The Welsh Revival 1903-1905 was a part of the Holiness Movement
(I have written before, in Swedish, about the Welsh Revival, on my former blog "Forest Man", here. In it I showed how Holiness preacher F.B.Meyer was influential in the Welsh Revival. Below is more confirmation of the strong links between the Welsh Revival and the Holiness Movement)
I have said before that the "Welsh Revival" 1903-1905 perhaps is the most holy revival after the apostolic age. What is very notable, is that the Welsh revival was born out of the Holiness Movement, where practical holiness, the imitation of Christ, was the leading theme. This is logical.
Because my mother congregation, Smith's Friends, is a part of The Holiness Movement (although the Wikipedia-article about the Holiness Movement do not mention it, and the Wikipedia-articles in Norwegian and English about Smith's Friends also do not mention the Holiness Movement, this is typical), and I'm a theologian with a big interest in Church History, I know much about its history. This has led me to believe that the Holiness Movement is one of the most beautiful bigger movements inside Protestant church history (Radical Pietism is another such, but the Holiness Movement could be described as Radical Pietist in nature, the two movements share many traits, the difference being that the Holiness Movement is Radical Pietism on Anglo-saxon ground), and that it ignited the most holy revival in protestant history, or maybe in all history after the apostolic age, the revival that I love most after Pentecost at the time of Jesus, and it has also led me to belive that it has fostered the most holy congregation of protestant history, namely "Smiths Friends". I may be biased, so be it.
The Welsh revival is closely linked to the early Pentecostal revival, which was born out of the Holiness Movement, this no serious church historian denies. See for example this article in Encyclopedia Britannica online, I quote from it:
"Pentecostalism grew out of the 19th-century Holiness movement and shares its emphasis on biblical literalism, conversion, and moral rigor."
What can we find online about the connections of the Welsh revival to the Holiness Movement? This article (1) is important (there is not much about it, the connections are not well researched) and I quote from it:
"Nothing in the life of the Church arises out of nothing. The Welsh Revival drew on the Keswick Movement, and expanded the ministry of several evangelists. A significant number were Calvinistic Methodists, others were Baptists, Congregationalists and Presbyterians."
It may be added that the Keswick Movement was the heart of the Holiness movement, and that the Holiness Movement grew out of Methodism.
More from the same article:
"Mrs Jessie Penn-Lewis who was involved in the 1904 Revival was also active in the Welsh Keswick Movement."
After Evan Roberts, no one had bigger influence on the Welsh Revival than Jessie Penn-Lewis. And she was a holiness preacher from the Holiness Movement, deeply influenced by Catholic mysticism, Quakerism and Radical Pietism. She wrote the standard book about the revival, called "The Awakening in Wales: A Firsthand Account of the Welsh Revival of 1904". It was written during the revival, and published 1905. It might have been the first book ever about the Welsh Revival. It can be read freely on Internet Archive, here.
When Evan Roberts got his mental breakdown in the summer of 1905, he moved into the house of Penn-Lewis, and was taken care of by her. Together they wrote the book "War on the Saints (1912)" about the battle between God and Satan in all revivals, especially in the Welsh Revival. It focused on the work of demons in revivals, and how to make spiritual warfare.
There was indeed a really great battle between God and Satan in the Welsh Revival, documented in "War on the Saints", then, after some years, Satan apparently won the battle at last, when the Great Apostasy came in the Pentecostal Movement in the 50s. with the false revivals, revivals like the Healing Revival in the 50s and the Charismatic revival in the 60s.
With the arrivals of the microphones (which became common during the World War II, when also the Healing revival began, more exactly it began 1944 when Jack Coe was ordained to pastor and began his tent healing meetings, see this article for confirmation) the Spirit in the revivals died, and the spirit of technology, the spirit of the antichrist, took over. It's strange. Natural man would think that when more people can hear the preacher preaching in the mass meetings, more can be saved and there will be more "power". But this is fleshly power, the power of this world. After the 50s, quantity took over, but quality died.
The Spirit cannot stand microphones and too much technology. The Spirit cannot stand TV-preachers and modern massmeetings and megachurches.
But Christ works in all contexts, nevertheless. Therefore all real healings and miracles during all false revivals.
Jessie Penn-Lewis could not stand the Pentecostal Movement. In this article we can read the following:
"Penn-Lewis cannot be understood or analyzed without some grasp of the Christian subculture in which she swam. Though the experiences to be sought after conversion were sometimes referred to as ‘‘the baptism in the Spirit,’’ it had nothing to do with Pentecostalism or tongues-speaking. Penn-Lewis saw most of that as ‘‘demonic,’’ especially in her later years. That and other things led her to believe and teach that Satan had invaded the earth in a new, direct and intensive way, fulfilling parts of the Book of Revelation. Her days, she truly believed, were the last days. Everyone’s days were numbered."
Penn-Lewis died in 1927. I think she ment that Pentecostalism in her later years had gone astray, not that it was rotten from the beginning.
But her thinking here reminds of the prophet Harold Camping, who, before he died some years ago, believed that Satan ruled in all churches of today (see this blogpost).
The Holiness movement that Penn-Lewis belonged to had preachers like Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875), who was so radical in holiness that he denied slave owners the sacrament. Such a fullness of the Spirit he had.
Would Finney have accepted our modern technology if he had lived today? Had he accepted to preach with a microphone?
Maybe he had denied car owners the sacrament.
This was the holiness spirit that permeated the Welsh Revival, where they did not have microphones in their mass meetings. A revival where they had no music, no instruments, and no programs. Only the Spirit they had. And it was enough.
Yet, the revival added, during two intensive years (according to Penn-Lewis, it lasted only for six months, during the first half of 1905), 100 000 converts to the churches of Wales. And this was an exact answer to the prayers of Evan Roberts, who had asked God for 100 000 souls in the end of 1903. Almost exactly 120 years ago.
But what was the first seeds of the Welsh Revival? In this article we find the answer, and it is also a confirmation of the thesis of this blogpost:
"The seeds of revival were sown in rural Cardiganshire in the middle of 1903. Two Calvinist Methodist ministers, Joshua Jenkins at New Quay, and his nephew John Thickens at nearby Aberaeron, had come under the influence of the Keswick movement and its teaching on holiness. Driven by a sense of their own unworthiness, they began leading meetings of increasing intensity throughout 1903 and 1904, encouraging the confession of sin and seeking a powerful outpouring of the Holy Spirit. They were assisted by Seth Joshua, a noted evangelist of the denomination’s “Forward Movement”, inaugurated to take Christian faith to the working-classes."
Interesting. It was namely exactly 120 years ago. We are now in the middle of 2023, 120 years after the middle of 1903.
Epilogue
How I love Evan Roberts and the Holiness movement! It's really my home, my playground. And to be like Jesus has been the great passion of my life, to be holy, to be divine.
(1) see also this article for confirmation, where it is stated: "Roberts and Jessie Penn-Lewis were the central minister and the most influential expositor,[1] respectively, of the Welsh holiness revivalism concentrated from December 1904 to May 1905,[2] co-opting and eclipsing a genuine revival movement in Wales that had already been occurring."
