It is interesting that within the American Holiness movement there is also dialogue over a similar and equally basic question: What does it mean to be holiness? In 1995 Keith Drury spoke at the annual meeting of the Christian Holiness Association, an organization of holiness denomina-tions. Very much to everyone’s surprise, Drury announced, "The Holiness Movement is dead!" Don’t misunderstand. He did not say that holiness is dead, or the doctrine of holiness is dead, nor that there was no such thing as believers being sanctified. Rather, he declared that the movement is dead, in the sense that it no longer has the broad-based power to influence the American culture.

The reaction of the audience who heard these words was mixed. Some people, including denominational leaders, had the attitude of "So what?" Others contended that perhaps their corner of the movement was dead. Still others prided them-selves in being the "last" of the true holiness movement, and they were alive (see D. Curtis Hale, Prologue to Counterpoint: Dialogue with Drury on The Holiness Movement, Schmul, 2005, 8).

We have noted in a previous Bulletin on the American Holiness movement (July 2005) that the historical Holiness movement is today somewhat diverse. It includes Methodists of all kinds, Nazarenes, Wesleyans, Brethren, Salvationists (Salvation Army), Church of God, and a host of smaller groups. However, at the same time, there are "holiness people" in almost any denomination or group you might care to name.

In his address to the Christian Holiness Association, Drury offered eight overlapping "factors" which contributed, in his opinion, to the death of the Holiness movement. These eight contributing causes may be summarized as follows:

1. 1. Holiness Christians wanted to be respectable, viewed as normal, regular Christians - not as a fringe group. In this quest for respectability, we lost our willingness to be different, not just different from the world, but different from average evangelical Christians. It’s hard to be holiness when one is unwilling to be different than the average Christian.
2. 2. Holiness Christians plunged into the evangelical mainstream. Holiness people became generic evangelicals.
3. 3. Holiness Christians failed to convince the younger generation of the importance of sanctification. Holiness is preached as an attractive accessory, not as an essential necessity. Many holiness pastors have opted for the much more appealing notion of optional or progressive sanctification rather than instantaneous and/or "entire" sanctification - if they preach holiness at all.
4. 4. Holiness Christians quit making holiness the main issue. Holiness is our stated belief, but in most churches today the mood is uplifting, cheery, help-for-Monday sermons, not the necessity of holiness of heart and life.
5. 5. Holiness Christians lost the lay people. A real movement is not made up of professionals, but is lay-dominated. Most holiness gatherings have become fellowships of ministers on expense accounts.
6. 6. Holiness Christians overreacted against the abuses of the past. Because some in the old Holiness movement were legalistic and judgmental, we became behavioral libertarians. Some were so ingrown as to never touch the world, so we became assimilated into the world and seldom touch God. Some were radically emotional, running the aisles, shouting and "getting blessed," so we became orderly and respectable, and we labeled all such emotions as "leaning charismatic."
7. 7. Holiness Christians adopted church growth thinking without theological thinking. We discovered in America numerical success is the doorway to respect. We wanted to be accepted into the mainstream and we found that church growth gave us the chance. When the Church Growth move-ment first came along, holiness people were wary. We were nervous about too much accommodation to the world in order to win the world. But evangelism has always been a twin passion with holiness. So, many holiness churches - at least the growing ones - suppressed their natural reticence and adopted church growth thinking in a wholesale way. Pastors become CEOs. Ministers became managers. Shepherds promoted themselves to ranchers. Sermons became talks. Sinners were renamed "seekers." "Twelve steps" became the new way to get deliverance, instead of at the altar. Growth itself became the great tie-breaking issue. Everything else was made to serve growth.
8. 8. We did not notice when the battle line moved. Many of us believe we are in danger of losing the doctrine and experience of "second-blessing holiness" - an experience through the Holy Spirit which cleanses the heart of its incli-nation to rebel and enables the believer to live above inten-tional sin, producing a life in obedience to the known will of God...While we have been discussing holiness in our theologi-cal societies and denominational conventions, the battle line moved on us. Many of our people do not need to be sanc-tified - they need to be saved! The doctrine at risk in many holiness churches is not entire sanctification, but "trans-formational conversion." We may need to stand at Luther’s side awhile before we can rejoin Wesley. How can those convinced that God can in an instant purify the heart of a believer get that message across to someone who has ex-perienced no crisis of conversion or even is able to testify to any deliverance in their life to date that occurred in a moment? Yes, there are those who have been delivered (converted), but not in a moment, but only after a long period of gradual growth and increasing victory and diminishing defeat. Could it be that while the remnants of the Holiness movement are fighting a rear guard action trying to defend instantaneous sanctification, the progressive-conversion generals are taking the field? Can a crisis sanc-tification survive when a crisis conversion disappears? (Keith Drury, "The Holiness Movement is Dead: A Retrospecive," in Counterpoint: Dialogue with Drury on The Holiness Movement, Schmul, Publishing, 2005, 17-35).