indicated above, Dr. J. G. Morrison and the
LHA were deeply influenced by the Fundamentalist Movement.
The only variation in standard fundamentalist expressions
was the attachment of Wesleyan pietism and doctrine to the
concepts of preparedness. The fact that the writers of the
LHA were eclectic and influenced by the premillennial
teachings of fundamentalism seems obvious. Morrison and
Taylor read the Fundamentalist and parroted back to the LHA
the terminology of the Fundamentalist Movement, often
couching it in Wesleyan holiness experience. (The ugliness
Laymen, Sept. 22, 1923, Vol.XV, no.36) This method, whether

intentional or not, certainly made fundamentalism attractive

167

to those of the LHA. Particularly those North Dakota who
felt the culture of the times was closing in on them.

Following The General Holiness Convention of national
holiness organizations in Indianapolis, September 11-16,
1923, Morrison, who sat on the committee for the publishing
of a unified statement of faith, published that statement in
The ugliness Layman. This is the first and only time
Morrison takes a stand on his relationship to
fundamentalism. The essence of the declaration indicated
the group was sympathetic with the cause. However, feeling
the majority who followed the movement were devoid of the
power of the Holy Ghost, they would be powerless to effect a
real change. In regard to the conflict with modernism the
Holiness Convention gave its fullest support, but believed
the real need of the hour was for a spiritual church filled
with the Holy Spirit to illuminate and inspire the world and
convict and confound the adversary. (The Heliness Layman,
Oct. 13, 1923, Vol.XV, no.39)

The main difference between the Fundamentalist and the
Wesleyans was the latter’s emphasis upon sanctification as a
second work of grace. In principle there was no
disagreement with the other doctrinal statements of the that
movement. Marsden (1980) points out the Bible Conferences
led by D. L. Moody taught a Keswickian Holiness. This
doctrine emphasized sanctification as a work of grace
subsequent to conversion. However, it suppressed the carnal

nature in man rather than destroying it as the Wesleyans

168

taught.

Morrison clearly taught the necessity of a purified
heart as the proper preparation for the coming of Christ.

He notes: "That the preparation for His coming is to obtain
the cleaning of the heart from all inbred sin, by the
sanctifying power of the Spirit is very clearly taught in
the Word." (The ugliness Layman, Oct. 1920, Vol.XIII, no.4)
Again he stresses this teaching in "The Imminent Return Of
Jesus,"

It (Bible) further teaches the need of a clean,

sanctified heart, as the necessary preparation for

His appearing... Thus holiness of heart and life

becomes the very center of the teaching of the

imminent coming of Jesus Christ. (The Mgliness

Layman, Sept. 15, 1921, Vol.XIII, no. 35)

In "Behold He Cometh," he states: "The only way to be ready
is to go down before God in a complete consecration, and let
Him fill us with His Holy Spirit." (The ugliness Layman,
March 31, 1923, Vol.XV, no.12) This particular emphasis is
what gave the LHA a Wesleyan version of fundamentalism.

The Wesleyan plainsmen called upon the nation to return
to its pietistic heritage, repent, and forsake the godless
teaching of the liberals. However, the pessimistic outlook
and the mood of those who wrote for The Meliness Layman
strongly communicated a spirit of separatism. Referring to
this period, Timothy Smith notes "The mood of protest and
withdrawal evident in all farming communities was to

dominate evangelical religion in America for the next thirty

years. (Smith, 1962, 310) Morrison, feeling Methodism would

169

not be revived, finally separated himself from the Methodist
Church and joined the Church of the Nazarene. Now he would
attempt to draw the LHA into its ranks. I will discuss the

merger in the following chapter.

 

CHAPTER SEVEN
LAYMAN'S HOLINESS ASSOCIATION:

MERGER WITH THE CHURCH OF THE NAZARENE

The LHA came into existence for the purpose of
providing support to the Methodist laymen of North Dakota
who had experienced or sought sanctification as a second
work of grace. Those people, now sympathetic to holiness,
wanted the doctrine taught and preached in their local
churches. The "North Dakota Idea" was an effort to
establish holiness bands similar to the Methodist class
meeting of the previous century and collectively sponsor and
support holiness evangelists to do the work their pastors
were unwilling to do. By 1922 the LHA had become a large
organization supporting nine full-time field evangelists.
(Corbett states there were 36 registered with the
organization [Corbett, 1956, 47]) In addition, the "Idea"
had penetrated beyond its origins into other states of the
Upper Mississippi Valley. The LHA divided North Dakota into
four districts, three were formed in Michigan, groups were
organized in Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Indiana, it began
holding meetings in Ohio, and organized a Scandinavian work
in Wisconsin. It supported and published a weekly holiness
paper, The Mgliness Layman which, according to Morrison had
a mailing list of 1,500. Some of the holiness bands

organized into independent missions and churches, while most

170

171

others maintained an association status. The yearly
Jamestown Camp Meeting was the heart throb of the
organization. At its peak it boasted an attendance of over
1,800. However, at the January, 1921, Mid-Winter
Convention, Nazarene General Superintendent J. W. Goodwin
was ask to be the special speaker. Corbett notes:

That convention proved to be the turning point

from an association to the organized Church of the

Nazarene. Dr. Goodwin preached seven times. He

made no effort to influence the group into church

membership: his crystal-clear preaching and his

tender, mellow spirit so captivated his hearers

that the consensus was, "if this is Nazarenism, we

want to be part of the organization." (Corbett,

1956, 47)

At the July, 1921 camp meeting, the crowds were
strongly questioning their present course of action and
wondering if they could do their work better by organizing a
denomination or joining one. (Hammer, 1955: Smith, 1962)
The idea of joining another denomination or creating one of
their own had been suggested as early as 1920. However,
this seemed repugnant to Morrison. Apparently his bitter
experience with the Bishops was still fresh in his mind and
he wanted no part of that kind of bureaucracy. Smith notes
Morrison started a heavy campaign of endorsing and promoting
the "Idea."

In 1921 "Morrison crowded every issue of The Heliness
Layman with arguments against organizing or joining a new
church." (Smith, 1962, 311) He also believed the spirit of

the age was against the idea of denominationalism. He

believed some groups may be replaced by missions but the

172

purpose of the Association was to “‘populate the land with
holiness bands: the field agents could provide the ‘general
oversight’ required." (Smith, 1962, 311) However, after
joining the Nazarenes, Morrison confessed it had been
difficult to conserve the fruit of the association’s labors.
While a Nazarene District Superintendent, he reflected on
that dilemma:

Those of you who came directly out of another

denomination, into the Church of the Nazarene, or

who came directly out of the world into its

fellowship, can never know how blessed it seems,

to be in a real church of the Holy Ghost, after

having spent years in an independent

interdenominational movement. Such was the

fortune of the writer. Our best efforts were

often expended in vain, and we had no way (except

to become another denomination ourselves) to

conserve the fruit of our labors. With a heart

throb of deep gratitude, and a sigh of genuine

relief, we found a home in the Church of the

Nazarene. (Minutes, Third Assembly of Minneapolis

District, 1925, 32)

The origins of the Nazarene work in North Dakota began
with an inquiry from Horace G. Cowan, a former Methodist
pastor. Cowan came west from Virginia as a missionary for
the Christian Church. (This church had Methodist roots
dating back to the James O’Kelly schism in 1794. It later
merged with the Disciples of Christ.) In time his good
friend Layman Brough also came west to North Dakota to find
work. Both men experienced the Second Blessing and began to
preach its attainability. Brough, pastor of a Christian
Church in Surrey, North Dakota was terminated by the

congregation for preaching on holiness. Cowan, who agreed

with Brough, attempted to find him a church that "stood

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four-square for holiness." (Cowan, 1928, 13) Cowan wrote
Dr. G. A. McLaughlin, editor of The ghristian Eitness.
McLaughlin responded to Cowan’s letter giving him the names
of Dr. P. F. Bresee and Rev. H. D. Brown. He also told him
"‘In my opinion the Nazarene Church is doing more good than
any church I know of. This is unbiased, as I am a
Methodist.’" (Cowan, 1928, 14)

Cowan was soon in contact with Brown, who sent him
materials on the church. After reading them both he and
Brough agreed this was the church for which they were
looking. He sent word to Brown to help them organize a
Nazarene work.

Rev. and Mrs. Brown arrived in Surrey, North Dakota in
November 1908 just following the union meeting at Pilot
Point, Texas. Brown preached a revival at Surrey and
organized the first Nazarene Church in the state with
sixteen members. Brough continued holding revivals and
organizing churches when he could. One year later General
Superintendent Dr. H. F. Reynolds organized the Dakotas and
Montana District of the Church of the Nazarene. Brough was
appointed the District Superintendent. The first District
Assembly was held August 11-14, 1910 and Brough reported
five churches and a total membership of 127. (Qakgta and
Mentana Distriet Minutes. 1910)

The continued development of the Church of the Nazarene
in North Dakota was slow and difficult. According to Cowan

there was much opposition to the holiness work, often it was

174

viewed as a extremist sect of "holy rollers." (This as a
derogatory term used to identify extremist groups whose
worship services were intensely emotional.) At the time of
the merger with the LHA, Montana had been transferred to the
Northwest District and Minnesota was given to North Dakota
and South Dakota was a separate District. The North
Dakota-Minnesota District in 1922 had seventeen churches and
519 members.

The process of the positional movement of the LHA and
Morrison from anti-denominationalism to joining the Church
of the Nazarene is an interesting one. The Nazarenes and
the LHA were practically first cousins. Methodism was the
religious parent from which both had sprung. Both groups
emphasized a Wesleyan fundamentalism that opposed modernism,
higher criticism, and evolution. And, both were separatists
and advocated other worldly (holy) attitudes. The groups
had an intense dislike for ecclesiastical authoritarianism
and were seeking some kind of balance between it and the
extreme independence of congregationalism.

They were not inclined to propagate fanaticism. (There
is a fine line to be drawn at this point. They would want
their services to be emotional but not out of control. They
wanted "organized enthusiasm." [Morrison, "Making the
Nazarene Church a ‘Head Fire,’" Herald’s: ugliness, July,
30, 1924, p.51) Even though both groups were accused of
extremism, and isolated extremist practices would have

cropped up from time to time, both denied any affiliation

175

with extremist practices such as handling snakes, speaking in
tongues, martial celibacy, slain in the spirit (fainting).
Morrison and the Nazarenes encouraged "Holy Enthusiasm" and
"getting the glory down." This habit often encouraged
lively singing, running up and down the aisles of the
sanctuary, waving or raising the arms and hands, and
enlisting an emotional, "cheery," or demonstrative response
(Amen!, Hallelujah!, etc. were commonly used) from the
congregation during a service. (This has been the personal
observation of the author and oral history of older Nazarene
Church members: also see "Firing the Heart," Herald at
Heliness, September 19, 1923, p.4; and "A Grave Danger,"

Herald 9f Heliness, June 4, 1924, p.4) Morrison stated:

To be filled with holy enthusiasm, is to be filled

with the holy breath of God. That is why it

inspires electrifies, makes men victorious over

all baseness, ease, sloth, sin, failure,

discouragements, world-pull, anger, impatience

unbelief, and the terrors of death." (The Mgliness

Layman, June, 9, 1921, Vol.XIII, no.30)

Morrison and the Nazarenes desired enthusiasm over
unemotional "dead formality" and risked fanaticism in order
to keep the "spirit" on their services. It is not
surprising that Armstrong (1960) called them divisive.
However, Smith notes the members of the LHA had a "deeply
ingrained fear of ecclesiastical compromise, and an
abhorrence of personal worldliness and fashionable forms of
worship." (Smith, 1962, 315) Furthermore, Morrison opposed

the extremes of the Tongues Movement (specifically speaking

in tongues) as did the Church of the Nazarene. The

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Nazarenes dropped "Pentecostal" from their name in 1915 for
fear they would be associated with the Tongues Movement.

Morrison stated in The Meliness Layman:

We have lately had association with some people
who claim to have received the gift of tongues at
the same time they claim to have received the Holy
Ghost.... We fail to find any such teaching in our

Bible. (The ugliness Layman, Sept. 29, 1923,

Vol.XV, no. 37)

Morrison, with some reluctance, had allowed evangelist
James Taylor to publish articles in The ugliness Layman on
the McPherson Movement (The International Church of the
Foursquare Gospel, founded by Mrs. Aimee Semple McPherson)
at the Angelus Temple in Los Angeles, California. Taylor
had boasted the blessings and divine healings taking place
in her services. However, when Taylor was swept up in the
movement Morrison disavowed any connection with the
McPherson Movement. In "An Adverse Opinion" he connected
McPherson with the Tongues Movement. He states, "Our
concern is mainly for the doctrine advanced and supported by
this movement (meaning the LHA). And more particularly as
it bears upon the doctrine of entire sanctification and the
Holiness Movement for which we ourselves are set." (The
Balinese Layman, April 27, 1922, Vol.XIV, no.17) Smith
makes this issue one of the reasons Morrison decided to
personally join the Church of the Nazarene in 1922. "To
him, order and superintendency in a holiness church were
preferable in every way to the freedom which could lead to
such alliances as Taylor proposed." (Smith, 1962, 312)

Finally, Wesley’s "grand depositum," was the

 

177

theological theme of both organizations. Palmer’s style of
seeking sanctification through faith at the altar combined
with Finney’s baptism of power for holy living was their
common experiential base.

The commonality of their theological footings and
agreement on sanctification as a second work of grace was a
primary factor doctrinally for the uniting of the two
organizations. A second factor had to do with conserving
the converts. Morrison was apparently beginning to sense
frustration with regard to the conservation of new LHA
converts. The growing threat of liberalism within the
Methodist Church no longer made it a safe haven for the
those the LHA were winning. His article "Hatching Chickens
for the Hawks" demonstrated his desire to publish those
concerns to his readers after he became a Nazarene.

In reflecting on the state of affairs within the
Laymen’s movement, Morrison told E. E. Wordsworth, his
pastor and personal friend, in "25 years their loses about
equaled their gains. It was a treadmill or merry-go-round
arrangement..." Wordsworth reflects:

Frankly, he was very weary of this quite

unsatisfactory effort. He saw no worthy future

for the laymen’s movement (sic), and this is why

he was devoutly interested and deeply concern

about coming into the Church of the Nazarene in

order that the work done should be conserved.

igggbett - Wordsworth correspondence, January 17,

According to Hammer, there was an increasing demand

during the Jamestown Camp Meeting for the Association to

178

provide regular Sunday services and Sunday School
operations, prayer meetings and young people’s services.
The people were vigorously discussing the question of
denominationalism. Hammer notes:

The demand for services at length became so

insistent, that small groups were planning to

leave the Association and unite with fanatical,

so-called holiness bodies. Something had to be

done quickly to save the splendid following that

had been gathered through the years. A crisis

came just after one of the great annual

conventions (1921). It was join a denomination,

or organize into one. Some five months must

elapse before a decision could be made... Finally

the decision to effect a union with the Church of

the Nazarene, fell largely upon the president of

the Association. Doctor Morrison made the choice

and called upon all the leaders of the Laymen’s

Association to go with him. (Hammer, 1936, 3)

A third factor, previously noted was the financial
hardships created by the postwar economy. In the fall of
1921 Morrison was asking some to take his salary support on
as part of their tithe. In January 1922 Morrison pleas ”So
many and serious are the vicissitudes that have crossed the
path of the printing plant, that it is deemed advisable to
ask for special prayer that God will send in the finances to
see it to a success." (The Heliness Layman, January 12,
1922, Vol.XIV, no.2) This concern was preceded with "A
Thanksgiving Thank-Offering," Morrison begins the article,
"In spite of the burdens that are resting so heavily upon

the people because of the pressure of financial conditions

throughout the country..." (The Heliness Layman, November
17, 1921, Vol.XIII, no.44) (Also see The ugliness Layman,

"Worse Than Wasted," October 27, 1921: "Money and Bread,"

179

October 20, 1921; "Let The Laymen Awake," November 3, 1921)
Morrison may have found one way to help with the expenses,
business ads began to appear in the paper by April 1922.

The Nazarenes were a larger (35,041 members and 999
churches in 1919, [Chapman, 1926, 159]) and more mature
organization, but they had concentrated their evangelization
among the lower classes of the coastal urban areas of the
east and west. Urban economies were still thriving in the
postwar expansion and gave some financial stability to the
church. This was no doubt desirable to Morrison as he saw
the financial difficulties that were coming upon the LHA.

Nazarene expansion was beginning to shift. As early as
1916 the "trend was away from the metropolitan areas and
into the small towns and more rural farm lands of the
Midwest..." (Ingle, 1973, 30) This shift in the
concentration of Nazarenes to the Midwest (one third of the
national membership gain in the 1920’s was in the four
states of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois [Ingle,
1973, 43]) was attracting a more conservative population.
The Nazarene attachment to fundamentalism, as noted above,
elevated its appeal to this conservative rural class. Thus
the Nazarenes were breaking into rural areas at the right
time with the right emphasis to attract members of the LHA.

In the major mergers of 1907, 1908, and 1915 the groups
forming the church brought with them thousands of members,
hundreds of churches, schools and colleges, and mission-

aries. The LHA could boast none of that. Redford notes:

180

Inasmuch as the Association was definitely

interdenominational and its members held

membership in the church of their choice at that

time, it was not possible to have an official

group union, with approval by regional and local

ratification. It was not, therefore, a union in

which one official body negotiated with another

official body, finally agreeing and uniting on

specific terms. (Redford, 1961, 169)

The resolution given at the 1922 North Dakota-Minnesota
District Assembly read by Wordsworth, Morrison’s pastor,
listed the property and holdings coming into the Church of

the Nazarene. These included five tabernacle tents for
evangelization, The Mgliness Layman and its 1500
subscribers, church properties in several towns (no specific
number given), the possibility of 1,000 members in two
years, and twenty ministers of the LHA. The resolution went
on to note that six churches had already united with the
Church of the Nazarene and then extended its welcome to the
Association by stating:

...we heartily welcome any and all of the Laymen

bands who are organizing themselves into Churches

of the Nazarene, and will do all that we can to

unite in every desire they have to further spread

the gospel in their immediate localities, assuring

them, that as far as we can learn, both they and
we stand for the same standards and experiences in

the Christian life. (Menu: DaketazMinneseta
12m Minutes. 1922. 49)

Cowan notes that the first LHA group to join the Church
of the Nazarene was at Maysville (possibly in 1921).
District Superintendent Rev. W. L. Brewer was invited to
hold a revival meeting in that town. As a result of the
success of that meeting, a church was organized with

fourteen members.

181

The next effort came through the assistance of
Morrison. He helped Brewer organize five new churches from
LHA members in the months just preceding the 1922 District
Assembly at Velva, North Dakota. This resulted in a gain of
116 new members to report to the District Assembly. In his
report, Rev. Brewer acknowledged the assistance he had
received from Morrison. This give the District a total of
seventeen churches, six of which had come from the LHA.
(North DaketazMinneseta District Assembly Minutes. July 12-
16, 1922, 43)

Corbett indicates that Rev. N. B. Herrell, General
Secretary of the Department of Home Missions of the Church
of the Nazarene was sent to the upper Midwest to survey the
conditions to better establish the church in that area.

Upon his return to Kansas City he reported on the LHA.
"Take Morrison into the Church of the Nazarene, appoint him
superintendent of that area, and he in turn can bring
hundreds into our movement." (Corbett, 1956, 48)

During the Assembly, Dr. Morrison was nominated for the
District Superintendent’s post and ran against the incumbent
W. L. Brewer. After six ballots neither man had enough
votes to win the election. The LHA members had formed a
voting block for Dr. Morrison and would not yield.

Presiding General Superintendent Dr. H. F. Reynolds made the
decision with the support of the Assembly to divide the
district north and south. Brewer received nine churches in

the northern half of North Dakota and Minnesota and Morrison

182

received eight churches in the southern half. Morrison,
however, receive Jamestown and Minneapolis First,
Wordsworth’s church and the largest on the district. This
division of the District caused some hard feelings on the
district. Charles Culp recalls:

That was a stirring time for Bro. Brewer (current

District Superintendent) and his crowd tried to

prevent the Laymen from coming in until after the

Supt. was elected, fearing no doubt that the Supt.

job would go to Dr. Morrison. I remember Dr.

Morrison saying after they got in. "Well we

finally got in." (Corbett-Culp correspondence,

January 27, 1955)

Morrison started with eight churches, six in North
Dakota and two in Minnesota. His membership totaled 245,
however, before the end of the summer because the South
Dakota District Assembly voted to merge forces with
Morrison’s Minneapolis-Jamestown District. As a result
Morrison picked up eleven more churches and 285 members.
Now his district, 700 miles long and 400 miles wide had 19
churches and 530 members. During the year Morrison
organized ten new churches out of LHA members increasing his
total to 29 churches and 874 members. This was a 60%
increase in membership for the district. At the second
District Assembly (1924) of the new Minneapolis District,
Morrison had added 16 new congregations and district
membership reached 1,121. This was impressive to say the
least, but this was the end of such rapid growth. The next

year Morrison somewhat discouraged could only report five

new churches; however, his district now totaled 45 churches

183

with a combined membership of 1,212. His two strongest
churches were Jamestown, 100 members and Minneapolis First,
150 members.

Morrison was in a unique position, he was both a
Nazarene District Superintendent and the President of the
LHA. By using his position in both he was able to draw many
of his followers into the Nazarene fold. The 1922 District E
Assembly at Velva recognized the interdenominational

character of the LHA work and was quite willing to allow its

paper, The Mgliness Layman, the Jamestown Camp Meeting, and

 

the new holiness academy just starting at Jamestown to 5
continue to function as they were. After joining the
Nazarenes, Morrison stepped up his campaign of promoting
Nazarene revivals, the work of local churches, Assemblies,
and Nazarene evangelists.

Morrison’s articles on separating from the Methodist
Church also intensified. Articles entitled "Hatching
Chickens for the Hawks," and "A Decadent Methodism," were
soon to appear. In June he published Association evangelist
W. G. Bennett’s article "Seven Reasons Why I Can Remain No
Longer In The Methodist Episcopal Church and Ministry."
Bennett accuses the Church of forsaking the fundamental
teachings of the Bible by allowing higher criticism to
infiltrate the schools and colleges and goes on to list six
other reasons. In the same issue Morrison writes on
"Poisoning Babies’ Food." Morrison decries the Modernist

teachings found in the Sunday School literature and closes

184

by stating:

When editors and writers will poison the food of
Methodist babies, and bishops and district

superintendents will connive at it, or laugh it
off, the trouble with the church is no longer a
matter of difference in thinking. It indicates
rather that infidelity and unbelief has reached

the heart. (The Heliness Layman June 1, 1922,
Vol.XIV, no.22)

It seems obvious (and Smith agrees) not all those
connected with the LHA joined the Church of the Nazarene. E
"The Laymen’s Holiness Association’s union with the Church

of the Nazarene in 1922-23 resulted in the growth of the

 

Minnesota and North Plains to 65 churches." (Ingles, 1973, g
43) And, it gave "the denomination a foothold in the
territory stretching from Michigan to the mountains of
Montana. (Smith, 1962, 314)

Morrison’s hard work paid dividends for him. His
fervor as a holiness preacher made him a popular evangelist
in both Nazarene and interdenominational circles. As a
result of his position as District Superintendent and the
successful growth on his district, he was elected to the
position of President of Northwest Nazarene College in 1925.
In 1927 he was elected General Secretary of the Foreign
Missionary work. This was a difficult time for the Church:
it had expanded its missionary work into new world area just
before the Great Depression. It became Morrison’s task to
keep the missionaries encouraged regardless of how short the
revenues, and at the same time compel the Nazarenes at home
the do "just a little bit more." Basil Miller notes:

For the following nine years he threw himself into

185

this work with a spiritual zest scarcely equaled

by any other. He was constantly preaching

achieving faith in missions, writing achieving

faith in his The cher Sheen editorials, until his

achieving faith became contagious and others

caught the vision and achieved through faith for

God. (Miller, 1941, 63)

Dr. Morrison was elected to the highest post in the
Church of the Nazarene at the 1936 General Assembly, General
Superintendent. Morrison served this post with the same
enthusiasm he had served his other assignments. In 1939 on
a return trip from Africa where he was holding District
Assemblies and viewing the missionary work, his boat was
diverted to South America. The out break of the Second
World War in Europe had made trip more dangerous. As a
result he picked up dysentery. He never recovered from this
shock to his system and died suddenly on Thanksgiving Day,
1939. Because of his term of service in the Spanish
American War, his organizational abilities, his hard work,

and his ability to lead others, the church dubbed him "A

Soldier of the Cross."

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

To study church history is to realize the existence of
three reoccurring themes: first, the clarification and
redefinition of traditional theses of biblical and
theological dogma; second, the development of the church’s
structure from primitive and simplistic to a mature and
complex hierarchical organizational structure laced with
bureaucracy: finally, the impact of religion upon society
and the reverse impact of society upon the church. Any
change within the church, however slight, is generally met
with resistance and opposition from some portion of its
membership. Especially when the change appears to alter
orthodox and even folk traditions. Therefore, when the
leadership becomes too authoritarian, changes become too
overwhelming and complex, worship services progress too far
from the simplistic and emotional, or the organization
imitates rather than opposes secular evils, some form of
schism occurs.

The factors in the development of early American
religion were many. While in some cases dogmas were created
to bring about control, the issues were always dynamic. It
soon became apparent that Old World procedures were not
practical in this creative New World environment.
Adaptation had become the key to survival for American

Protestantism. Theology’s role in the development of early

186

 

187

American religion was to record what the people were
experiencing. It was then placed within or measured against
the context of divine revelation. Experimentation and human
experience shaped American theology during the early period
of our nation’s history.

The development of the Holiness Movement with the
Methodist Church in North Dakota seemed a natural by-product
of the "old-fashioned" Wesleyan doctrine of sanctification
as a second work of grace. Danford’s revivalistic movement
fired by the Jamestown camp meeting moved across the Fargo
and Bismarck districts like a prairie fire. District
membership increased and the converted and sanctified joined
Methodist churches. However, like the effects of the first
and second great awakening the North Dakota Conference was
sharply divided between those for the revival and those
against the revival. The latter group emphasized a more
rationalistic and educational approach for the recruitment
of members and the former a revivalistic and emotional
approach.

The first and second awakenings prospered on the
wilderness frontier where wild emotions were often confused
with religious experience. Rationalism, on the other hand,
settled in the urban and educational centers. This scenario
describes the conditions on the North Dakota Conference in
1915. Niebuhr makes the following observation about
Methodism:

Religious enthusiasm declined in the later days
because Methodist Christianity became more

 

188

literate and rational and because, with increasing

wealth and culture, other escapes from the

monotony and exhaustion of hard labor became

available. The substitution of education for

conversion, finally, played its part in making

revivalism less important... for successive

generations. (Niebuhr, 1929, 63)

I note that Methodism was in a state of transition as a
denomination. It was attempting to accommodate new fields
of scientific discovery within its theological system while
still clinging to its traditional teachings. This was one
of the major issues the LHA was battling. Any accommodation
to the teaching of higher criticism and evolution was, for
the LHA, a transgression from orthodoxy. They believed in
the truthfulness of the entire Word of God. Since the
fundamentalists were fighting the same issue against
liberalism nationally. The LHA found a friend in
fundamentalism as it fought for the inspiration and
integrity of the Bible and against the trends of modernism.

The issues of debate between the teachings of Methodism
and the LHA were deeper than just theology. The rural
people of this former frontier were facing major
sociological changes. Their familiar surroundings and
secure traditions were being uprooted. Korth notes the
prevailing attitude of among the North Dakota farmers in
1920 was an attempt to find a new myth or image to replace
the old inorder to give meaning to changes in their world.
(Korth, 1970, 137) However, the members of the LHA were

conservative, stubborn individualists who would rather fight

change than switch. The LHA agreed to the tenets of

189

fundamentalism because it was fighting the changes of its
rural culture, a defense of a dying way of life. (Marsden,
1980)

Holt (1940) noted that sects are a natural product of:

...the social disorganization and cultural

conflict which have attended the over-rapid

urbanward migration and concomitant urbanization

of an intensely rural, and religioulsy

fundamentalist population. (Holt, 1940, 742)

If a religious group feels overwhelmed by the
circumstances of change it will either abort and start a new
group (sect), (Weber, et al.), withdrawal into "isolation"
or hold on and "insulate" itself. (Wilson, 1967, 37) At
first the LHA chose to stay within the structure and change
it. They soon began to realize it would be next to impossi-
ble to change Methodism: so they chose to abort and join an
organized sect (the Church of the Nazarene) that best fit
their theological and ecclesiastical needs.

As I noted above Weber and Niebuhr believe the more
"agrarian" the social patterns of a people the more likely
they will seek a traditional, emotional, less rational and
salvation prone religious group. This group or sect will
have an exclusive membership and maintain a non-
compromising, separatistic attitude toward the world.
(Niebuhr, 1929, Pope, 1942: Weber, 1963) 60% of the members
of the LHA population were farmers or in agriculturally
related occupations. Furthermore, the constant barrage of

denunciations against social trends and changing social

mores reinforced its separatist attitudes.

 

190

The idea of losing holiness of heart and life
(backsliding) by imitation of the world was a real fear.
"Come out from among them and be ye separate and touch not
the unclean thing and I will receive you" (2Cor. 6:17) was a
standard verse used by holiness sects. (The author has
personal knowledge of this fact having served in a holiness
church for twenty-two years.) Again, as Marsden has noted
protest and separation were aspects of the fundamentalists
and the LHA was comfortable with this emphasis.

Another uniqueness of the LHA was the way it adopted
fundamentalist creeds, divorced itself from the post-
millennial teachings of its Methodist tradition, and
attached the Wesleyan doctrine of holiness to its message of
preparedness for the second coming of Christ. This
attachment drove a wedge between themselves and other second
coming advocates (Calvinist fundamentalists and Seventh Day
Adventists). As Holiness advocates they came to their
conclusion quite naturally. They interpreted "...holiness
without which no man shall see the Lord...“ (Heb. 12:14) as
meaning one would need to be sanctified to be ready for the
great coming of the Lord.

The LHA was a protest sect with a separatist emphasis.
Its rural characteristics, population demographics, and
desire to preserve the traditional teachings of the church
gave it all the necessary elements to make it a candidate to
adopt the fundamentalist’s creed. What it lacked was

leadership and a method. The leadership was provided by

 

191

Samuel Danford and Joseph Morrison. The method was holiness
revivalism. The result was a remarkable rally of rural

conservatism under the banner of Wesleyan-fundamentalism.

 

APPENDIX

 

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

Listed below are key dates for Methodism, North Dakota
Methodism, the Church of the Nazarene, and primary American
and North Dakota history.

1703 -
1724

1735 -

1737 -
1738 -

1740-1
1744 -
1766

1771
1776
1784

1785
1791 -
1800-1
1803 -

1804-5

1812 -

1816 -
1818

1832

1833 -
1836

1837 -

John Wesley born.

Wesley graduates from Christ Church College, Oxford
University.

Wesley arrives in the American Colony of Georgia as a
missionary to the Indians.

Wesley leaves America.

Wesley’s Aldersgate experience, May 24.

Pierre de la Verendrye, first white man to enter
North Dakota, visits Mandan Indians on the Missouri.
The First Great Awakening in America.

The first Methodist conference in London.

Robert Strawbridge begins first Methodist society in
America.

Francis Asbury arrives in America.

The signing of the Declaration of Independence, July.
Christmas Conference, Baltimore, Maryland - The
official beginning of the Methodist Church in
America.

Asbury ordained General Superintendent of American
Methodist work.

John Fletcher dies.

John Wesley dies.

Second Great Awakening in America.

Louisiana Purchase makes southwestern North Dakota
part of the United States.

Lewis and Clark cross North Dakota on journey to

the Pacific.

Selkirk colonists come to Permbina, North Dakota, to
make first attempt at a permanent white settlement.
The United States declares war on England.

Francis Asbury dies.

First church and school in North Dakota -- a Catholic
Mission at Permbina.

The Yellowstone is the first river boat steamer

to navigate the Missouri River in North Dakota.

Adam Clarke dies a victim of a Cholera epidemic in
England.

Richard Watson dies.

The first Tuesday Meeting for the Promotion of
Holiness begins in New York under the leadership

of Sarah Lankford and Phoebe Palmer.

Smallpox epidemic nearly annihilates Mandan Indians.

192

1838
1848

1855

1857

1861

1861
1863

1865
1867

1870

1871

1874

1875

1876

1881
1882

1883

1884

1885

1888

1889

1891

1893
1895

193

Phineas Bresee is born, December 31.

James tanner conducts the first Protestant church
service in North Dakota at Permbina.

J. G. Morrison’s father moves the family from

New Hampshire to Iowa.

Fort Abercrombie, the first military post in North
Dakota is built on Red River.

Phineas Bresee’s father moves his family from

New York to Iowa.

Phineas Bresee pastors his first Methodist circuit.
William Jayse is appointed the first Governor

for the Dakota Territory.

The Civil War begins.

Laramie Treaty defines reservation boundaries for
Sioux Indians.

Dakota Territory opened for homesteading.

Gold discovered in Montana.

Civil War comes to an end.

The first camp meeting of the National Holiness
Camp Meeting Association, Vineland, New Jersey.
Treaty with the Chippewa, Sioux and whites brings
permanent peace to eastern area of the state.

The Northern Pacific Railway reaches Fargo, ND.
First Methodist sermon preached in North Dakota.

J. G. Morrison is born.

Phoebe Palmer dies.

Charles Finney dies.

White settlers in North Dakota violate Laramie treaty
which results in an Indian uprising.

General Custer is defeated at the battle of the
Little Big Horn.

The Northern Pacific Railroad reaches Montana border.
The Great Northern Railroad completes its line from
the Red River in eastern North Dakota to Canada.
The territorial capital is established at Bismarck.
The first state university opens at Grand Forks.
Theodore Roosevelt moves to Medora, North Dakota for
health reasons.

Rev. Bresee leaves Iowa for California.

The first Methodist Mission Conference held in the
state.

Samuel Danford begins his ministry in North Dakota.
The first Methodist North Dakota Annual Conference
is held.

North Dakota Conference organizes into three
districts.

North Dakota Conference organizes fourth district.
North Dakota is admitted to statehood, November 2.
Rev. Bresee appointed Presiding Elder of the

Los Angeles District, Southern California Conference.
J. G. Morrison begins his Methodist ministry.

Rev. Bresee withdraws from conference and begins
the Church of the Nazarene, October 20.

1898

1904

1905
1907

1908

1910

1915

1916

1917

1918

1920
1922

1925

1927

1929
1936

1939

194

America declares war with Spain.

J. G. Morrison commissioned Captain in the Army.
Samuel Danford appointed Presiding Elder of Fargo
District, North Dakota Conference.

White Rock, South Dakota camp meeting.

First Jamestown camp meeting.

First union meeting of the Church of the Nazarene
and the Association of Pentecostal Churches of
America forming the Pentecostal Church of the
Nazarene.

The Holiness Church of Christ joins the Pentecostal
Church of the Nazarene at Pilot Point, Texas on
October 13. This date is considered the natal date
of the Church of the Nazarene.

First Nazarene church organized in North Dakota.

J. G. Morrison made editor of The Earth Qahgta
Methodist.

First Nazarene District Assembly in North Dakota.
Samuel Danford’s last North Dakota Conference report.
The high water mark of Methodist Sunday school
attendance in North Dakota.

Dr. Phineas F. Bresee dies.

The closure of the Dakota frontier to homesteading.
Rev. J. G. Morrison appointed to Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
J. G. Morrison accepts position as president of
Laymen’s Holiness Association.

America enters the First World War.

J. G. Morrison given "location" by the Saint John’s
River Conference.

Germany signs the Armistice to end the war, Nov. 11.
Laymen’s Holiness Association incorporated.

J. G. Morrison joins the Church of the Nazarene.

J. G. Morrison is elected District Superintendent
of the newly organized Minneapolis-Jamestown
District.

Laymen’s Holiness Association officially dissolved.
J. G. Morrison elected President of Northwest
Nazarene College, Nampa, Idaho.

Scopes trial in Dayton, Tennessee.

J. G. Morrison elected General Secretary of Foreign
Missionary work.

Stock market crashes, the great depression begins.
J. G. Morrison elected General Superintendent of the
Church of the Nazarene.

J. G. Morrison dies on Thanksgiving Day.

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