The Evangelist as Star: The Billy Graham Crusade in Australia, 1959 (original) (raw)
This article deals with the reception of Billy Graham and modern evangelicalism in the fragmented society of the Netherlands in 1954. It takes its departure from the stream of newspaper articles published between February and June in response to the Greater London Crusade and Graham’s first large scale rally in Amsterdam’s Olympic Stadium. The analysis of the reports in different newspapers, which represent the different social groups (catholic, protestant, socialist and liberal) in Dutch society, reveals a significant shift in the way Billy Graham was perceived: from initial scepticism to mild appreciation. This change in press coverage, it is concluded, is mainly due to the different way in which Billy Graham presented himself compared with the large-scale publicity which surrounded his campaign.
Billy Graham and the nature of conversion: A paradigm case
Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, 1992
, MB R3T 2N2. The research for this article was completed with assistance from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, through the University of Manitoba. their &dquo;Graham crusade decision.&dquo;4 873-90; Donald A. Clelland and Thomas C. Hood, "In the Company of the Converted:
Forgotten Social Gospellers: Reverends J.B. Silcox and Hugh Pedley
Historical papers, 2002
In the introduction to Rethinking Church, State and Modernity, David Lyon states that "secularization understood as religious decline, deflects attention from ways that religious impulse is being relocated and religious activities restructured." 1 Indeed, Ramsay Cook and David Marshall, 2 by focusing on the decline of theological doctrines, attenuate the fact that turn-of-thecentury Christians experienced differently their faith. Lyon's comment obliquely endorses Richard Allen's 1971 conclusion. 3 Studying the social gospel, a movement led by Protestant church leaders who responded to the challenges that Darwinism and the new philosophy of higher criticism posed to religious beliefs, Allen points out that many religious leaders decided to direct their attention away from theological issues to social questions. He contends that Christianity did not lose its appeal during this period of intense philosophical challenge; on the contrary, it became more widespread. 4 By shifting the central focus from religious elites, and by giving voice to prosaic preachers and to how their message was received, one realizes that churches and denominations deepened their public presence rather than lost their appeal. If advertisement speaks the language of popularity, that is, pastors, priests or pope are often portrayed endorsing a variety of products, that is in itself revealing. But that is the object of another paper. Reverends J.B. Silcox and Hugh Pedley might not be familiar names to our contemporary ears, but to turn-of-the-century Canadians, they were celebrities. Their pastorates are real testimonies of church relevance. Not only did the two reverends attract large crowds, but their influence is also confirmed by the
Remembering Revival: Evangelical Historians and the Great Awakening
The Gospel in the Past: Essays on the Historiography of the Evangelical Movement, 2025
This chapter surveys Evangelical interpretations of the Great Awakening, focusing on representive historical interpretations beginning with Jonathan Edwards in the 18th century and concluding with the late Canadian historian, George Rawlyk. It assesses the various approaches and notes the change from more denominational histories to those of academic historians. What is posted is only a sample of the entire chapter.
2003
Tennent was a revivalist in the Middle Atlantic and New England colonies. This project examines the ministry methods that Tennent is most known for, that of "preaching the terrors" and "searching preaching", both used to provoke examination of one's spiritual state. Tennent's morphology of conversion is examined. "The Tennent-Rickards Scale of Conversion" is proposed and compared to "The Engel Scale"
2017
The outbreak of World War II and then the bombing of Pearl Harbor projected the United States out of its prewar isolationism into an increasingly contested role as an arbiter of world events. The tens of thousands of Protestant missionaries who were scattered around the world suddenly became the object of close diplomatic scrutiny. Many were ejected from the countries in which they worked, making their way back to the United States. The formation of the National Association of Evangelicals provided them with a forum through which they could explore an attempt to influence policy formation abroad. Missions agencies in particular needed to find ways in which they could protect their staff and, where possible, shape American foreign policy to oppose their enemies and promote their interests. The end of the war also left vast American resources in situ in many of the worlds missionary receiving countries. Here were great opportunities for the gospel, but only if they could leverage connections to the State Department, protect their people on the ground, and develop those opportunities effectively. A key agency in all of this through the 1940s and 50s was the Evangelical Fellowship of Mission Agencies, founded and run by the former Baptist missionary to Latin America, Clyde W Taylor. Over the next 30 years, Taylor would essentially become one of the best-known missionary statesmen in the world. This effectiveness was the product of his missionary experience, his wide connections amongst conservative evangelical churches, his experience as a State Department officer, and a warm, embracing style through which he made many friends in sometimes unexpected places. This paper looks at the development of EFMA in its early years, in the context of emerging neo-evangelicalism, international tensions over Fascism, Communism, political Catholicism, and the compromises which faced American diplomats in their attempts to deal with religion, culture, and politics. It focuses on Taylor as an effective organiser, who brought to the task of a mobilising combination of buoyant faith and well-founded fears for the nature of the world which would be built upon the ashes of war.
What Rings True: James S. Stewart and N.M. Ylvisaker on Postwar Evangelical Witness
Two standout books from the post WW2 period argue for the necessity of urgent preaching on the mighty acts of God in history and the centrality of the evangelical tradition. Hailing from the Norwegian Lutheran and Scottish Free Church traditions respectively, the two books of theology mirrored the exact same theme, tone, and trajectory. They had the same basic length and the same basic title centered around heralding and trumpeting the gospel. The authors—Nils Martin Ylvisaker and James S. Stewart—would have been worlds apart in social circles and theological minutia, yet wrote impassioned, academically-informed treatises that make the same claim: the aftermath of the War was the time to establish the resounding supremacy of Christ in evangelical mission, witness, and proclamation.
An Historical and Theological Analysis of Evangelistic Practice in Two American University Contexts
This dissertation, an exercise in practical theology, consists of a critical conversation between the evangelistic practice of Campus Crusade for Christ in two American university contexts, Bryan Stone’s ecclesiologically grounded theology of evangelism, and William Abraham’s eschatologically grounded theology of evangelism. It seeks to provide these evangelizing communities several strategic proposals for a more ecclesiologically and eschatologically grounded practice of evangelism within a university context. The current literature on evangelism is long on evangelistic strategy and activity, but short on theological analysis and reflection. This study focuses on concrete practices, but is grounded in a thick description of two particular contexts (derived from qualitative research methods) and a theological analysis of the ecclesiological and eschatological beliefs embedded within their evangelistic activities. The dissertation provides an historical overview of important figures, ideas, and events that helped mold the practice of evangelism inherited by the two ministries of this study, beginning with the famous Haystack Revival on Williams College in 1806. Both ministries, Campus Crusade for Christ at Bowling Green State University (Ohio) and at Washington State University, inherited an evangelistic practice sorely infected with many of the classic distortions that both Abraham and Stone attempt to correct. Qualitative research methods detail the direction that Campus Crusade for Christ at Bowling Green State University (Ohio) and Washington State University have taken the practice of evangelism they inherited. Applying the analytical categories that emerge from a detailed summary of Stone and Abraham to qualitative data of these two ministries reveals several ways evangelism has morphed in a manner sympathetic to Stone’s insistence that the central logic of evangelism is the embodied witness of the church. The results of this analysis reveal the subversive and pervasive influence of modernity on these evangelizing communities—an influence that warrants several corrective strategic proposals including: 1) re-situating evangelism within a reading of the biblical narrative that emphasizes the present, social, public, and realized nature of the gospel of the kingdom of God rather than simply its future, personal, private, and unrealized dimensions; 2) clarifying the nature of the evangelizing communities and their relationship to the church; and 3) emphasizing the virtues that characterize a new evangelistic exemplar who is incarnational, intentional, humble, and courageous.
JOHN ALEXANDER DOWIE AND THE EMERGENT CHURCH MOVEMENT: SHARED THEOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL DYNAMICS
The ministry of John Alexander Dowie and his Zion City utopia is an intriguing lesson in the power of charismatic influence. He was a man used by God to perform extraordinary miracles and have widespread influence at the end of the nineteenth century. Yet he also was a very controversial figure who experienced a progressive downhill theological slide at the end of life. The Emergent Church Movement is likewise an interesting study in its effect on evangelical Christianity. It has exploded onto the scene as an attempt to evangelize in a postmodern context. However, the ECM has also raised widespread concerns due to theological questioning. A further comparison reveals that Dowie and emergents practice similar theological and sociological approaches in their attempts to recover apostolic Christianity. 9 Faupel, "World Conquest: The Missionary Strategy Of John Alexander Dowie," 205-206.