Thursday, November 2, 2023

It is the 2nd of November 2023. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

 

If you don’t know who Phoebe Palmer was, you can be excused- many are unfamiliar with this 19th-century American woman, born in New York in 1807. 

But what if I told you she was the most significant woman in what one historian calls “the largest, fasting-growing religious group in Mid-19th century America: Methodism”?

Like the Baptists, the Methodists grew on the American frontier and in overlooked urban centers given over to industrial and moral decay. With few regulations and little oversight, one could be self-appointed to ministry, services could be held out of doors, and missionary zeal lead to evangelistic and social services.

Phoebe Palmer’s personal connection to the Methodist movement came directly from John Wesley himself, who had preached to her father in Yorkshire and delivered his membership papers personally. She grew up in New York in a pious Methodist home. But Phoebe was plagued with uncertainty as a young girl. She failed to feel the conversion and sanctification processes preached at church.

Despite her lack of security, she stayed in the faith, married a Methodist homeopathic physician, and became active in the nascent revival movements in New York and the North East in the first half of the 19th century (this was the era and territory of the likes of Finney and the Second Great Awakening).

She would be shaken in her faith but then ultimately confirmed in it through tragedy. Her first two children died in infancy. A third would survive, and a fourth was born in 1835. But, at 11 months, this daughter, Eliza, was put into a crib by a maid who then accidentally spilled oil on the crib trying to refill a lit lamp. Phoebe rushed to the screams and tried to save her baby, but she was consumed by flames.  

Phoebe came to believe that her children and domesticity had become a kind of idol. She had shunned true faith and obedience, she believed, behind a mask of maternal duty. I’d like to be careful with how I respond to anyone’s tragic story and will take her at her word. She would spend the next year in prayer for guidance and the elusive assurance of salvation.

The following year, she would write: “Last evening, between the hours of eight and nine, my heart was emptied of self, and cleansed of all idols, from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, and I realized that I dwelt in God, and felt that he had become the portion of my soul, my ALL IN ALL.”

She, her husband, and her sister would start Tuesday evening meetings to discuss theology and pray. She became active in helping the poor and those in prison and set up a ministry in the Five Points slum in New York City (this is the area depicted in Martin Scorsese’s “Gangs of New York”).

Her theology was one of complete sanctification by faith. That is, through consecration, faith, and testimony, one could lay all world desires, concerns, and entanglements on the altar of the Lord, and he would remove them from you. This blend of Methodism (that is, there is a distinct “method” of sanctification) and “Holiness” (that is, a complete form of holiness is attainable in this life) made her the mother of the most popular and fastest-growing evangelical theology in the late 19th and early 20th century in America. She and her husband visited revivals across the American territory of the time and into Canada. She preached to hundreds of thousands, and there are (as often is the case) conflicting numbers of those “converted.” She appealed to Joel 2 for her right to preach:

“And afterward,
    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.

Your sons and daughters will prophesy,

    your old men will dream dreams,

    your young men will see visions.
    Even on my servants, both men and women,

    I will pour out my Spirit in those days.”

She was an outspoken woman but with a relatively traditional theology. In this sense, she has no contemporary parallel- she would influence scores of revivalists who would nonetheless reject her authority to preach. This may be one of the reasons she has fallen through the historical cracks: too traditional to the progressive and too progressive to the traditional.

Her most popular books would be 1845’s The Way of Holiness and 1869’s Tongue of Fire on The Daughters of the Lord; or, Questions in Relation to the Duty of the Christian Church in Regard to the Privileges of Her Female Membership.

As the Second Great Awakening burned down and some dissipated while others joined ersatz American new religious movements, the seeds planted by the likes of Phoebe Palmer would grow into the 19th century Holiness and Pentecostal movements- inspiring the likes of A.B. Simpson and Aimee Semple MacPherson.

Today, we remember the forgotten pioneer- the curious and courageous Phoebe Palmer, who died on the 2nd of November in 1874. Born in 1807, she was 66 years old. 

 

The last word for today is from the daily lectionary (and the whole collection today from the Revised Common Lectionary is a humdinger). We will read from Psalm 107 in the fashion of the Scottish Metrical Psalter.

¹ Praise God, for he is good: for still
his mercies lasting be.
² Let God’s redeemed say so, whom he
from th’ en’my’s hand did free;

³ And gathered them out of the lands,
from north, south, east, and west.
⁴ They strayed in desert’s pathless way,
no city found to rest.

⁵ For thirst and hunger in them faints
⁶ their soul. When straits them press,
They cry unto the Lord, and he
them frees from their distress.

  

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 2nd of November 2023, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man whose favorite Palmer is Arnold, the drink, not the golfer. He is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who, were there a drink named after him, would be Kirkland sparkling water and black coffee- the liquids that power this almanac. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be OK.