Editor's Note: Mark H. Mann on the Theology of Daniel Steele, etc.

It's amazing what one finds by just clicking around the Internet.

Today I found an interesting and perceptive brief overview of Daniel Steele's theology of Christian holiness over at Google books.

It is a section from the first chapter of Perfecting Grace: Holiness, Human Being, and the Sciences by Mark H. Mann. It is entitled "Daniel Steele and the Theology of the Holiness Movement" and it begins on page 29 of the book.

I think Mann is correct that Steele embraced Pentecostal terminology because of his embrace of John Fletcher's doctrine of Dispensations. If we don't get that, we miss what's going on in his thinking. See: The Three Dispensations. Pentecostalism as we know it today did not arise until after 1900 & the Azusa Street revival, so Steele's use of this kind of terminology was unrelated to that. It grew out of the teachings of Fletcher, who was read side-by-side with Wesley among the early Methodist preachers.

Anyway the book is here: Perfecting Grace: Holiness, Human Being, and the Sciences by Mark H. Mann. The section on Daniel Steele begins on page 29.

But, be sure to read the whole chapter. I think it's quite perceptive.

— Craig L. Adams