Holiness in Nineteenth-Century England

History of holiness

HOLINESS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND
By David Bebbington
Paternoster. 97 pages
ISBN 0 85364 981 2

This book comprises the Didsbury Lectures for 1998, and it makes an interesting and worthwhile contribution to the series which gave us F.F. Bruce's Men and Movements in the Primitive Church and many another scholarly yet accessible work.

The book looks at four views of holiness in the 19th century: those of the High Church, including the Oxford Movement; the Calvinist Tradition; the Wesleyan Tradition; and the Keswick Movement.

In discussing the High Church tradition, the author sets the 19th-century scene. The interest here is the peppering of facts and figures: the increase in weekly eucharists, the adoption of the white surplice for ministers, the use of flowers in church, Gothic architecture, the growth of reverence within, and for, the church building. In among these is an analysis of the High Church understanding of holiness as a process of growth in godly habits, but this section of the book is more historically focused and less thematically focused than the others.

The Calvinist and Wesleyan traditions have characteristic features of holiness teaching: a focus on conversion, the cross, the Bible, and activism. The development of Calvinistic theology away from double predestination gave an opening for an understanding of the importance of exertion in spiritual life. The author sees the growth of missions and evangelism, together with an emphasis on learning and meetings as characteristic outworkings of 19th-century Calvinist holiness. Wesleyanism shared many of these concerns, and indeed took very seriously its role in educating and civilising the people. But its holiness teaching developed along the lines laid down by its founder's notions of an experience of 'entire sanctification'. These two chapters helpfully outline the main points of the views of holiness inherited by Calvinism and Wesleyanism, illustrating them from contemporary sources as far as possible.

The Keswick tradition of 'sanctification by faith' is seen as a transatlantic import, and one that depended as much, in origin, on personalities as on ideas. Nevertheless it became the 'backbone of 20th-century conservative Evangelicalism'. Once again the main characteristics of Keswick holiness teaching and the development of the movement are discussed.

One of the attractions of this book is that it identifies interactions between cultural trends and the perception of holiness. The two main influences were from the Enlightenment and Romanticism. So the High Church and Keswick traditions were influenced more by Romanticism (fresh flowers and beautiful scenery, among many more significant aspects), and the Calvinist and Wesleyan traditions were affected more by Enlightenment rationalism, moralism, pragmatism and optimism. This points to the limitations of the book: these named influences can only ever be a kind of shorthand for the complex developments of thought and tradition that were going on. The book is admirably brief and clear, but the broad-brush picture inevitably lacks detail. The author is fully aware of this, of course, and so he restricts his claim to originality to his taking holiness seriously both as an idea and as a religious, social and cultural phenomenon. This strikes me as a very considerable contribution, and one that I hope will set a trend for future studies.

There is something in this book for most readers. It is well grounded in the sources. It is accessibly written and there are ample references to historical literature for following up the ideas. The author does not pursue the question as to what current notions of holiness might be, and how they might make an impact on our world, but this book will stimulate the thoughtful reader to consider that question. Bebbington convincingly makes the case that holiness matters.

History of holiness

Paul Cavill, Leicester

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