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How did the Wesleyan Holiness Study Project begin?

The genesis was about four years ago at a breakfast conversation with Fuller Seminary librarian Dave Bundy and historian Don Dayton. We were talking about the way in which the whole Holiness message had so shaped the history of the church, and yet it seemed as though it had gotten submerged in the last 50 years. That message had been recast as the "don'ts" of behavior. Wouldn't it be nice, we thought, if we could rearticulate the holiness message. The first option was to hold an academic conference. But I wasn't interested in having an academic symposium, because those can very easily be relegated to the shelves of irrelevancy and never seen again.

So I contacted some of the core denominations that have Holiness as their heritage—particularly in those that I'm familiar with, the Free Methodists, the Nazarenes, the Wesleyans, and then the Church of God (Anderson).

You've been a Free Methodist bishop?

Right. I knew that this message was in our past, but we really haven't been able to see its impact on the history of the church.

More importantly, it was important to say two things. Number one, the Holiness message has convening substance for creating unity in the church, because increasingly people are interested in what holiness is—from the Roman Catholics to the Vineyards, the Calvary Chapels, and so forth. Our denominations are sitting on this heritage, and we need to share it with the broader church.

Second, it has the ability to focus the future mission of the church. I began to contact some of these church leaders, including the board of bishops of the Free Methodist Church, the Nazarene generals, and the Salvation Army national commander. And in every case, I found a fairly significant level of interest in at least having a conversation.

So I said to them, if you will send me three of your best minds and some money, we can put together a three-year project to meet once a year for two days and begin this conversation. It was tilted to the academic side, but we always kept it zeroed in on practical application in the local church context and leadership development, because that's where the future of the church comes from.

Many denominations formed in reaction to what they saw as the Methodist establishment veering away from holiness. Why was it later obscured?

One of the factors that has caused it to be submerged is that holiness largely is a theological emphasis that comes out of poor churches dealing with the disenfranchised in the late 19th century. These are not the wealthiest denominations, and they are not the ones that exert the greatest amount of influence.

B. T. Roberts formed the Free Methodists precisely to bring the gospel to the poor.

Exactly. And obviously, the Salvation Army did the same thing on the southwest side of London. And relatively speaking, they're not the most influential denominations.

Secondly, they did not have a well articulated, nor a printed means to convey the Holiness message. By its very nature, Holiness comes out of a Wesleyan construct that is largely built upon descriptive or experiential theology as opposed to propositional truths.

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March (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50