Hannah Whitall Smith

I had to look it up 'cause you said that.

All right, so then, so then basically though, I, what I remember from the story, I'm going basic- basically by memory, that the big thing was there was chariots, and Hannah Whitall Smith brings that up in one of her books, that we get a, we get, we get the word from God first, we pray, and we say, "Okay, we gotta go up against the Canaanites", and then you get there and you go, "Whoa, whoa, whoa.

I didn't know about the chariots, [laughs] the chariots." And, but they went ahead and did it anyway.

They went ahead and fought with, with Deborah by his side, and she gets the credit, 'cause it seems like to me he has to run away or something, right?

... drawing those out, um, for the record.

But, you know, what I had no idea, and it totally blew my mind when I reread it for this book, um, and I realized that Kathryn Marshall based Christie's mentor on this 19th-century holiness preacher, Hannah Whitall Smith.

Wow.

And, and that's where, and, and Hannah Smith became the first chapter in Live, Laugh, Love, because it wasn't just, um, Kathryn Marshall who was looking back to her.

Maribel Morgan in The Total Woman also cites Hannah Whitall Smith.

Elisabeth Elliot also cites Hannah Whitall Smith, and it comes from a family steeped in her teaching, her theology.

And significantly, Mary Crowley, one of the first evangelical kind of direct sales gurus, also credits Hannah Whitall Smith [laughs] with inspiring her business model.

Um, and it turns out, um, I just read a book after I finished, um, Live, Laugh, Love, another brand-new book out by Carrie Ladner, American Dominion, on dominionism.

This is No Small Endeavor, exploring what it means to live a good life.

[upbeat music] In 1875, a woman named Hannah Whitall Smith published a book called The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life.

The title, obviously not modest, [laughs] neither was it a metaphor.

She believed she had found an actual formula.

And when that spiritual power then flows through you, through total submission, you will be blessed with holiness, perfectionism, sanctification, and importantly, with happiness.

Submit completely, and holiness and happiness will follow.

The book became one of the best-selling religious works of the 19th century, but the life that Hannah Whitall Smith lived raises some questions about this formula.

Her life is absolutely disastrous in so many ways.

And so I ended up trying to figure out, where did both of these things come from? It brings me back to the 19th century, uh, into a particular variant of evangelicalism, holiness evangelicalism.

I- my whole first chapter is on a 19th century holiness preacher, Hannah Whitall Smith-

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm

...

in, in, especially in Christian women's publishing.

What happens, then, in the story I tell is that total submission to God that Hannah Whitall Smith presents becomes transformed into total submission to the authorities God has placed over you as it-

Right