03/06/2026
A few days ago I found myself sitting with old editions of The Nazarene Messenger from the closing years of the nineteenth century, especially the writings of Dr. Phineas F. Bresee between 1898 and 1903. Honestly, I expected to encounter the usual language people associate with early holiness movements revival preaching, sanctification, altar calls, and strong appeals for personal holiness. Those elements were certainly there. But the deeper I moved into Bresee’s world, the more I realized something else was burning underneath nearly everything he wrote.
Bresee was not only trying to build a holiness church.
He was trying to rescue holiness itself from becoming socially comfortable.
And honestly, that only makes sense once you understand the world surrounding him.
Los Angeles during the late nineteenth century was changing violently and rapidly. Railroads were expanding aggressively across the American West. Massive migration transformed the city’s population almost overnight. Industrial capitalism was producing extraordinary wealth for some while laborers, immigrants, widows, unemployed workers, and racial minorities crowded into neglected urban districts. The period historians now call the Gilded Age was filled with economic growth on the surface and deep exploitation underneath it.
The contrast became visible everywhere.
Elegant districts expanded outward while poverty concentrated inward.
Large corporations accumulated power while ordinary workers struggled for survival.
Respectability grew upward while the poor became increasingly invisible.
And honestly, Bresee believed the American church was beginning to mirror that same division spiritually.
That may be one of the most important things to understand about him historically.
Before serving in the Church of the Nazarene, Bresee had already lived inside respected Methodism. He was not an outsider attacking Christianity from a distance. He had served successfully within the Methodist Episcopal Church and understood institutional religion extremely well. But somewhere along the way, he became deeply disturbed by what he saw happening to the relationship between the church and the poor.
The more I studied his writings carefully, the more I realized Bresee did not believe the church had merely neglected the poor occasionally.
He believed many churches had physically relocated themselves away from suffering.
That distinction matters enormously.
By the 1890s many respectable Protestant congregations were constructing architecturally impressive sanctuaries filled with polished wood, stained glass, expensive organs, and socially refined environments. In some churches, pew rental systems still operated openly, allowing wealthy families to purchase preferred seating inside the sanctuary itself.
And honestly, Bresee hated what that represented spiritually.
Because to him, architecture itself was preaching theology long before the pastor ever entered the pulpit.
A wealthy man could walk comfortably into those churches.
A struggling laborer often could not.
That is why Bresee repeatedly insisted Nazarene churches remain “plain and cheap.”
To modern ears, those words may sound almost unimportant.
Historically, they were revolutionary.
Bresee was not arguing against beauty itself. He was arguing against sanctuaries becoming symbols of class separation. He believed the poor should feel ownership inside the church immediately upon entering the building.
That conviction appears repeatedly throughout The Nazarene Messenger.
In one editorial, Bresee writes:
“We are debtors to the poor. They have the first claim upon our ministry.”
That sentence stayed with me for a long time.
Because honestly, Bresee was not speaking about charity programs alone. He was describing an entire vision of the church itself. He did not believe ministry to the poor should become one department among many inside Christian life. He believed closeness to neglected people was part of the church’s identity.
And the deeper I studied his environment, the more understandable that burden became.
The late nineteenth century holiness movement itself was facing a crossroads. Some holiness groups were retreating into isolated spiritual circles disconnected from urban suffering. Others focused almost entirely on inward religious experience while paying little attention to economic exploitation, labor abuse, crowded slum conditions, and human suffering surrounding the cities.
Bresee refused that separation completely.
For him, holiness was never meant to become socially distant.
That is why early Nazarene spaces often looked so different from respectable Protestant churches of the same era. The famous “Glory Barn” in Los Angeles was simple, rough, inexpensive, and physically located close to neglected populations many churches avoided entirely.
And honestly, that location was theological.
Bresee believed holiness should live close enough to suffering that the cries of wounded people could still be heard clearly inside the sanctuary.
That may explain one of his strongest warnings:
“The Church of the Nazarene has been called to preach the gospel to the poor. We have a special duty to the neglected quarters of the cities.”
The more I reflected on those words, the more I realized Bresee feared something deeper than doctrinal compromise.
He feared social distance.
He feared a church that could still preach sanctification while becoming emotionally and physically disconnected from the wounded world surrounding it.
And honestly, that fear was not imaginary.
The Gilded Age church was increasingly becoming respectable, middle-class, and culturally refined. Success was often measured through larger buildings, polished presentations, and social influence. Bresee saw that movement happening and believed something dangerous could quietly happen underneath it:
the church could gain status while losing proximity to suffering.
That is why his ministry constantly pulled holiness back toward the streets.
Soup kitchens operated beside altar calls.
Employment assistance existed beside revival preaching.
Food lines and prayer meetings belonged inside the same spiritual world.
Bresee did not divide evangelism from compassion because he believed Christ Himself never divided them.
And honestly, that is where later Nazarene voices become important too.
Decades later, Dr. Orval J. Nease would warn in The Social Implications of Holiness (1941) that holiness becomes a “mockery of God” when it sings loudly inside sanctuaries while ignoring exploited workers and suffering children outside them. Nease was essentially defending the same spiritual burden Bresee carried during the Gilded Age.
Then generations later, Dr. J. J. Jerry Johnson would expand that same compassion theology globally through Compassion: The Heart of the Gospel (1984), helping embed Nazarene Compassionate Ministries structurally into the denomination itself.
Different century.
Different crisis.
Same theological instinct.
Bresee localized holiness beside the neglected quarters of Los Angeles.
Johnson globalized holiness beside refugee camps, famine zones, and disaster regions.
Nease defended holiness against private religious isolation during World War II.
And honestly, .......
Read more https://nazarenejournal.com/what-kind-of-church-did-phineas-bresee-believe-god-wanted-reading-phineas-f-bresee-against-the-respectable-church-of-his-time/
