Phineas Bresee: Pastor to the People - Paperback

by Carl Bangs (Author)

In 1895, Phineas Franklin Bresee established in Los Angeles the first congregation of what he envisioned as a new denomination. Its purpose was to conserve and advance the doctrine and experience of entire sanctification as it had been taught in early Methodism and developed in the 19th century Holiness Movement. Just as important, he saw it as a force to minister to the poor of his day.In Phineas F. Bresee, Carl Bangs tells the story of Bresee from his boyhood in New York's Catskill Mountains through his ministerial career in Iowa and California. Uncover the whole story of Bresee as the aggressive evangelistic pastor, editor, presiding elder, and General Conference delegate in Iowa who built churches, established a college, and engaged in business enterprise with Civil War financier Jay Cooke.Throughout this study, Bangs places Bresee's life in the broader context of American religious history to show the emergence of a talented churchman and Methodist leader who, at age 57, stepped aside from a prominent place in Methodism to be shepherd of the holiness peopls.

Author Biography

Carl Bangs was a professor emeritus of historical theology at Saint Paul School of Theology where he taught for 28 years after teaching 8 years at Olivet Nazarene College. He served as president of the American Theological Society (Midwest Division) and the American Society of Church history. His work, Arminius: A Study in the Dutch Reformation, is a seminal contribution to Dutch church history and Wesleyan-Arminian studies. He has written for scholarly journals and The Encyclopaedia Britannica, The Westminister Dictionary of Church History, Encyclopedia of Religion, and The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation. Bangs is a graduate of Pasadena College and Nazarene Theological Seminary and received the Ph.D. degree from the University of Chicago.