Andy Naselli
Mar 24th, 2008
Mar 24th, 2008
Keswick Theology
Last week I was honored to give the 2008 William R. Rice Lecture Series at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary on “Keswick Theology: A Survey and Analysis of the Doctrine of Sanctification in the Early Keswick Movement.”
The manuscript for this lecture series is scheduled for publication in the fall 2008 Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal. It distills my first dissertation (“Keswick Theology: A Historical and Theological Survey and Analysis of the Doctrine of Sanctification in the Early Keswick Movement, 1875–1920,” Ph.D. dissertation, Bob Jones University, 2006; xxiv + 387 pp.) from about 100,000 to 20,000 words.
Detroit Seminary is hosting the following resources from the lecture series:
- Handout (five-page PDF)
- Power Point presentation as a PDF (eighty slides with lots of pictures) [12.1 MB]
- MP3s:
12 Responses to “Keswick Theology”
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Fine job on the lecture. While I had clarified a lot of these things in my mind previously, it is great to be reminded how dangerous this teaching is to living the Christian life.
cool… i’ll put it on my ipod.
Thanks for posting! I went to the site right after and they only had the mp3s. I really wanted to attend, but with BJ Bible Conference I was somewhat restricted. Looks Good, Thanks again.
Dr. Andy; I attended the lecture. Thanks for your very helpful work on the Keswick Movement. I noticed profound parallels between the Keswick Movement and Bill Gothard’s Institute in Basic Life Principles. Can you comment on that?
Hey, Ken. I’m afraid I’m not familiar enough with Bill Gothard’s view of sanctification to comment. Based on the very little I do know about Gothard, one possible comparison comes to mind: both Keswick and Gothard use lots of lists. (Cf. my “Critique 10: Methodology: Superficial Formulas for Instantaneous Sanctification.”) Feel free to share some parallels you see.
Andy,
I’m staying home sick from church today and I found your MP3 page. After listening to some Minnick, I started listening to your lecture on Keswick theology. I’m devouring it.
Thanking the Lord I’m sick today!! Praising God for your good work!
Bob
P.S. I would like to talk to you about the Welsh Revival and Evan Roberts sometime.
[...] was on Keswick Theology (he’s working on a second Ph.D. at Trinity), and he recently gave a presentation at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary that summarizes his dissertation. I found his summary and [...]
[...] * Andrew Murray. Humility: The Journey Toward Holiness. Reprint, Bloomington, MN: Bethany House, 2001. A classic by Andrew Murray, discusses the wonderful blessings to be found in true humility. Includes a brief biography of the author. [This book is certainly edifying, but I would be remiss not to mention that Andrew Murray was probably the prominent devotional author in the early Keswick Movement. I wrote my first dissertation on Keswick theology, and my thesis is that it is theologically erroneous.] [...]
Dr. Naselli,
I am a PhD student in Christian Missions at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. I listened to your presentation in following some leads on Keswick Theology as I researched a paper on the East Africa Revival.
Your presentation was great and very helpful for me in understanding the background for many of the evangelical Anglicans serving in East Africa in the 1930s-40s. However, you cut things off at 1920, which I understand. Can you recommend some resources for understanding the changes in Keswick theology post-1920? Or are there sources on Keswick theology and the CMS that are must reads?
I appreciate any feedback you are able to give. Thanks.
Thanks, Wesley. Probably the most helpful book for understanding the theology in the post-1920 Keswick movement is Charles W. Price and Ian M. Randall’s Transforming Keswick: The Keswick Convention, Past, Present and Future (Carlisle: OM, 2000). Hope that helps!
Thank you! I just received a copy of your dissertation from Bob Jones via ILL and will check into the work you mention above by Price and Randall. I greatly appreciate it. This has been very helpful for me!
Thanks for your labors in this area. About five years ago I presented a series on personal holiness to our church body which involved research on Keswick. Tracking things down was near impossible. I could find little material on Keswick that was not sympathetic; Pollock’s book was interesting but seems to whitewash the Smith’s while giving no helpful critique of the theology. A few years later I bumped into a seminary professor who also lamented the lack of critical material. With tongue in cheek, I suggested he commission one of his phd students to fill the void. Through your presentations, the Lord has now provided far more than I hoped.
Looking at some of the future publications you are involved with, I can see that you are quite busy. My hearts desire is that someone will do an evaluation of the current Prophetic Movement (Vinyard, Joyner, etc. & especially IHOP) similar to your Keswick material. This stuff is eating up churches across the world and is only growing in influence. The movement is reaching outside its Pentecostal circles into traditional conservative Christianity by heavily promoting deeper life revivalism while masking its neo-gnostic heresies. A good brother at our church, with leanings toward deeper life, is now drifting away into the movement. Many others outside our church body are falling prey. (btw, it might interest you to know that we are in Greenville, SC where IHOP has just opened shop using a Vinyard church building).
As shepherds/teachers/pastors we are here in the trenches having to slug it out with this stuff and we often feel outgunned by their sophistry, misinformation and outright lies. There is some helpful material on the internet but it is intermittent and lacks the credibility of disciplined scholarly study. We need some reliable and comprehensive research that can actually nail their aberrant jello to the wall and can be presented to the younger generation being swept up in these prophetic movements by the tens of thousands.
Thanks again, my brother!