Brad Estep

A Post-Reformation Model of Worship: Holiness Worship

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The Holiness Movement did not readily record its liturgy. Worship followed a common pattern familiar to its members. A reporter describing a camp meeting in Quinebaug, Connecticut, wrote: “Meetings were held from day to day, after the usual order.” The scarcity of printed orders of worship makes exploration of this topic difficult. There are, however, some prose descriptions of portions of worship that provide sufficient information to reconstruct a typical revivalistic, camp meeting service.

Introduction

The last fifteen years of the nineteenth century were marked by controversy within the Holiness Movement. Some had chosen to “come-out” of older denominations in which holiness, in their minds, was not preached and practiced. Others relied upon holiness associations to carry on the work. These associations were established to provide means of proclaiming the Wesleyan doctrine of holiness. Meetings were arranged so that they did not conflict with the services of the established churches. These associations became increasingly interdenominational, and served as havens for persons who were in conflict with those who did not share the same understanding of this doctrine. Within a very few years, independent churches were formed from members of the holiness associations who had either “come-out” or had been removed from membership in the older denominations. These independent churches organized camp meetings and banded together for support and fellowship.

Beulah Christian was an interdenominational periodical published in the 1890s from Providence, Rhode Island. The masthead of the paper quoted a portion of 1 Thessalonians 5:23 (“the very God of peace sanctify you wholly”). The Holiness Movement rallied around this verse and others like it. This periodical was devoted to promulgating the message of holiness, and specifically to spreading the doctrine of entire sanctification. It included topical articles, news, and schedules of various camp and holiness association meetings, and testimonials to spiritual experience. The “Camp Meeting Calendar” in the issue of July 1896, listed no less than forty-seven different camp meetings for the months of July through September alone. The list included meetings from Great Falls, Montana, to Marshall, Texas, to Rock, Massachusetts. These meetings were generally a week to ten days in length. Camp meetings and camp meeting worship was in abundant supply.

We know that singing was a part of camp meeting services because of announcements which included this element. Participants in the meeting were expected to bring their own songbooks. In Beulah Christian (July, 1896), an announcement of the Douglas (Mass.) Camp Meeting read: “Rev. B. Caradine, and many other prominent ministers will be present. Rev. A. Hartt will lead the singing. Voice of Triumph will be used.” The announcement of a different camp meeting in the same issue informed attenders: “Mr. and Mrs. D. O. Chapman will lead the singing. Bring Voice of Triumph and Good News in Song.” Congregational singing, however, was not the only singing that occurred. At the Rock, Massachusetts Camp Meeting in August of 1896: “Bro. Lee was on hand to sing.” “I feel the fire burning in my heart,” and “I’ve just come from the fountain, Lord.” Singing was characterized by freedom of expression and spontaneous emotion. As one reported: “There was great liberty in the Spirit, and at times the songs and shouts of victory would for some moments sweep over the meeting. Glory to God forever!” Camp meetings, however, cannot be caricatured simply as shouting and emotional frenzies. One reported: “Interest was manifested at times by an impressive stillness, and again by shouts and other unmistakable demonstrations of joy.” Another writer attempted to squelch some of the inaccurate stories of the physical manifestations which accompanied the camp meeting: “The truth of the matter is that there was a noticeable lack of undue excitement in the meeting.”

In the evening, Bro. R. S. Robson of Boston, sang, “When I see the blood I will pass over you.” After prayer, and while the congregation were [sic] singing, “Rivers of Love,” a wave of glory came upon the people, and shouts of holy triumph were heard from many who were in touch with God. Rev. C. H. Bevier preached a sermon full of holy inspiration, from Ezekiel’s vision of the river. On invitation at the close, a large number were at the altar, who gave evidence of finding real victory in God.

Preaching, concluded by a call to conversion or commitment, was the climactic part of every worship service. Often when no mention was made of the other elements of the service, the effects of preaching were reported. Preaching was “earnest,” “soul-stirring,” and often lengthy. Although the duration of the sermon was infrequently mentioned, Beulah Christian (May, 1897) reported: “At three, Rev. G. W. Wilson preached. For two hours, the people gave rapt attention to the mighty words of life.”

An invitation to a camp meeting in Danielson, Connecticut in August of 1897 accurately summarized the purpose and design of revivalistic worship. “The design of these meetings is the conversion of sinners, the entire sanctification of believers, and the promotion of genuine Christian life and efficiency.” This was the character of worship in the camp meeting tradition of the late nineteenth-century Holiness Movement.

Holiness Worship in the Post-Reformation Period

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The holiness movement traces its origins to John Wesley. The worship of the holiness churches, however, was shaped primarily by the liturgical forms of the camp meeting movement.

In 1784 John Wesley recognized the establishment of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America and attempted to offer guidance for its worship through the publication of his revision of The Book of Common Prayer. Wesley’s work was entitled The Sunday Service of the Methodists in North America and Other Occasional Services. Elements that survived Wesley’s abridgment of The Book of Common Prayer included morning and evening prayer, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, rites of ordination (for deacons, elders, and superintendents), the Psalms, the litany and collects, and Epistles and Gospels for the Lord’s Supper. Worship was to be marked by weekly sacramental celebration. The Sunday Service, however, was never widely accepted or used in America. Wesley had not accurately perceived the North American situation, nor had he anticipated the influence of Francis Asbury, the General Superintendent. The “father of American Methodism” was not committed to worship in the prayer book tradition. By the general conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1892, only one year after the death of Wesley, the restructuring of worship was apparent. The Sunday Service, a book of more than three hundred pages, had been reduced to fewer than forty pages of “Sacramental Services, &c” which were included within the church’s Discipline. What remained of Wesley’s services were the orders for baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and ordination. An order of worship was also included in the 1792 Discipline; the standard, however, was no longer a service of Word and sacrament, but one in which evangelistic proclamation, occasionally followed by eucharistic celebration, was primary.

Within ten years of the 1792 Discipline, camp meeting religion was crossing the frontier. Although originally an interdenominational enterprise, camp meetings quickly became predominantly Methodist institutions. Methodism’s theology, organization, and evangelistic fervor were well suited to the challenge of an isolated, often illiterate, and largely unchurched populace. Camp meetings provided fellowship with rarely seen neighbors and relief from the hardships and monotony of life on the frontier. Worship utilized simple and repetitive “gospel songs.” Above all, camp meeting religion called the unchurched to a conversion experience.

By the 1820s, the simple, evangelistic worship model of the camp meeting was being appropriated by revivalists like Charles G. Finney to meet the challenge of the new frontier, the unconverted city. The rise of revivalism ran parallel to an increasing emphasis upon the doctrine of holiness as understood by John Wesley. In the same year that Finney published Lectures on Revivals of Religion (1835), Sarah Lankford and Phoebe Palmer began, in New York City, the “Tuesday Meetings for the Promotion of Holiness.” By 1839, Timothy Merritt’s Guide to Christian Perfection provided the holiness movement with a vehicle to promote the cause and to publish the effects of this recovered doctrine. No longer was worship intended solely to call the unconverted to conversion; it was also to call the converted Christian to a complete consecration. The holiness movement appropriated for its own purposes the prevalent revivalistic model of worship consisting of singing, praying, preaching, and the call to response (“harvest”). The holiness movement of the nineteenth century was not a movement of liturgical reform; it was, rather, the revival of a doctrinal emphasis perceived to have been lost. The origins of the Church of the Nazarene, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, the Wesleyan church, and the Pentecostal movement can be traced to the era and theological thrust of the holiness movement.