While reading William Inboden’s Religion and American Foreign Policy, I came across several sentences that caught my eye. Inboden dedicated a chapter of his book to a discussion of US Senator H. Alexander Smith, a prominent anti-Communist and ardent prayer warrior. Inboden was interested in Smith’s epistemology, the source of his certainty that God had told him how to fight the Cold War. The senator spent much time each day in prayer asking for divine intervention in his own personal struggles as well as for guidance in Congress. Thankfully, Smith journaled about his prayer life. Representative of the quotes that Inboden included was Smith’s prayer asking God to “make me true to thine principles which are true and guided by thee and not those which are merely expedient or vote-getting.” Commendable, but not extraordinary.
But these quotations grabbed my attention: “God is with me and will guide me or I will make a failure in a big [illegible]. Of course God will not fail me but I must be consecrated” (Inboden 196).
A little bit later: ‘“I have had bad days because I am tired and I need God. I have been smoking my pipe which I do enjoy, but I wonder if it has meant that I am not getting that feeling of guidance that I so much need.” A couple of months later he complained of “not being up to my normal spiritual vigor” and noted “it comes to me to make an experiment: Does my smoking keep me from God’s guidance? I will try for this week and see what the effect is” (Inboden 196).
Where had I heard language like this before? Boom, it suddenly hit me…these are Keswickian ideas!
Several months ago I read an article-length version of Andy Naselli’s dissertation on Keswick theology. Andy is a doctoral student at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and D. A. Carson’s research assistant. (I heartily recommend the article for anyone interested in Protestant theology or modern church history; indeed, I myself was astounded at the influence of Keswickian thought on my own upbringing.)
In summary, Keswick theologians taught that there were three categories of people: unbelievers (those who had not accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Savior), carnal Christians (those who were saved, but who had not defeated their sinful natures), and consecrated Christians (those who had surrendered known sin to God and acknowledged Christ as Lord of their life). It is the distinction between carnal and consecrated Christians that concerns us here.
Keswickians are often associated with the phrase, “Let go, and let God.” Carnal Christians needed to exercise their free will by confessing sin in an act of consecration. This was the letting go. The Spirit of God would then sanctify the believer, counteracting their sin nature. Now these consecrated Christians were empowered for service, confident that they were in the center of God’s will.
Logically following from this concept of consecration was the Keswickian’s constant search for known sin. If sin had not been discovered and confessed, then God could not consecrate that believer. So Keswickians earnestly dredged their souls looking for sins that might be holding them back .
But, like all believers, Keswickians often struggled with doubts and feelings of inadequacy. Keswickians interpreted these struggles as signs of unconfessed sin in their lives. They knew something was wrong, and they knew it wasn’t God’s fault, so they urgently looked for as yet unconfessed sins.
To use Senator Smith’s smoking as an example of Keswickian thought in action, the Senator noticed a lack of “normal spiritual vigor.” This indicated to him that some specific, unconfessed sin must be separating him God’s guidance. Smith believed that he needed to find the sin responsible for his condition, confess it, and then God would consecrate him.
Inboden describes Smith’s thought process this way: “Nothing seems to have bothered Smith more than the feeling that he might be alienated from divine counsel and comfort, and when such feelings overtook him he tried frantically to diagnose the cause, be it smoking or stress or political complications” (Inboden 197).
Speaking more broadly, I believe that Smith frequent mood swings – described by Inboden as “periodic bouts of guilt and self-doubt” (Inboden 197) – fit into a pattern of behavior that Naselli diagnoses as common among Keswickians. When the consecrated believer is on an emotional high following their confession of sin, they are empowered by the Spirit and woe be to all who might question their authority or opinions. But when the cycle reverses, depression is the understandable result of frantically searching for any sin that might be debilitating the Spirit’s work.
Thus it is significant that Inboden, who never mentions Keswick theology, writes, “Alternatively triumphant and timid, Smith saw himself playing the part of a prophet or even an oracle. The content of the message originated with God, not with him, and yet Smith had to maintain a certain standard of personal piety in order to hear and communicate this divine mandate.” (It is easy to see the interplay between Pentecostalism and Keswick theology. Pentecostals and Keswickians alike emphasize the work of the Spirit and speak of the Spirit’s empowerment as an event that is distinct from justification.)
So what, you ask? H. Alexander Smith spoke like a Keswickian. Big deal. Paul, how do you even know that Smith got these ideas from Keswick theology, that the overlap of ideas is not just a coincidence?
Here’s where it gets good. H. Alexander Smith was an adherent of a group called Moral Re-Armament (MRA, also known as “the Oxford Group”). Although it sounds more like a think tank than a religious group, MRA was founded by Frank Buchman, a Lutheran minister. Buchman hoped that the group’s international network of politicians and businessmen would help usher in God’s kingdom on earth. MRA’s members were encouraged to spend time praying and listening to God’s direct commands (Inboden 192).
So what is the connection between MRA and Keswick theology? Frank Buchman was consecrated at the 1908 Keswick Convention. He wrote after hearing Jessie Penn-Lewis speak, “I don’t know how you explain it, I can only tell you I sat there and realized how my sin, my pride, my selfishness and my ill-will, had eclipsed me from God in Christ…. I was the centre of my own life. That big “I” had to be crossed out. I saw my resentments against those men standing out like tombstones in my heart. I asked God to change me and He told me to put things right with them. It produced in me a vibrant feeling, as though a strong current of life had suddenly been poured into me and afterwards a dazed sense of a great spiritual shaking-up.”
Buchman then went to work for the YMCA and was influenced by another prominent Keswickian, Baptist preacher F. B. Meyer. Meyer encouraged Buchman to spend more time each day opening himself up to the Spirit of God. Doing so would allow God to guide Buchman. Buchman followed Meyer’s advice and eventually began to encourage other men to do likewise. It was from these contacts that Buchman eventually formed MRA, which subsequently shaped H. Alexander Smith’s theology.
So why does all this stuff about Smith, Buchman, MRA, and Keswick matter? For political historians it shows the real world consequences of religious belief. Smith’s beliefs shaped his views of American foreign policy during the Cold War. Ideology is not just a cover for national self-interest.
For religious historians it is a reminder that ideas are messy. We should not think of theology as merely a formal system of doctrines. Theology can influence movements and people not normally associated with the theology proper.
For me it is a reminder to keep my eyes pealed no matter what I’m reading. I thought I was just reading a book about the influence of religion on American foreign policy makers during the Cold War. I had no clue that I’d end up learning about Keswick theology and MRA!
PS –Fun tidbit: an offshoot of “the Oxford Group” is Alcoholic’s Anonymous.
PPS – Ironically, D. A. Carson is speaking at next year’s Keswick Convention. Good thing that the organizers don’t know what Carson’s student has been up to! ;-)
As far as the PPS goes, the Keswick Convention has apparently not held the early 20C tenets of Keswick theology for some time. In a presentation of his research at DBTS a while ago, Naselli specifically dealt with difference between Keswick of the early 20C and the later 20C. It seems that the more recent products of the Keswick Convention are somewhat more amorphous and pretty clearly don’t hold the two-levels view.
More to the point of the post, I’ve been reading a book on religion in public life in which the author argues that mystical revelation is a perfectly valid source of public justification. That is, I can use my mystical experiences to defend some policy that I favor. It seems like there ought to be a big epistemological problem, but it turns out that it’s hard to discover exactly what the problem actually is.
What is the book, Andrew?
I wasn’t aware of the shift in the Keswick Conference, but look at the Week 2 speakers: Iain Murray is highlighted. I can almost guarantee that Murray doesn’t believe in carnal Christians (as in the traditional Keswick view). I would expect the same of Alistair Begg who is speaking the third week, though I’m not as familiar with him.
Movement founders take note: That’s the problem with naming your theological system after a conference and not a person. Ditto for place names. Think of how much more of a pain it would’ve been if they’d named it “Genevism” instead of “Calvinism.” (-;