Tracking the Global Reach of Revitalization - Spring 2006

A Review of Stephan Holthaus, Heil, Heilung, Heiligung; Die Geschichte der deutschen Heiligungs- und Evangelizationsbewegung, 1874–1909) [Salvation, Healing, Sanctification–– The History of the German Holiness and Evangelization Movement (1874–1909)]. Giessen: Brunnen Verlag, 2005. 707 pp. 

Many studies have explored the reach of the Wesleyan-based holiness movement in North America and the United Kingdom, but surprisingly the extensive influence of that movement in German-speaking regions has been neglected. Melvin Dieter in his classic study of the 19th-century holiness movement drew attention to the need for in-depth examination of the movement’s impact on German culture, but Anglo scholars have shown scant interest in taking up the challenge.

Now that task has been carefully executed by German free-church historian Stephan Holthaus, “Dozent” (instructor) for church history and ethics at the Free Theological Academy at Giessen. Holthaus locates his discussion in the context of the Anglo-American holiness and evangelization movements of the 19th century, introducing his German readers to John Wesley, John Fletcher, Phoebe Palmer, the Oberlin school, and such non-Wesleyan (Reformed) representatives as W. E. Boardman, A. B. Simpson, and C. G. Trumbull. The institutionalizing of the holiness movement via the National Campmeeting Association for the Promotion of Holiness (from 1867) and the formation of numerous holiness denominations is interpreted in Teutonic fashion as the “confessionalizing” of the movement.

The work of Finney, Moody, and R. A. Torrey is treated as a separate, parallel “evangelization” movement that was “closely linked” to the holiness movement. Holthaus sees Torrey as the source for the contemporary global movement of conservative evangelicalism, known in German as Evangelikalismus. In fact, Torrey was a key influence in the rise of fundamentalism, serving as an editor of The Fundamentals (1910–1915).

The problem with treating these as two parallel movements is that Methodism was also concerned with evangelization, and Finney’s evangelistic ministry was strongly focused on holiness. A more helpful distinction, which this study does not adopt, is between those persons and groups that were essentially Wesleyan and transformationalist in their view of culture and those that reflected more the influences of 19th-century Scottish commonsense realism with a defensive apologetic against liberal theology, Darwin, and bourgeoisie cultural accommodation (Moody and Torrey). Part of the difference lay in their respective attitudes toward eschatology, Wesleyans tending toward postmillennialism and non-Wesleyan evangelicals favoring premillennialism. As Dieter has shown, Moody and Torrey contributed to the rise of a “positional” view of holiness (the Reformed or Keswick expression) that stresses imputation over impartation and victory over sin rather than its cleansing, as in the Wesleyan view. An advantage of the latter categories is that they clarify points of continuity between Wesleyan holiness advocates and earlier streams of German Pietism, which closely prefigured Wesley’s view of transforming grace (especially in Tersteegen).

The Smiths (Robert Pearsall and Hannah Whitall) form the bridge between the Anglo-American and the German phases of the holiness movement. Their success at the Oxford and Brighton holiness conferences, bridged by their sensational albeit short-lived evangelistic tour of the Continent in 1874, provides entrée for Holthaus’ extensive treatment of a host of figures in  the movement’s German phase. Leading representatives include Carl Heinrich Rappard (seminal figure in the Swiss holiness movement), Otto Stockmayer (who mediated themes from the Oxford conference to the Protestant Landeskirchen, or state churches), Freiherr Julius von Gemmingen (social reformer), and Theodor Jellinghaus—erstwhile Lutheran theologian who became, for a season, the dogmatician of the German Gemeinschaftsbewegung, the “fellowship movement” which permeated the parish structures of the Landeskirchen.

Second-tier leaders in Holthaus’ analysis are categorized as (1) those mediating Keswick themes, appearing in the German conferences of the British-based international free church association, known as the Evangelical Alliance, and in the Tersteegenruh conferences of the Ruhr region; (2) interconfessional evangelization and mission crusades centered in the “German Evangelization Union” inspired by Elias Schrenk, the German version of Charles Finney, as well as a host of “tent missions,” “faith missions,” and a coterie of holiness-oriented, free-standing Bible and mission schools; (3) regional leaders and societies of the “fellowship movement” (Gemeinschaftsbewegung) within the state churches; (4) the free churches (including Methodism) which mediated the holiness themes; (5) literature and publishing centers in Germany; (6) centers of the healing movement in Germany, which built on the earlier work of the Blumhardts in Württemberg; (7) women leaders (including Dora Rappard, the “Mother” of the German holiness movement); (8) hymnists (such as Ernst Gebhardt, Robert Pearsall Smith’s song leader); and (9) influences on the rise of Pentecostalism in Germany after 1908.

Methodism, the leading channel for the holiness movement in America and England, appears in Holthaus’ treatment as a marginal player in the German context. The leading spokespersons were also apologists for the state churches in an age when free churches were under suspicion and repression.

The author’s well documented study unfortunately does not reflect recent research by Laurence Wood on Wesley and Fletcher which demonstrates their reliance upon the language of Pentecost and Spirit baptism as the context for the doctrine of Christian perfection. Holthaus’ research shows genuine continuity, not discontinuity, between primitive Methodism and the 19th-century holiness movement in its linkage of Spirit baptism and entire sanctification.

Holthaus presents the work of Bishop John Escher and hymnist Gottlob Fuessle under the heading of Methodism in Germany. In fact they were German representatives of the Evangelical Association (Evangelische Gemeinschaft), the leading German-American holiness denomination, founded by Jacob Albright, which had launched its mission to the German Fatherland in 1848. On p. 300 he refers to them by the incorrect title of the United Brethren in Christ, which refers to the Otterbein-Boehm movement, whose German mission was united with the Episcopal Methodists in Germany in 1906. Evangelicals were not united with German Episcopal Methodism until 1968, when the Evangelisch-methodistische Kirche (United Methodist Church) was formed. 

These concerns do not negate Holthaus’ solid contribution to understanding the international scope of the 19th-century holiness revival. Readers will sense the urgency of the author’s hope that an historical understanding of how Christianity was given new birth amid the crises of faith in that day may offer insight and encouragement toward revitalization amid the languishing condition of vital Christianity in contemporary German culture.

-J. Steven O'Malley