Methodism and Fundamentalism: A Survey
by Mark Sidwell
This article originally appeared in Biblical Viewpoint 29, no. 2 (November 1995): 89-102. © 1995 Bob Jones University. All rights reserved. Permission to copy or distribute this article must be secured in writing from the editors of Biblical Viewpoint.
It is a truism in the study of the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy that the major Protestant denomination least touched by that conflict was Methodism. While the Baptists and the Presbyterians were rocked with storms, the Methodists escaped with a few small tempests. Historians have offered various theories about why Methodism enjoyed such relative calm. Stewart Cole suggests two factors: first, Methodism’s historic stress on the spiritual life of the individual rather than doctrinal questions and, second, its centralized hierarchical government.1 Norman F. Furniss maintains that it was Methodism’s history of a less “rigid,” more “evolutionary” view of the Bible and the Christian life.2 Robert Sledge identifies one “cause for the weak roots of fundamentalism in Southern Methodism” as “the fact that it was not a creed-oriented denomination. . . . Methodists believed as much in an orthodoxy of behavior as in an orthodoxy of belief.”3
Still, many Methodist individuals and groups both during and since the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy identified themselves with Fundamentalism. The topic of Methodist Fundamentalism, however, has not been nearly so well thrashed out by historians as it has for other groups.4 It is the purpose of this brief study to outline four broad areas pertaining to the issue: the relationship of the Holiness movement to Fundamentalism, the limited but genuine activity by Methodists against Modernism in the major denominations, the contributions of some individual Methodists to Fundamentalism, and the rise of independent Fundamentalist Methodist bodies.
The Holiness Movement and Fundamentalism
The first question confronting the historian is the relationship of the Holiness movement to Fundamentalism. It is far beyond the scope of this brief article to offer more than a sketch of the history of this movement.5 Basically, adherents to the Holiness position claimed as their foundation the teachings of the Methodist founding fathers, notably John Wesley and the teaching of Christian holiness set forth in his Plain Account of Christian Perfection (1763).6 The distinctive doctrine of the Holiness movement was known variously as “eradication” or “the second blessing.” By this was meant a special work of grace by the Holy Spirit following conversion in which all traces of the sinful nature inherited from Adam were cleansed away and a believer was enabled to live free from conscious sin. To promote their views, adherents to the Holiness position published books, pamphlets, and periodicals, and they organized small cells of believers who met weekly to promote both Holiness teaching and their own personal growth in holiness. Many Holiness Methodists wrote gospel hymns and songs (e.g., “The Cleansing Wave” and “Beulah Land”). Above all, advocates used revival meetings and especially camp meetings to rally believers to their cause. Most Holiness Methodists hoped (and some in the Methodist hierarchy feared) that they could capture both the Methodist Episcopal Church, North, and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, for the Holiness cause.
The Holiness movement made its most concerted effort to transform Methodism in the second half of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth. The consequent growth of the movement and the opposition encountered from the bulk of the Methodist leadership created two schools of thought within the Holiness movement. On the one hand were those determined to stay in their respective church (either the northern or the southern branch of Methodism) and promote Holiness teaching from within. Holiness evangelist and educator Henry Clay Morrison (1857-1942) is a good example of this position.7 Despite opposition to his teachings by many leaders of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (even to the point of temporarily expelling him), Morrison remained a loyal member of the denomination. As president of Asbury College in Kentucky and founder of Asbury Theological Seminary, he made those institutions centers of Holiness influence within the southern church.
On the other side were the “come-outers.” These were groups that believed that Holiness teaching would never be accepted by the mainline Methodist denominations and that the only logical course of action was to separate and form independent Holiness bodies. The Free Methodist Church, founded in 1860, pioneered the separatist course. Later in the nineteenth century it was followed by many others, notably the Church of the Nazarene (1895), the Pilgrim Holiness Church (1897), and the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana; 1880).
In short, like Fundamentalism, the Holiness movement arose as a protest against tendencies in the mainline denominations. It was doctrinally orthodox and placed great stress on revival and holy living. Its adherents contended earnestly for their beliefs against the apathy and outright hostility of much of their denominational hierarchy. As a result, some advocates of Holiness teaching formed separate churches while others preferred to stay within the major denominations as a sort of puritan movement.
This brief summary highlights some of the similarities between Fundamentalism and the Holiness movement, but it would be overly simplistic to designate the movement as “Methodist Fundamentalism.” The first among the numerous differences is the basic fact that Fundamentalism emerged later than the Holiness movement as a distinct movement and in a somewhat different context. If the two movements were essentially similar, then one would expect the older movement to ally closely with the newer one, as the Waldensians did in aligning with the Protestant cause in the Reformation. But such an alliance between Methodist Holiness and Fundamentalism did not occur.
There seems to have been some natural sympathy between the two movements when Fundamentalism did emerge but rarely to the point of identification. This sympathy is seen, for example, in the warm treatment of H. C. Morrison by Fundamentalist leaders and writers.8 Also one can cite affinities between the movements: on the one hand a Fundamentalist appreciation for Holiness teaching (although usually of the Keswick, non-Wesleyan variety) and on the other, an inerrantist understanding of the inspiration of Scripture and an embrace of premillennialism among some Holiness groups. Yet even these affinities are suspect as generalizations. Keswick teaching is not the same as Wesleyan teaching (involving among other things the “suppression” rather then the “eradication” of the old nature by the Holy Spirit), and it was far from a majority of Fundamentalists that approved of even Keswick teaching. Likewise, explicit inerrancy and premillennialism seem to have been held by only a minority of Holiness Christians. In fact, Paul Merritt Bassett and Susan Stanley maintain that such ideas as inerrancy and premillennialism were imports from Fundamentalism and not endemic to Holiness teaching.9
In short, the evidence does not provide a sufficient basis for uniting the two movements historically. Even if one discounts the common limitation of Fundamentalism to premillennial dispensationalists (and one should indeed question that limitation), there was no wholesale embrace by one movement of the other. In fact, the two movements were often suspicious of each other. Representative perhaps is Fundamentalist leader H. A. Ironside, a former member of the Salvation Army, who criticized Holiness teaching. He wrote, “I have found a far higher standard maintained by believers who intelligently reject the eradication theory than among those who accept it.” Ironside went on to charge Holiness teaching with fostering spiritual pride and uncharitable legalism and descending into “superstition and fanaticism of the grossest character.”10 In turn, as Susan Stanley notes in the course of her article, many Holiness leaders were critical of aspects of Fundamentalism.11 Furthermore, each movement possessed elements that have no parallel in the other. The Holiness movement, for example, had a strong African American wing, a development for which there is absolutely no parallel in Fundamentalism. Even the central focus differed: Fundamentalism tended to focus on doctrine whereas the Holiness movement centered more on experience.
Nonetheless, one should not simply dismiss the activities of these Methodist conservatives as being of no consequence to Fundamentalism. In searching for the reasons for the lack of a Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy within Methodism, historians might do well to weigh the impact of the Holiness movement. Perhaps it preempted a Fundamentalist movement by channeling conservative energies and separatist tendencies among the Methodists before the controversy ever began. Those orthodox Christians willing to separate from their denomination over a matter of principle had already come out by the 1920s. Those remaining in the church had already made a conscious commitment to their denomination. This idea is inadequate to explain completely the weakness of Methodist Fundamentalism, but it is a thought worth pursuing through further research.
Methodism in the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy
When the historian deals with the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy, and not simply Fundamentalism as a movement, he moves into the realm of denominational conflict. In whatever denomination it took place, the “controversy” was basically a battle over whether liberalism would be limited and/or excluded or whether all viewpoints would be included and Modernism therefore tolerated. Fundamentalists obviously argued for exclusion. One candidate for the role of a thoroughgoing Fundamentalist controversialist within Methodism is evangelist L. W. Munhall (1843-1934). He was heavily involved in the prophetic conferences that helped give rise to Fundamentalism, even leading the Seaside Bible Conference in Asbury Park, New Jersey.12 Later he wrote two articles for The Fundamentals, “Inspiration” and “The Doctrines that Must Be Emphasized in Successful Evangelism,” and served on the executive committee of W. B. Riley’s World’s Christian Fundamentals Association (WCFA).
Within the Methodist Episcopal Church, North, Munhall participated in the quadrennial General Conferences in an attempt to present an orthodox testimony. There he opposed the inclusion of liberal teaching in Methodist publications and joined a vain fight to preserve the denomination’s stand against “sinful amusements.” Munhall wrote extensively in defense of orthodoxy, notably the books The Highest Critics vs. the Higher Critics and Breakers! Methodism Adrift,13 the latter of which detailed both examples of Methodist drift from orthodoxy and the evangelist’s own efforts to turn the tide. Munhall, however, never succeeded in rousing denominational conservatives enough to make a large-scale impact.
Roughly analogous to J. Gresham Machen as a literary apologist for orthodoxy in the Methodist context is John Alfred Faulkner (1857-1931), professor of church history at Drew Theological Seminary. Like Machen in Christianity and Liberalism, Faulkner sought to outline the differences between orthodox Christianity and liberalism in his Modernism and the Christian Faith.14 Although striking a moderate tone (probably more so than Machen), Faulkner drew lines between the increasingly dominant liberal theology and historic orthodoxy. In concluding his chapter “Ritschl or Wesley?” he said, “If in those central verities of our Christian religion which Wesley again made regnant among men we forsake him for Ritschl, it will indeed be the Great Surrender, sad and causeless, and so far a betrayal of the faith once delivered to the saints.”15
Faulkner also wrote for the periodical of a movement sometimes labeled “Fundamentalist” within Methodism during the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy. This movement usually goes under the name “Essentialism.” Its leader was Harold P. Sloan (1881-1961), a pastor in the New Jersey Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, North.16 Like L. W. Munhall, Sloan tried to raise protests at the quadrennial General Conferences over the liberal drift of the denomination. He focused particularly on liberalism among the seminary professors and in the denominational literature. To further his cause, Sloan founded the Methodist League for Faith and Life in 1924, and began publishing The Call to Colors in 1925, changing its name to The Essentialist in 1927. Sloan won some sympathy for his views and drew some Southern Methodists and even Lutherans to his organization. But he won few denominational battles.
Sloan’s relationship with Fundamentalist leaders illustrates the different shape that militant Methodist orthodoxy took in his organization. Sloan spoke at Fundamentalist gatherings, such as W. B. Riley’s WCFA meetings, and taught some sessions at the Fundamentalist Winona Lake School of Theology. He was a postmillennialist, however, and clashed with Riley over eschatology. Even more disturbing to Fundamentalists such as Charles Trumbull was Sloan’s rejection of inerrancy, although Sloan insisted that he held unswervingly to the authority of Scripture.17 Questions such as these kept Methodist Essentialism a step apart from the “mainstream” Fundamentalism of leaders such as Riley, and denominational opposition kept Essentialism marginal within Methodism.
Independent Methodist Fundamentalists
Outside the denominational battles, or as they might be more appropriately labeled in the Methodist context, denominational skirmishes, several Methodists pursued independent ministries within Fundamentalism and even helped shape the movement. For instance, two important early prophecy teachers and writers, W. E. Blackstone and Arno C. Gaebelein, were both Methodists. George Marsden calls Blackstone’s Jesus Is Coming (1878) “the most popular book associated with the [prophetic] movement through World War I.”18 Gaebelein was likewise influential, but he left the Methodist church in 1899 because of what he perceived as the unchecked growth of liberalism. He departed over the objections of fellow Methodist L. W. Munhall who tried to persuade Gaebelein to stay in and “fight them as hard as you can.”19 Their disagreement foreshadowed the later split among Fundamentalists between the separatists, who left the major denominations, and the “puritans,” who stayed in hopes of reforming from within.
Southern Methodist evangelist Bob Jones, Sr. (1883-1968), was heavily active in the interdenominational variety of Fundamentalism. After several years of notable success in evangelism, Jones became concerned with the liberalism in denominational Methodist schools and founded Bob Jones College (later Bob Jones University) in 1927. Most of the early students and staff were Methodist, and the school’s creed was written by Methodist evangelist Sam Small, a former associate of Sam Jones. But Jones operated the college on the same nondenominational basis as he had his evangelistic campaigns. Within a few years Methodists had become a minority in the student body. Jones himself became dismayed with the growth of Modernism in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and he finally severed virtually all ties to the denomination in the 1930s in protest over a liberal speaker in the local Methodist church to which he belonged. His son, Bob Jones, Jr. (b. 1911), left the Methodist church at the same time and eventually gravitated to the Baptists.20
When Jones, Sr., broke with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, he nonetheless maintained a presence in the group by placing his membership in Trinity Methodist Church in Los Angeles, pastored by “Fighting Bob” Shuler (1880-1965).21 Shuler was one of the most visible Fundamentalists within Methodism. His long ministry at Trinity Church (1920-53) and his periodicals (notably The Methodist Challenge) were only part of the reason for his fame. Shuler was also a pioneer in religious broadcasting, operating his own radio station until his license was revoked. He also took the role of a civic reformer, denouncing gambling, political corruption, and alcohol. A contemporary newspaper called him “Savonarola in Los Angeles.”22 The Los Angeles preacher even ran for the U.S. Senate from California in 1932 on the Prohibition ticket (winning twenty-five percent of the vote) in 1942 waged an unsuccessful campaign as a Republican to unseat a Democratic incumbent in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Shuler was a controversialist religiously as well as politically. He constantly denounced the ministry of Pentecostal Aimee Semple McPherson, also headquartered in Los Angeles. He spoke out against denominational liberalism and helped lead the successful fight to halt the first attempt to unite the northern and southern branches of Methodism in 1926. (The merger was finally consummated in 1939.) In the late 1950s, he became the leading Methodist spokesman against Billy Graham and the New Evangelicalism. Yet Shuler never left the Methodist Episcopal Church. He argued, “God has given me an ever-widening horizon of influence, … which would cease to be as effective if I should unite with some other Methodist group.” He added, “I believe God is using me, humble instrument that I am, in bringing the Church to face her hour of decision as to whether she will continue to be a genuine Methodist Church or become some kind of social, economic and political movement under ecclesiastical direction.”23
Fundamentalist Methodist Bodies
By 1968 the Methodist Episcopal Church, North; the Methodist Episcopal Church, South; and other bodies had completed a series of mergers that resulted in the formation of the United Methodist Church. In distinct contrast to this large mainline church were several smaller bodies that were overtly, vocally Fundamentalist. J. Gordon Melton identifies at least eight groups that can be labeled in some sense Fundamentalist.24 Two illustrative case studies concerning these groups are the turbulent controversies within the Evangelical Methodist Church and the Southern Methodist Church.
The Evangelical Methodist Church was born in 1946 under the leadership of J. H. Hamblen (1877-1971) and W. W. Breckbill (d. 1974), who had both formed independent Methodist congregations in protest against liberalism.25 The group attracted numerous Methodist pastors and laymen who were dismayed with the course of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In a few years, however, the denomination split over Holiness teaching and theological associations. Hamblen headed the majority group centered in the West that maintained an emphasis on Wesleyan Holiness teaching. Breckbill led the more eastern group, which took the name Evangelical Methodist Church of America, that protested not only Hamblen’s Holiness doctrine but also the denomination’s association with the National Association of Evangelicals. The Breckbill group repudiated the NAE and the New Evangelicalism and aligned with the ardently Fundamentalist American Council of Christian Churches (ACCC) and the International Council of Christian Churches (ICCC).
The story of the Southern Methodist Church illustrates even more graphically these tensions.26 It began in 1934 as a protest group against the looming union of the northern and southern churches that took place in 1939. The new group opposed not only the liberal theology they saw being imported into the southern church by the merger but also the probability of racial integration, a concern shared by some other Methodist schisms of the period.27 The group claimed to be the true continuation of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and actually went to court to keep the name. They lost their case and adopted the name Southern Methodist Church, the name commonly used to refer to the old southern denomination.
The Southern Methodist Church aligned itself with the Fundamentalist movement, joining the ACCC and ICCC. The rise of the New Evangelicalism sparked a major controversy within the denomination, however. In the late 1960s the Southern Methodist Church was the scene of fierce debate over the relationship of the denomination to other conservative Christians who maintained ties to inclusive organizations such as the National Council of Churches and the United Methodist Church. The strict separatists rejected any alliance with such Christians, but in 1970 the majority voted to modify its articles of faith to allow such fellowship. Furthermore the church adopted a “Majority Decision of the Ministers on the Doctrine of Separation” that affirmed the necessity of separation from liberalism and apostasy but expressly rejected the idea of separation from a fellow Christian on the basis of his religious associations. The following year the Southern Methodist Church officially withdrew from the ACCC and ICCC. Many in the minority faction then left the church, some forming the Asbury Bible Churches and others uniting in the John Wesley Fellowship and the Francis Asbury Society of Ministers.
Missing even from this discussion of smaller, Fundamentalist Methodist bodies are the independent Methodist congregations, the hardest group to categorize and quantify. Following what has become a dominant pattern in Fundamentalism in general, some Methodist churches have pursued a path of absolute independence from any denominational body. Often, such an independent spirit results from disenchantment with other forms of organized Methodism. The case of Frank Washburn (b. 1920) is an example. Tracing his call to the Methodist ministry to the inspiration of H. C. Morrison, Washburn began with the Methodist Episcopal Church but left over the growth of liberalism and allied with J. H. Hamblen and the Evangelical Methodist Church. Then, becoming dismayed with tendencies within that group after Hamblen’s death—notably what he saw as a New Evangelical openness to the Charismatic movement—Washburn finally became an independent and reorganized his church in Danville, Virginia, as an independent Methodist congregation.28 The difficulty for the historian in studying independents like Washburn is the lack of available resources through standard channels of research, such as the records and reports of a denominational headquarters or periodical, and even more the simple challenge of becoming aware of the existence of such ministries in the first place. Yet these congregations are a part of the mosaic of Methodist Fundamentalism.
Concluding Thoughts
As these few pages indicate, there has been much preliminary study of Methodism and Fundamentalism, but there are many topics left to research. The relationship of the Holiness movement to Fundamentalism is still an unsettled question. The two clearly cannot be equated, but the careers of men such as J. H. Hamblen suggest that there might be more affinity between the two than is commonly thought. The Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy within Methodism is another subject in which the work done so far is more intriguing than definitive. Studies of independent Methodist Fundamentalists that focus on how their Methodist heritage shaped their Fundamentalism would be welcome additions to the literature. Finally, histories of small Methodist Fundamentalist denominations or even specific congregations could provide a better picture of the relationship of Methodism to Fundamentalism and lend an up-close, “grass roots” view that might capture details lost in a broader survey. These and other lines of research could provide topics for further, deeper study of Methodism’s relationship to Fundamentalism.
Notes
1 Stewart Cole, The History of Fundamentalism (New York: Richard R. Smith, 1931), pp. 190-91.
2 Norman F. Furniss, The Fundamentalist Controversy, 1918-1931 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954), p. 148.
3 Robert Watson Sledge, Hands on the Ark: The Struggle for Change in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 1914-1939 (Lake Junaluska, North Carolina: Commission on Archives and History, The United Methodist Church, 1975), pp. 143-44.
4 The notes throughout the article will provide an introductory guide to the literature on Fundamentalism and Methodism. Some good overall sources as are as follows. On the Methodist Episcopal Church, North, see Cole, pp. 163-92; William J. McCutcheon, “American Thought and Theology, 1919-1960,” in The History of American Methodism (New York: Abingdon Press, 1964), 3:261-327, especially pp. 267-73; and Robert Charles Calderwood, “The Fundamentalist Movement in the Methodist Episcopal Church” (master’s thesis, University of Chicago, 1927). Although Calderwood is obviously dated, he provides a good summary as far as he goes. Furniss, pp. 148-61, covers controversies within both the northern and southern branches of American Methodism. David O. Beale, In Pursuit of Purity: American Fundamentalism Since 1850 (Greenville, S.C.: Unusual Publications, 1986), pp. 303-14, provides both a Fundamentalist critique of mainline Methodism and a brief introduction to Methodist Fundamentalism. Sledge’s Hands on the Ark is an excellent work on conservative-progressive struggle within the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
5 For good introductions to the history of the Holiness movement, see Melvin Easterday Dieter, The Holiness Revival of the Nineteenth Century (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1980), and Charles Edwin Jones, Perfectionist Persuasion: The Holiness Movement and American Methodism, 1867-1936 (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1974). For further guidance in research on the Holiness movement, see Charles Edwin Jones, A Guide to the Study of the Holiness Movement, ATLA Bibliography Series, no. 1 (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1974), and Donald W. Dayton, The American Holiness Movement: A Bibliographical Introduction, Occasional Bibliographic Papers of the B. L. Fisher Library (Wilmore, Ky.: B. L. Fisher Library, Asbury Theological Seminary, 1971).
6 For a sympathetic evaluation from a Fundamentalist viewpoint of Wesley’s teaching concerning sanctification, see Edward M. Panosian, “John Wesley’s Doctrine of Christian Perfection,” Biblical Viewpoint 6 (1972): 120-29.
7 On Morrison, see H. C. Morrison, Some Chapters of My Life Story (Louisville: Pentecostal Publishing Company, 1941), and Percival A. Wesche, Crusader Saint: The Life of Henry Clay Morrison (Wilmore, Ky.: Asbury Theological Seminary, 1963).
8 Bob Jones, Jr., recalled with appreciation how Morrison led Asbury to confer on Jones his first honorary doctorate when he was only twenty-three years old. Bob Jones, Cornbread and Caviar (Greenville, S.C.: Bob Jones University Press, 1985), p. 54. Bob Shuler wrote a glowing appreciation of Morrison as “the greatest preacher in the American pulpit.” Bob Shuler, Bob Shuler Met These on the Trail (Wheaton, Ill.: Sword of the Lord Publishers, 1955), pp. 20-24. J. H. Hamblen reported that when he founded his separatist Evangelical Methodist Church, “One of the group took a letter out of his pocket from Dr. H. C. Morrison, in which he said just two years before he died, ‘Some day God will raise up a man who will organize an Evangelical Methodist Church.’“ J. H. Hamblen, A Look into Life: An Autobiography (Abilene, Tex.: J. H. Hamblen, 1969), p. 118. George Dollar in his History of Fundamentalism in America (Greenville, S.C.: Bob Jones University Press, 1973), flatly calls Morrison a “staunch Fundamentalist” (p. 90), and David Beale lists Morrison among “notable Fundamentalists who sounded a clarion warning of Methodism’s drift into modernism” (p. 309). At least a strong Fundamentalist sympathy on the part of Morrison is assumed in Timothy Keesee and Mark Sidwell, “H. C. Morrison and the Holiness Movement” in Faith of Our Fathers: Scenes from American Church History, ed. Mark Sidwell (Greenville, S.C.: Bob Jones University Press, 1991), pp. 153-57.
9 Paul Merritt Bassett, “The Fundamentalist Leavening of the Holiness Movement, 1914-1940; The Church of the Nazarene: A Case Study,” Wesleyan Theological Journal 13 (1978): 65-91, and Susan Stanley, “Wesleyan/Holiness Churches: Innocent Bystanders in the Fundamentalist/Modernist Controversy,” in Beyond Two Parties: Reclaiming a Nonpartisan History of American Protestantism, ed. William Vance Trollinger, Jr., and Douglas Jacobsen (forthcoming). [The latter essay was eventually published as Susie Stanley, “Wesleyan/Holiness Churches: Innocent Bystanders in the Fundamentalist/Modernist Controversy,” in Re-forming the Center: American Protestantism, 1900 to the Present, ed. Douglas Jacobsen and William Vance Trollinger (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), pp. 172-93.] See also Donald W. Dayton, “The Use of Scripture in the Wesleyan Tradition,” in The Use of the Bible in Theology/Evangelical Options, ed. Robert K. Johnson (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1985), pp. 121-36. Stanley’s work is particularly helpful in comparing Fundamentalism and the Holiness movement, although her sympathies are clearly Wesleyan. While respecting her careful research and lucid presentation and agreeing completely that the two movements must not be confused, the author must take exception to her conclusion: “Wesleyan/Holiness fundamentalism is an oxymoron. When Wesleyans embrace any of the four characteristics identified with fundamentalism [inerrancy, dispensationalist premillennialism, opposition to the ordination of women, and lack of social concern], … they have abandoned their heritage.” The fact that two movements are not identical does not mean that they are mutually exclusive. As even the present article demonstrates, some Holiness Methodists found no inconsistency in embracing one or more of these tenets. As indicated by the example of J. H. Hamblen and the Evangelical Methodist Church cited later in the main body of the article, some Wesleyan Holiness Christians had little difficulty in blending the two heritages.
10 H. A. Ironside, Holiness: The False and the True (New York: Loizeaux Brothers, n.d.), pp. 35-38.
11 Stanley, “Wesleyan/Holiness Churches.”
12 Munhall collected and published some of the addresses from the sixth annual conference (1893) as Anti-Higher Criticism, or Testimony to the Infallibility of the Bible (New York: Hunt and Eaton, 1894).
13 L. W. Munhall, The Highest Critics vs. the Higher Critics (Philadelphia: Munhall, 1896), and Breakers! Methodism Adrift (New York: Charles C. Cook, 1913).
14 John Alfred Faulkner, Modernism and the Christian Faith (New York: The Methodist Book Concern, 1921).
15 Ibid., p. 236.
16 On Sloan, see Floyd T. Cunningham, “Harold Sloan and Methodist Essentialism,” Asbury Theological Journal 42 (1987): 65-76. Calderwood provides a relatively contemporary (1927) review of Sloan’s work and includes as an appendix the “Constitution for the Methodist League for Faith and Life.”
17 For a fuller discussion of Sloan’s disagreements with Riley and Trumbull, see Cunningham, pp. 69-70.
18 George Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism, 1870-1925 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), p. 239, fn. 9. For a discussion of the prophetic views of Blackstone and Gaebelein, see Yaakov S. Ariel, On Behalf of Israel: American Fundamentalist Attitudes Toward Jews, Judaism, and Zionism, 1865-1945 (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carlson, 1991). On Gaebelein in particular, see David A. Rausch, Arno C. Gaebelein, 1861-1945, Irenic Fundamentalist and Scholar (Lewiston, N.Y.: E. Mellen Press, 1983).
19 Arno C. Gaebelein, Half a Century: The Autobiography of a Servant (New York: Publication Office “Our Hope,” 1930), p. 81.
20 On the split of the Joneses from the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, see Melton Wright, Fortress of Faith: The Story of Bob Jones University, rev. ed. (Greenville, S.C.: Bob Jones University Press), pp. 103-8, and Bob Jones, Cornbread and Caviar, pp. 72-74. Correspondence concerning the Joneses’ break is found the Fundamentalism File, Mack Library, Bob Jones University.
21 See Mark Sumner Still, “‘Fighting Bob’ Shuler: Fundamentalist and Reformer” (Ph.D. diss., Claremont Graduate School, 1988). Much of this discussion of Shuler is based on Still’s excellent work. In the context of this study, it is interesting to note that Still argues that there was a more significant Arminian/Methodist contribution to Fundamentalism than is commonly acknowledged.
22 Quoted in Still, p. 14.
23 Bob Shuler, “The Evangelical Methodist Church What It Is, and What It Believes,” in J. H. Hamblen, A Look into Life, p. 120. The articles reproduced in Hamblen’s book originally appeared in The Methodist Challenge.
24 These eight are the Asbury Bible Churches, the Association of Independent Methodists, the Evangelical Methodist Church, the Evangelical Methodist Church of America, the Fellowship of Fundamental Bible Churches (formerly the Bible Protestant Church), the Fundamental Methodist Church, the John Wesley Fellowship and the Francis Asbury Society of Ministers, and the Methodist Protestant Church. J. Gordon Melton, The Encyclopedia of American Religions, 3rd ed. (Detroit: Gale Research, 1989), pp. 307-13.
25 On the overall history of the Evangelical Methodist Church, see Melton, p. 309. For the perspective of the Hamblen group, see Hamblen, A Look into Life, and Discipline of the Evangelical Methodist Church (Chicago: Good News Press, 1953); for the perspective of the Breckbill group, see Randy Hilton, The History of the Evangelical Methodist Conference (Kingsport, Tenn.: Able Printers, 1994). Interestingly, Hilton notes (p. 91) that the Breckbill group’s periodical, The Evangelical Methodist, began as The Methodist, published by L. W. Munhall.
26 On the history of the Southern Methodist Church, see Melton, pp. 312-13; The Doctrines and Discipline of the Southern Methodist Church (Orangeburg, S.C.: Foundry Press, 1978); Glenn Blank, “The Methodist Merger,” The Southern Methodist, January 1982, pp. 8-11; Charles Kempf, “The Southern Methodist Church,” (class research paper, Bob Jones University, 1990). A copy Kempf’s paper is located in the Fundamentalism File, Mack Library, Bob Jones University.
27 Melton mentions racial integration as an issue in the founding of not only the Southern Methodist Church (p. 312) but also the Association of Independent Methodists (p. 308) and the Methodist Protestant Church (p. 311).
28 Brief notices on Frank E. Washburn are found in Dollar, p. 370, and Keesee and Sidwell, pp. 156-57. See also Washburn’s own booklets, such as The Truth About Pentecost and Unknown Tongues (1988) and Among the Shadows: A Treatise on Doubts in the Christian Life (2nd ed., 1983).