Thesis
Closeted tongues of fire: the holiness movement, pentecostalism, and the rise of evangelical cooperation in the twentieth century
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
2018
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/102735
Abstract
Pentecostals appear on the fringes of evangelicalism in modern American life and as historians look back over their history. Most scholars recognize that pentecostals merit inclusion in studies of the broadly evangelical, politically conservative coalition of Christians that organized--in fits and starts--in the early twentieth century. Nevertheless, pentecostals are almost never central to narratives of the rise of politically conservative religion in the United States. Likewise, the holiness tradition from which pentecostalism emerged exists primarily on the periphery of the history of evangelicalism. Scholars' placement of pentecostals and holiness believers on the fringes of the history of evangelicalism obfuscates the importance of these movements to the history of evangelical cooperation in the United States. This study aims to correct this oversight for one particularly important organization--the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). Early pentecostal involvement bolstered the NAE's initial membership, enhancing the organization's clout. Pentecostal and holiness fellowships provided the vision to launch the evangelical conglomerate--which remains the largest lobbying organization for American evangelicals--and key personnel to advance that vision in a competitive religious atmosphere. They also provided abundant financial support that buoyed the NAE through several years of hardship that repeatedly threatened to sink the nascent lobby. For all these contributions, the NAE never became an overtly pentecostal organization. Pentecostals' inability to make the NAE in their own image is central to the point of this study. I argue that pentecostal-holiness believers' ability to succeed amongst evangelicals at large depended on their willingness to obscure rather than to champion their distinct doctrine. The more these worshipers covered over their religious identity, the higher they could rise in the echelons of mainstream American evangelical authority.
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Details
- Title
- Closeted tongues of fire
- Creators
- Taylor W. Smith
- Contributors
- Matthew Avery Sutton (Degree Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- History, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; [Pullman, Washington] :
- Identifiers
- 99900525177701842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis