Fundamentalist religious movement that arose in the 19th century among Protestant churches in the U.S. It was characterized by the doctrine of sanctification, according to which believers were enabled to live a perfect life after a conversion experience.
It originated in the teachings of John Wesley , founder of Methodism , who issued a call for Christian "perfection" (the transformation of a sinner into a saint through God's intercession). In 1843 a group of Holiness ministers founded the Wesleyan Methodist Church of America, which became popular in the rural Midwest and South; another Holiness church of this era was the Free Methodist Church of North America, founded in 1860. Between 1880 and World War I a new set of Holiness groups appeared, including the Church of the Nazarene, established to minister to the urban poor, and the Church of God.