Higher Life Movement
The Higher Life Movement, also known as Keswick theology, was a nineteenth-century evangelical holiness movement that taught Christians could move beyond ordinary conversion into a deeper experience of sanctification, victory over sin, spiritual surrender, and Spirit-filled living through the "second blessing" or "second touch"; emerging from William Boardman's Higher Christian Life, the Keswick conventions, and the revival world of figures such as Dwight Moody and Ira Sankey, the movement helped shape later holiness, Christian and Missionary Alliance, Pentecostal, and charismatic ideas about entire sanctification, being filled with the Holy Spirit, Christian perfection, and the pursuit of a higher spiritual plane.
The Higher Life Movement was the origin of the "second blessing" or "second touch" that emerged to form the notion of "being filled with the Holy Spirit in modern Pentecostalism. Some refer to it as "entire sanctification", and believers are encouraged to "let go and let God" to receive the "second blessing". Believers in Higher Life claim that every Christian has a natural desire to sin that must be overcome by rising to a "higher life" or "higher plane" with the intent of entering into "perfection". The notion was largely accepted by evangelical Christianity,[1] and new denominations such as the Christian and Missionary Alliance emerged as a result of the movement.
The name, "Higher Life", was the result of a book published by William Boardman in 1858 entitled Higher Christian Life. The movement was first promoted in Keswick, England during a tent revival in 1875, and is also called "Keswickian" theology. The movement came on the heels of revivals held by Dwight Moody and Ira Sankey, and Moody returned to North America to spread the new theology throughout the United States.
The first Keswick Convention hosted over 400 individuals, who met under the banner of 'All One in Christ Jesus.' The meetings have become an annual affair ever since. From Keswick the teaching quickly spread over England, Canada and the United States, with Moody himself being key to the propagation of Keswick teaching in the U.S.[2]
- Wesleyan and Keswick Models of Sanctification