Phoebe Palmer Mother Of The Holiness Movement -- By: Sally Bruyneel

Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 12:2 (Spring 1998)
Article: Phoebe Palmer Mother Of The Holiness Movement
Author: Sally Bruyneel


Phoebe Palmer
Mother Of The Holiness Movement

Sally Bruyneel

Sally Bruyneel is a doctoral student in Historical Theology at the University of Durham in England, and an adjunct professor of theology at Azusa Pacific University in California. She is active in the Orange County Chapter of CBE, and lives in Costa Mesa with her husband, Alan Padgett.

After languishing in obscurity for many years, the work of Phoebe Palmer (1807-1874) has been rediscovered by church historians and scholars. Although virtually unknown today, Palmer was a widely-recognized religious figure in her day—a woman whose concern for the holy life enabled her to transcend the limitations of both gender and denominational affiliation. As a premier proponent of “the holiness way,” Palmer functioned as teacher, writer, social activist, theologian and evangelist for the cause of Christ.1She desired nothing less than full consecration to God, and her passionate devotion compelled her into the pulpit and onto the printed page. Consumed by the divine fire of God’s call, Phoebe became a dominant force in the nineteenth-century Holiness Movement, “a woman to whom thousands of people looked for leadership, and by whom thousands were instructed, in a time when women were not generally accorded positions of leadership or authority in American culture.”2 The brief biography that follows is intended as an introduction to this amazing woman. It is also offered as encouragement for all who, like Phoebe Palmer, desire nothing less than to be used fully of God.

Palmer was born Phoebe Worrall on December 18, 1807 in New York. Her father had been converted under the preaching of John Wesley, and Phoebe grew up steeped in the history and teaching of prominent Methodists. At age 19, she married physician Walter Palmer, a fellow Methodist who shared her commitment to the Christian faith. The Palmers began their married life well placed, but the early years of their marriage were also marked by tragedy. The Palmers’ first three children died; two boys died in infancy, and their three year old daughter died in a horrible crib fire caused by a careless nurse. During these years, Dr. and Mrs. Palmer attended the Allen Street Church, a prominent Methodist congregation in New York City. Here the young couple were active in church leadership, and the direction of their ministry was strongly influenced by a year-long period of revival that settled on the Allen Street congregation in 1831. It was in this atmosphere of heightened spiritual awareness that Phoebe and her sister Sarah Langford opened their home to a women’s Bible study committed to the pursuit of the “pure heart.” This simple gathering, known ...

You must have a subscription and be logged in to read the entire article.
Click here to subscribe
visitor : : uid: ()