This is an era of change. Nothing seems stable or stationary. Verities are tossed about like vanities. Not only customs but convictions are to be subject to modifications and variations. Not a few who are older in years begin to ask whether anything which belonged to a century ago is thought fit to survive.
Among all that is passing away is the old evangelism, and it may not be strange if, to the taste of some, the old wine is better than the new. Improvement should always be welcome, but change is not necessarily advance, and when too rapid it may be reckless. To secure more and better fruit we may safely trim off dead wood and graft on healthy scions, but there is risk in meddling with the root.
Our present purpose is candidly to compare modern evangelism with evangelism of the old school.
The Old Evangelism
This older type dates from about the middle of the eighteenth century and prevailed until recently. It had a significant beginning, being the outcome of the practical deism of the previous century, when faith had been well-nigh stifled, not only in pew but also in pulpit, and the decay of religious conviction brought a sort of palsy upon piety and even morality, until Christianity itself seemed in peril of extinction.
Just then, as in the period of the Judges, the Lord raised up deliverers. About a dozen men, all evangelical and evangelistic, appeared with a strange simultaneousness, and in Great Britain and America became God’s new apostles of evangelism. As a matter of history, we record the names of some of these: John and Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, William Grimshaw and William Romaine, Daniel Rowlands, John Berridge, Henry Venn, Walker of Truro, Fletcher of Madeley, James Hervey and Augustus Toplady.
Of this period of religious renaissance two men were prominent as leaders and pioneers–John Wesley and George Whitefield, who, in God’s plan, almost unconsciously founded a new school of evangelism. Driven from Anglican pulpits by petty persecution, like their Master they took to the fields and preached in the open air when buildings were not available; and to throngs numbering twenty and thirty thousand.
The New Evangelism
The marked feature of this evangelism was its simplicity. There was no extensive organization or elaborate preparation, the audience room was nature’s own cathedral, any commodious common or amphitheater among the hills, the multitude standing or sitting on the grass or ledges of rock. There was no help from choirs or soloists, no pecuniary conditions or outlay, no loud advertising or newspaper reporting; not even facilities for inquiry meetings, save as they spontaneously developed, extemporized of necessity. But one thing there was, whatever there was not–the plain gospel message, spoken so as to be “understood of the common people,” inspired with a spirit of prayer, and glowing with Holy Ghost fire.
These men, without exception, believed in the mighty working of the Spirit of God through the Word of God, and, in this confidence, wielded the sword of the Spirit, cleaving their way–through all hindrances and despite all disadvantages–to the hearts of men. All classes felt the power of their message: leaders of fashion like Chesterfield, skeptics like Bolingbroke, and philosophers like Franklin. The largest buildings were inadequate; the doors were besieged before dawn, crowds waiting hours for entrance to early morning services. Revivals swept in tidal waves over whole communities. It is a significant fact, and undeniable, that, so far as evangelism since has approximated such power, it has been in direct proportion to adherence to the essentials of this older type.
Present-Day Evangelism
The more recent type of evangelism retains few, if any, features of this older school, while it has certain unmistakable marks of its own. It is attended with extensive organization, elaborate preparation, expensive outlay, studied notoriety, display of statistics, newspaper advertising and systematic puffing, spectacular sensationalism, dramatic novelties, and sometimes doubtful complication with secular and political issues. Without deciding whether any or all of these characteristics of modern methods are legitimate, as “up-to-date,” they are beyond dispute common; and the question will arise whether on the whole they are signals of advance or of retrogression.
Of some things we feel sure. For example, that there is a melancholy decay of the prayer spirit. Some of the old evangelists laid more stress on praying than on preaching. Jonathan Edwards’ sermon at Enfield was preceded by an all-night of united prayer. Mr. Finney thought he owed more to the intercessions of Nash and Cleary than to his own logic. Such men of prayer were the old Welsh revivalists that the people stood in awe of them as men who.lived on a mountaintop alone with God. It was so in Mr. Moody’s campaigns in Britain. Who, that ever had part in them, will forget the mysterious hush of the presence of God, the awful sense of Divine dealing with the conscience, and the startling answers of definite prayer in multitudes of cases? Sometimes the barriers to souls fell suddenly away, like the falling of Jericho’s walls.
Increasing Cost, Diminishing Returns
Sometimes it has a fixed price and does not hesitate to announce it, and it runs into high figures. Single churches cannot assume such a burden, and a whole city must marshall its forces to lift the load. The worth of one soul outweighs millions of money; but when avarice baits the hook, the fisher may get caught rather than the fish, and whenever money gets hold of an evangelist, his spiritual power is gone.
In the Welsh revival, in which the writer was permitted to have a share, little if any aid was sought from without; there were neither hired preachers nor singers, advertisements nor committees; and in some churches meetings were held daily for eighteen months, with no cost but for fuel and light. Yet, amid conditions so primitive, the fire of God swept through the Rhondda Valley, burning up drink and tobacco, transforming the profane and obscene tongues of those colliers and subduing their quarrelsome tempers until even the mules they drove in the mines did not recognize the new dialect of their drivers! All of which shows that a great revival need not always be attended with large outlay.
Counting the Converts
Modern evangelism makes much of numbers, parading statistics, and often with a reckless mode of reckoning. It is easy to secure a show of numbers, but such numerical estimates are very misleading. If superficial means be adopted; if people are encouraged to think that some simple outward act or step carries merit or brings salvation; or if in any way there is a carnal appeal to the hope of some self-advantage, there will be a ready response.
The more spiritual a man’s methods are, the less will he rely on apparent results or make a display of numerical success. He will remember how that first divine Evangelist never paraded numbers. In Matthew 18, where in twenty verses He refers seven times to numbers, they never exceed one, two, three. To attach importance to statistics risks superficiality of method, lust of human approbation, mistaking extensity for intensity, as well as deceiving souls into a false hope, and oneself into a false persuasion of success. Surely this must be the devil’s snare to catch the unwary.
If what has been written may help to purify our evangelism of carnal elements and glorify it with a distinctly spiritual purpose and power, our prayer will be more than answered.