Whatever Became of Holiness

Steve DeNeff’s book Whatever Became of Holiness is commentary on the state of the Christian Church. DeNeef attempts to set the record straight on Holiness, its need, its effect on the church, and the form/process it takes. There are three major sections within the book. The first section critiques the modern church, pointing out its fallacies and the major stumbling blocks that are holding it from advancing the gospel. The second section deals with what holiness is, while the third part deals with how holiness works and how one can be entirely sanctified.

The first section comments on the state of the church. The first topic DeNeff tackles is in a section entitled “Morality Versus Religion.” He writes that morality has taken precedence over religion yet is not sufficient. He argues morality has become the new religion yet it cannot save. He compares morality to Cyber love, saying that “we measure God’s holiness and ours by what each of us cares about,” yet we don’t truly know each other. His second major point has to do with the humanization and softening of the human perspective of God. He points out that because our perception of God has changed our views of the church and holiness has changed. His next argument stems from this; he says that we have trivialized sin. We have jeopardized the meaning, cost and seriousness of sin in our lives so we no longer need holiness. This loss of sin and holiness has adversely affected the goals and theology of the church making entire sanctification unnecessary. A solution to the problem of sin is to redraw the seriousness and necessity of repentance. By re-stressing sin and repentance the need for holiness and entire sanctification will naturally arise and the church can begin to see God for who he is. DeNeff defines repentance as “unconditional surrender, a kneeling down inside.

The second part deals with what holiness is and holiness as a solution to the problems described earlier. Now that the doctrine of sin and repentance has been renewed the necessity to understand holiness is great. DeNeff defines holiness as being unique or reserved for a special purpose. He connects the doctrine of holiness to the mind, heart faith, and emotion (passion). These connections show the necessity and totality of the doctrine of holiness.

In the third section DeNeff describes how holiness works. He starts off explaining the woes and strife that progressive sanctification can cause in a believer. He dispels the worries by laying the groundwork for understanding the road of holiness. In this section DeNeff also touches on other, non-Wesleyan, views of holiness. The main part of this section focuses on the issues a misconception of sin can bring to a believer who is seeking holiness. DeNeff lays out clearly how to avoid pit falls such as trivializing and tolerating sin. From here DeNeff moves on to describe the way holiness uses the mind and how it affects the heart. He then describes what a holy lifestyle looks like and gives questions a Christian can ask to judge whether they are living a holy lifestyle. DeNeff finishes with what he calls a critical reminder about reforming our life stiles. He gives three points “repentance, faith and reformation” in that order as steps to change.