King's Business - 1967-04

the Lord’s Supper, and the concept of the church as a saving institution. This same trend has found its way into many denominations which were once regarded as low church. It has manifested itself in Congregational, Presbyterian, Methodist, and even some Baptist churches. It has revealed itself in an increase in divided chancels, ecclesiastical vestments, processionals and recessionals, liturgies, and candles upon the altar, to mention just a few manifestations. It is to be understood, of course, that some of these practices have always been present in certain Protestant churches, but the significant fact is their multiplication and spread in the present century. Offsetting this, of course, has been the low church movement. It is present within the very denominations where the high church movement has been gaining popularity as well as in churches which have separated themselves from denomina- tionalism. It has generally appealed to persons on a lower economic, educational, and cultural level. Usually, it has been more orthodox in its theology. It has generally repudiated all authority except that of the Bible. It has emphasized deep religious conviction and spiritual experience and has laid more emphasis upon personal salvation than upon form and ceremony. It has generally been more zealous in missionary and evangelistic outreach. One of the most unusual phenomena of modern church history has been the rise of cults. There has been no equivalent to it in terms of size or peculiarity in any preceding period of church his­ tory. While these cults generally have sprung from American Protestantism, they are by no means limited to this country. They first appeared in the nineteenth century and have ranged from those which show little relationship to Christianity to those which are almost evangelical. The reasons for their existence are not so easy to trace as their classification. Undoubtedly one large factor has been the religious liberty which allows an Ameri­ can to believe or not to believe, to worship, or not to worship, as he pleases. Perhaps the American genius for creativity is responsible for some of them. The promise o f esoteric insights and the evi­ dence of peculiar manifestations and revelations undoubtedly have attracted many of the curious who went to look and then stayed on. Others have been attracted by promises of health and pros­ perity which some of the cults have dangled before them. Religious confusion, also, has played its part in that some of the cults have just enough of the truth to make their doctrines sound plausible and attractive. Such systems have flourished because of the general public’s ignorance of the Bible. Strange­ ly enough, however, even Christians from sound churches have been led astray. The cults, also, have attracted adherents because of the American desire for novelty and change.

guage, and extravagant dress. The Bible and de­ votional books were much in demand, and the Lord’s Day was more faithfully observed. There was a general tendency to confess sins and to make restitution. Dead churches were revitalized. Inter­ est in missionary and educational activity was aroused. Even the divisions which resulted in the creation of new denominations as a result of vary­ ing attitudes toward revival methodology helped to increase the interest in religion and to perpetu­ ate the spread of revival among those groups fa­ voring the Great Awakening. The Great Awakening was followed a century later by the revival campaigns of Charles G. Fin­ ney and Dwight L. Moody. Finney began his re­ markable evangelistic ministry in Rochester, New York, in 1830-1831. As a result of this ministry, one-tenth o f the population, one thousand people, accepted Christ as Saviour, and the moral char­ acter of the city was completely changed. A large number of prominent professional and business­ men were brought into the church. Forty young men converted through this revival entered the ministry. From this beginning, the revival spread until fifteen hundred towns and cities were affect­ ed by it with an estimated one hundred thousand being added to the churches. The evangelistic ministry of Moody introduced modern methods of evangelism. It was the practice of Moody and Sankey not to accept the invitation to a city unless the evangelical ministers were united in their desire to have the team come. Pub­ licity went out weeks in advance of the beginning of the meetings. All persons working with the revival were thoroughly organized and trained in their various responsibilities before the campaign began. These workers engaged in house-to-house visitation in preparation for the meetings. Every good means was used to attract people to the serv­ ices. Daily devotional services were conducted dur­ ing the course of the campaign. Singing occupied an important place in the services. The messages centered around the love of God and His desire to save sinners. Persons who sought salvation were dealt with in inquiry rooms by trained workers and were then directed to a local church. Using similar methods and following in the wake of Moody have been such well-known evangelists as Sam Jones, Gypsy Smith, R. A. Torrey, J. Wilbur Chapman, William A. Sunday, and Billy Graham. Ecclesiastically, striking differences have dis­ played themselves in this modem period. On the one hand, there has been the development of a high church movement. The first significant evi­ dence of this appeared in the nineteenth century within Anglicanism in the form of the Oxford Movement. Among the things stressed by the Ox­ ford Movement were ritualism, episcopal succes­ sion, baptismal regeneration, the real presence in

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APRIL, 1967

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