Radical Reform and Living Piety

Dr. Lee M. Haines

            It is good to visit the campus of Houghton College once again.  I will never forget the first time I came here.  It was 1966 and the General Conference of The Wesleyan Methodist Church was to be held here.  Apparently I did not have clear directions as to how to find Houghton.  I thought I was going to drive off the end of the earth before I finally got here!  The truth is that Houghton College's location reflected a basic principle of planning a hundred years ago—put Christian schools far away from the cities and towns so the students will not be exposed to urban immorality and temptation.  It is said that one school in Kentucky advertised that it was located 30 miles from any known form of sin.  Willard J. Houghton was more modest in his claims for this school—he described it as having only a three-mile safety zone.  Apparently big-city sin had made it as far as Caneadea or Fillmore!

             The Wesleyan Church as it is now constituted is only 34 years old.  Enfolded within it are more than a dozen groups dating from as far back as the 1840s.  Between them they have been known by more than two dozen names.  The three most obvious branches of our family tree include The Wesleyan Methodist Church, which established what is now Houghton College, the Pilgrim Holiness Church, and the Alliance of the Reformed Baptist Church of Canada.  The merger of the Reformed Baptists with the Wesleyan Methodists was approved at that 1966 General Conference here in Houghton, and the merger of the Wesleyan Methodists and the Pilgrims was also approved at that time and the actual merger took place in 1968.  We want to look in on bits and pieces of their story.

             One of the founders of  what became the Wesleyan Methodist Church was a very gifted young man by the name of Lucius C. Matlack, normally called for some reason "L.C."  At the age when today he would have been a junior or senior in college, he was attempting to enter the ministry in the Methodist Church in the Philadelphia area.  He was considered quite promising but because he was strongly opposed to slavery, an abolitionist, the Methodist church would not receive him.  So he joined in forming a new, anti-slavery church, the Wesleyan Methodist Connection as it was known at first, the oldest branch of what is now The Wesleyan Church.  Its organization occurred at a convention held in Utica, New York in 1843.  Matlack was ordained at the Utica Convention.

             L. C. Matlack went on to become a denominational leader, becoming the denominational publisher when he was 32 and adding the office of denominational editor four years later.  Some time after that he became the president of the Illinois Conference.  In 1861, as the slavery controversy was dragging the nation into civil war, Matlack scheduled a string of camp meetings across Illinois.  He said that he would do this "to vindicate the identity of radical reform with living piety."  In other words, radical reform and living piety were not separate from one another nor at odds with each other, but one and the same.

            This phrase aptly describes the tiny new religious body known as Wesleyan Methodist.  Reform was popular in society as a whole, with local, state, national, and even world conventions on Christian reform.  There was a loose-knit community of reformers, some church-related and some not, but all active in a host of causes in which the new church also took an interest.  In fact, the Wesleyan Methodists preferred to call themselves a "band of reformers."  One writer declared that "Reform and Anti-Reform, are the two great antagonistic forces in the moral world."  Another declared that the reformatory principle was "anti-sin" and that the position of Wesleyan Methodists was to reprove "sin, and seek its destruction, even if complicated with civil government and surrounding denominational sanction."  As a result, Wesleyan Methodists wore with pride such descriptions as "radical," "liberal," "progressive," and "aggressive."  They were suspicious of "conservatism," for this so often meant maintaining the status quo even if "principle" had to be sacrificed to "expediency" which to them was "compromise" or "accommodation."  And so confident were they in the eventual triumph of their principles, that they fully expected reform to usher in the millennial age of righteousness, justice, and peace.  (By the way, this is a dramatic example of how words can change meaning from time to time.)

             You were introduced to the reform emphases of the Wesleyan Methodists last month when General Superintendent David Holdren spoke here in chapel.  I want to deal with the other side of this young church, the other half of Matlack's equation—living piety.

             Even in the 1843-1867 period when Wesleyan Methodists were most aggressive about social, political and moral reform, reform was not all that characterized them.  They were not only reformers, they were revivalists.  Luther Lee was another of the founders of the Connection.  He served as editor just prior to Matlack's service in that office.  He called in 1847 for revivals which would seek the salvation of souls as the most important work of the church.  In 1848 and 1849 he ran two series of editorials on revivals, the first series being entitled, "The Philosophy of Revivals."  At least some of these articles were incorporated in his book, The Revival Manual.  At one point he declared that there were more conversions among Wesleyan Methodists proportionally than among the great denominations, but there was room yet for improvement.

             In the pre-Civil War period, one can find in the denominational periodical four waves of revival that swept across the denomination.  The fourth began in 1856 and mounted in strength through 1857 and 1858, and really continued at least through 1862.  In one four-month period the editor declared that 1,300 conversions had been reported in the paper along with news of 30 local revivals in which no numbers had been specified.  He later remarked that in a five-month period 74 revivals had seen over 2,000 conversions and there were 64 others reported without specific numbers.  The timing of these revivals is especially significant since late 1857 marked the beginning of the great "prayer meeting revival" which swept through the major cities of America under lay leadership in 1858.  From there it spread around the world.  Historian Timothy Smith has designated 1858 as the miracle year of revivals.

             Accompanying these revival waves was an increasing interest among Wesleyan Methodists in John Wesley's call for believers to receive the gift of a holy heart and to live a holy life.  Wesley had a realistic view of the pervasiveness of sin in humans but also an awesome view of what the grace of God could do in humans.  Wesley's doctrine not only characterized early Methodism but it eventually affected countless Christian bodies of virtually every form of Christian theology.  We hear now of the victorious life, the Spirit-filled life, the surrendered life, the higher life, making Christ the Lord of one's life—as well as Wesley's terms of perfection in love, entire sanctification, and Christian or evangelical perfection.

             Actually a revival of Wesley's emphasis had begun in American Methodism shortly before the Wesleyan Methodist Connection was organized.  It became the first denomination to include in its doctrinal statements one on sanctification.  And especially in that fourth wave of revivals there were reports of growing numbers of sermons and camp meetings devoted to the message of holiness.  It was this kind of camp meeting Matlack scheduled in Illinois.  Also the denominational paper featured a growing number of personal testimonies to a deeper work of grace.  After the Civil War, the holiness revival swept North America and Europe, reaching far beyond Methodism.  Wesleyan Methodists increasingly turned their attention from radical reform of society in general to the spiritualizing of the individual believer.  In fact, the 1899 General Conference indicated that it was time to change from lecturing against institutionalized sin and concentrate on "the grander, nobler work of spiritualizing" persons.  The holiness revival had profoundly redirected the Wesleyan Methodists and it brought into existence the Free Methodist Church, the Church of the Nazarene, the Pilgrim Holiness Church, the Alliance of the Reformed Baptist Church of Canada, and dozens of others, and it impacted  the Salvation Army.

             The holiness message was and is often misunderstood.  That has been at least in part the fault of some of its adherents.  Many fell into spiritual pride, into preoccupation with self—the opposite of what holiness called for.  The Bible is full of the Hebrew qadash, the Greek hagios and telios and their cognates.  Holy, holiness, saints, sanctify, sanctification, perfection—count the occurrences with reference to humans and what God demands of them.  "Be ye holy as the Lord your God is holy."  "Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect."  Of course it is not absolute perfection—that belongs to God alone.  But it calls for the fullness of the Christian life as God planned it.  Paul testifies to this in his own life while exhorting the Thessalonians to pursue it.  It is never a holiness which originates in humans, never a holiness which humans produce, never a holiness which humans achieve, never a holiness which belongs to humans.  It is a surrender of the human life so the grace of God administered by the Holy Spirit can be revealed to the full through it.  It is always God's holiness.  It is taking seriously the assurance, "I can do everything through him who gives me strength" (Phil. 4:13).

             Two elements about Wesleyan involvement in the living piety of the holiness revival stand out and demand our attention:  The depth of commitment demonstrated by ministers and members, and the depth of compassion manifested in service to humankind.

             The first example of commitment that I want to give is Eber Teter.  He was born in rural Indiana where his father's farm served as a station on the Underground Railroad, helping escaped slaves on their way to Canada.  He fought in the Civil War as a teen-ager.  He studied for the ministry at Wheaton and Adrian colleges, both of which had been started by the Wesleyan Methodists.  He was a gifted young man and vacillated for several years between the ministry and a business career.  Eventually he laid the enticements of financial security and social standing on the altar and gave his all to the Lord's work.  He became president of the Indiana Conference and saw 69 churches planted in 14 years.  Then he served as General Conference President for 28 years, and served during 18 of those years as head of both home and foreign missions, adding new conferences and new mission fields as well as Southern Wesleyan University.

             Martin Wells Knapp was one of the founders of the Pilgrim Holiness Church.  After his sanctification experience, he auctioned off his furniture to publish his first book.  He left the comfort and security of a Methodist pastorate for the uncertainties of life as a traveling evangelist.  He started a religious paper in his mother's kitchen.  He established a Bible school and helped establish overseas mission fields.  Weakened by his enormous labors he died at the age of 48.

             John Clement first served as a minister in what became the Pilgrim Holiness Church, and later spent most of his ministry in the Wesleyan Methodist Church.  He spent several years in tent-meeting evangelism in the mountains of western North Carolina at a time when the society there could be violent and dangerous.  His life was threatened and he was harassed by mobs.  Bullets were often fired through his tents, one had more than a hundred bullet holes in it.  Often he was compelled to sleep on the platform, try to keep warm under the tent flaps, wash his face and hands in a nearby creek, eat soda crackers and cheese or fast, and in blackberry season he feasted on them.  One group burned his tent.  In his unique way he bottled the ashes of the tent.  When he found another place to hold service, while he preached he held up the bottle of ashes and told his hearers he was going to take it to the judgment as a witness against their evil deeds.  It is not surprising that his persecutors sought the Lord and a great revival began.

             George W. McDonald and some other freewill Baptists in Canada heard the holiness message, believed God for a deeper work of grace.  They shared their good news with others and a significant revival broke out.  But not all in the Free Christian Baptist Church responded favorably.  McDonald and four other ministers were disfellowshipped.  Their commitment to what they believed was so strong that they gave up their church buildings and established congregations and began to meet wherever they could with whomever they could gather together.  The result was the Alliance of the Reformed Baptist Church of Canada, now the Atlantic District of The Wesleyan church in the Maritime Provinces and the state of Maine.

             Along with this intense commitment, those pursuing Christian holiness were marked by deep compassion.  They tended to redirect the old radical reform into a service of love for others.  This was in keeping with John Wesley's ministry to the dregs of English society.  He said, "The Gospel of Christ knows of no religion, but social; no holiness, but social holiness.  Faith working by love [Gal. 5:6] is the length and breadth and depth and height of Christian perfection."  He constantly defined his doctrine as living out the two great commandments, loving God with all one's being and one's neighbors as oneself.  He practiced this, visiting the prisons, comforting those being executed, gave away all of his income to aid the poor and needy, established dispensaries to provide medical care for the poor, a lending fund for poor workmen and tradesmen.  He helped start schools for the poor and supported the beginning of the Sunday school movement, which at first served the poor.  He taught that the way to redeem society was to redeem the individual.  He also encouraged his followers to use the ballot box to ease the terrible burden of child labor.  And he did all that he could to end slavery.

             The Wesleyan Methodists also reached out to their neighbors.  In the 1840s and for years afterward they had what were called "floating Bethels," ships fitted up for spiritual ministry to the world's sailors when they were in port—one in New York harbor and another up the Hudson River in Albany.

             Even before the Civil War, the Wesleyan Methodists joined with others in a mission for German immigrants in Brooklyn.  Following the war they ministered to the poverty-stricken masses in the tenements of New York City.

             One of the great blights on American society a hundred years ago was the infamous white slave traffic, in which thousands of girls were literally enslaved by cruel masters and forced to live lives of prostitution.  The Wesleyan Methodists and Pilgrims established rescue missions to reach these girls as well as alcoholics, drug addicts and other derelicts.  A typical scene in such a Pilgrim mission in St. Louis found the mission personnel praying at their altar after an evening service.  Then they moved out down the street to a house of prostitution.  They rang the doorbell.  The madam looked out the peephole and saw only the men standing in front of the mission group.  She opened the door.  The bouncer was caught napping.  The mission folk crowded in, sang gospel songs and preached the gospel.  Some girls were rescued.  Homes were established to care for them and help them start a new life, and their babies were cared for and provided for.

             In the year 1900, an orphanage named Hephzibah was established by holiness adherents near Macon, Georgia.  Eventually the lady could no longer carry on the work by herself.  The Wesleyan Methodists assumed responsibility.  We will return to this story a bit later.

             I am glad to say that what I have pictured in these stories of Wesleyans in the early years continues to the present.  Even Radical Reform is still with us.  We have a Task Force on Public Morals and Social Concerns which addresses current issues, some of them unheard of in the time of our forefathers.  Their many position papers are represented to some extent in a booklet, Standing Firm—The Wesleyan Church Speaks on Contemporary Issues.  It touches on religion in public life, war, peace and military service, racism, hunger and poverty, abuse, sharing our wealth, sexual purity and divorce, abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, AIDS, the environment.

             And on the side of living piety, not only do we continue to proclaim God's biblical call to holiness, but we see the depth of commitment and the depth of compassion still demonstrated.

             I see commitment on the rise in your generation, among those crossing the threshold of adulthood.  Ross DeMerchant, General Director of Youth in The Wesleyan Church, has assured me again and again that this rising generation is willing to sacrifice for the advancement of Christ's kingdom on earth.  We see it in our own granddaughter.  Nicole is a junior Christian ministries major at Indiana Wesleyan University.  I have always preached that Christian parents and grandparents should be delighted when God calls one of their children or grandchildren.  I was delighted when my son entered the pastoral ministry.  And I was very pleased when Nicole chose her major.  But I must confess that I swallowed hard when she told me God was calling her to be a missionary to the Muslims in Turkey—had He really called her there? Did she recognize the dangers? She is spending this semester in Egypt, with visits to other mideastern countries, learning Arabic and being exposed first hand to Islam.  And I have dealt with my concerns.  I want her to do God's will, whatever that may be.

             I see compassion on the rise among Wesleyans.  We know that Houghton College and community seek to reach out in compassion to the people of Allegany County.  We have visited a small town Wesleyan church in western Pennsylvania where they seek to meet the food needs of the unemployed miners with a church pantry all the time and free meals periodically.  We have visited an Hispanic Wesleyan Church in North Carolina.  Pastor Fermin Bocanegra has learned how to secure used dental chairs which he has installed in the church basement.  He has recruited dentists who come there to provide free dental care to needy Hispanics.  So well known is this ministry that some Hispanics saw another Wesleyan Church and went in to ask if this was the church with the dental chairs!

             Hephzibah Children's Home that I mentioned a bit ago, continues to the present.  It has been relocated, greatly enhanced and expanded, and on its campus you will find the Elizabeth Home to provide single women an alternative to abortions, where they can come to find love and care for themselves and their babies.

             And then there is World Hope International.  I am sure you have heard of its ministries, from its director, Dr. Jo Anne Lyon, a member of Houghton's board of trustees.  The Wesleyan Church created this body in 1996.  It was set off at arm's length so it could be free to seek resources from government, business and philanthropy as well as from the religious community.  Relief supplies and homes have gone to Honduras and Mozambique after natural disasters.  Food, clothing and shelter have gone to war-ravaged Sierra Leone and Liberia.  Opportunities for education and freedom from bonded servanthood have been provided in Pakistan.  Microcredit loans and training have opened up economic freedom in Cambodia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Liberia.  And mutilated victims in Sierra Leone have functional limbs once again.