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The Battery and the Windmill: Two Models of Protestant Devotionalism in Early-Twentieth-Century America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Richard Ostrander
Richard Ostrander
Affiliation:
A doctoral candidate in history at the University of Notre Dame.
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Extract

In 1912, Andrew Murray, an influential spokesperson for the Keswick theology prevalent in American fundamentalism, decried the sorry state of spirituality among modern Christians. How many there are, he exclaimed, who “say that they have no time and that the heart desire for prayer is lacking; they do not know how to spend half an hour with God! … Day after day, month after month passes, and there is no time to spend one hour with God.” Closing his jeremiad, Murray exclaimed, “How many there are who take only five minutes for prayer!” A few years later, Herbert Willett and Charles Clayton Morrison, editors of The Christian Century, the voice of the emerging liberal movement in American Protestantism, published a daily devotional guide entitled The Daily Altar. Its purpose was to provide Christians with “a few moments of quiet and reflection” in the midst of “short and crowded days” in order to maintain a daily prayer life. To be precise, devotions in The Daily Altar took one and a half minutes to complete.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 65 , Issue 1 , March 1996 , pp. 42 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1996

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References

1. Murray, Andrew, The Prayer Life (Chicago, 1912), p. 16Google Scholar; and Willett, Herbert and Morrison, Charles Clayton, The Daily Altar (Chicago, 1918)Google Scholar, foreword.

2. Gray, James, “Modernism a Revolt Against Christianity,” Moody Bible Institute Monthly (10 1924): 57Google Scholar; and Torrey, Reuben A., “The Duty and Worth of Prayer,” Moody Bible Institute Monthly (09 1917): 21.Google Scholar

3. Fosdick, Harry Emerson, Adventurous Religion (New York, 1926), pp. 233, 311Google Scholar; and Morrison, , “The New Reformation,” The Christian Century 40 (1923): 198.Google Scholar

4. Miller, Robert M., Harry Emerson Fosdick (New York, 1985), Pp. 70, 69Google Scholar. On Victorious Life conferences, see Joel, Carpenter, ed., The Victorious Life (New York, 1988)Google Scholar. On the continued appeal of Keswick books such as Smith's, The Christian's Secret of the Happy Life (Boston, 1875)Google Scholar and Murray's, With Christ in the School of Prayer (London, 1883)Google Scholar, see Virginia, Brereton, From Sin to Salvation (Bloomington, md., 1991), pp. 80–81Google Scholar. It should be emphasized that my object of study is the devotional prescriptions of liberal and fundamentalist leaders. I do not attempt the more adventurous and problematic task of charting the actual devotional practices of Christians.

5. See Kenneth, Cauthen, American Religious Liberalism (New York, 1962)Google Scholar, and William, Hutchison, The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism (Cambridge, Mass., 1976).Google Scholar

6. George Marsden, who defined fundamentalism as “militantly anti-modernist Protestant evangelicalism,” also noted that “militancy was not necessarily the central trait of fundamentalists. Missions, evangelism, prayer, personal holiness, ot a variety of doctrinal concerns may often or usually have been their first interest”; Fundamentalism and American Culture (New York, 1980), pp. 4, 231Google Scholar. See also Bruce, Shelley, “Sources of Pietistic Fundamentalism,” Fides et Historia 5 (1973): 68–78Google Scholar; Marsden, 72–101; and Brereton, , Training God's Army: The American Bible Schools, 1880–1940 (Bloomington, Ind., 1990).Google Scholar

7. Nineteenth-century Protestant devotional life revolved around fairly lengthy morning and evening prayers, presumably accompanied by a time of family Bible reading. Two examples of nineteenth-century devotional manuals with written prayers for morning and evening are James, Bean, Family Worship: A Course of Morning and Evening Prayers (Philadelphia, Pa., 1819)Google Scholar, and the anonymous Family Prayers (Dublin, 1835). Matthew, Henry's classic A Method of Prayer (1710; repr. New York, 1851)Google Scholar, which prescribed morning and evening prayers of approximately ten minutes each, also remained popular. Even in 1893, the influential Protestant statesman John Mott instructed Christians to spend a half-hour each morning in private devotion. See The Morning Watch (New York, 1893), pp. 6–7.Google Scholar

8. Donald, Meyer, The Protestant Search for Political Realism, 1919–1941 (Berkeley, Calif., 1960), p. 116Google Scholar; and Sinclair, Lewis, Babbitt (New York, 1922)Google Scholar. On the emergence of the middle class, see Robert, Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877–1920 (New York, 1967).Google Scholar

9. Robert, and Helen, Lynd, Middletown: A Study in Contemporary American Culture (New York, 1929), p. 337Google Scholar; William, Biederwolf, How Can God Answer Prayer? (New York, 1910), p. 26Google Scholar; Torrey, , The Power of Prayer and the Prayer of Power (New York, 1924), p. 16Google Scholar; George, Horr, “Family Worship,” Biblical World 27 (1906): 107Google Scholar; and Brown, William Adams, The Life of Prayer in a World of Science (New York, 1927), p. 5.Google Scholar

10. Bounds, E. M., Power Through Prayer (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1912), pp. 117, 121, 48Google Scholar; Murray, , The Prayer Life, p. 98Google Scholar; and Torrey, , “The Duty and Worth of Prayer,” p. 21Google Scholar. Murray was actually a Dutch Reformed minister from South Africa who exercised a wide influence on American fundamentalists through speaking tours and through his numerous books, as a perusal of any fundamentalist church library would attest.

11. Bounds, pp. 48–61; Gordon, S. D., Quiet Talks on How to Pray (Chicago, 1910), p. 50Google Scholar; Biederwolf, p. 32; and Torrey, , Power of Prayer, p. 22.Google Scholar

12. Lyman, Abbott, “Christ's Teaching Concerning Prayer,” The Outlook 62(1899): 940.Google Scholar

13. Abbott, , “Letters to Unknown Friends,” The Outlook 104(1913): 323–324.Google Scholar

14. All times for these devotionals were arrived at by a leisurely run-through, reading aloud to avoid skimming.

15. Andrew Murray's two most influential books, Abide in Christ and With Christ in the School of Prayer were also written in this standard devotional format of short daily readings. Yet Murray made it clear that his words were not to be substituted for a more lengthy time of daily devotions: “It is not enough to read God's Word, or meditations as here offered, and when we think we have hold of the thoughts and have asked God for His blessing, to go out in the hope that the blessing will abide. No, it needs day by day time with Jesus and with God.… Take time each day, ere you read, and while you read, and after you read, to put yourself into living contact with the living Jesus.” Abide in Christ (Fort Washington, Pa., 1883), p. 7.Google Scholar

16. Morrison, , “The Daily Altar Movement,” The Christian Century 36 (1919): 5Google Scholar; Brown, William Adams, The Quiet Hour (New York, 1926)Google Scholar; and Campbell, James M., The Place of Prayer in the Christian Religion (New York, 1915), p. 257.Google Scholar

17. Fosdick, , The Meaning of Prayer (New York, 1915), pp. 84, 85, 169–170Google Scholar; and Brown, , The Quiet Hour, pp. 53–54, 173–174.Google Scholar

18. Gordon, S. D., Quiet Talks on How to Pray, p. 12Google Scholar; Mueller, George, Answers to Prayer from George Mueller's Narratives (Salem, Ohio, 1903), pp. 87–91Google Scholar; and Torrey, , How to Pray, pp. 90, 54Google Scholar. Fundamentalists also recommended a time of evening prayer for reflection and confession, but this did not preclude extensive morning devotions. See, for example, Torrey, , How to Succeed in the Christian Life (Chicago, 1906), pp. 76–79Google Scholar, and Graham, Scroggie, Method in Prayer (New York, 1916), p. 21.Google Scholar

19. Torrey, , Power of Prayer, p. 18Google Scholar; Gordon, S. D., Quiet Talks on How to Pray, p. 17Google Scholar; Murray, , Prayer Life, pp. 94–95Google Scholar; and Bounds, , The Necessity of Prayer (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1929), p. 12.Google Scholar

20. Torrey, , How to Pray (Chicago, 1900), p. 112Google Scholar; Gordon, S. D., Quiet Talks on Prayer (New York, 1904), p. 166Google Scholar; Howard, and Geraldine, Taylor, Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret (Chicago, 1932), pp. 227, 236Google Scholar; Horton quoted in Douglas, Frank, Less Than Conquerors: How Evangelicals Entered the Twentieth Century (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1986), p. 122.Google Scholar

21. Brown, , The Life of Prayer in a World of Science, pp. 51–54Google Scholar; and George, Horr, “Family Worship,” p. 110.Google Scholar

22. Gordon, S. D., “Prayer and the Uttermost Parts,” The Missionary Review of the World 39 (1916): 821.Google Scholar

23. D. L. Moody quoted in McLoughlin, William, Modern Revivalism (New York, 1959), p. 257Google Scholar; and Torrey, , “What the Moody Bible Institute Has Stood for During the Twenty-Five Years of Its History and What It Still Stands for Today,” Moody Bible Institute Monthly (02 1916): 445–446Google Scholar. The “emergency Christian life” was undoubtedly augmented by premillennialism though it was not necessarily dependent on it, and many Keswick leaders such as Torrey, A. T. Pierson, A. B. Simpson, and A. J. Gordon were strong advocates of premillennialism. See Timothy, Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming: American Premillennialism, 1875–1925 (New York, 1979), especially pp. 51–64.Google Scholar

24. Gordon, S. D., “Prayer and the Uttermost Parts,” p. 821Google Scholar; Cole, Stewart, The History of Fundamentalism (1931; repr. Hamden, Conn., 1963), p. 250Google Scholar; Symington, Thomas, Religious Liberals and Conservatives: A Comparison (New York, 1935), pp. 62–63Google Scholar; and Biederwolf, , How Can God Answer Prayer?, p. 279.Google Scholar

25. Symington, p. 63; Hutchison, , ed., American Protestant Thought: The Liberal Era (New York, 1968), p. 4.Google Scholar

26. Shailer, Mathews, “Evangelizing the Inevitable,” The Christian Century 34 (1917)Google Scholar. Although Mathews was not an “evangelical liberal,” his title encapsulated the theological enterprise for all liberals. Fosdick, , The Meaning of Prayer, p. 22Google Scholar; Willett and Morrison, foreword; Campbell, p. 257. It is perhaps surprising to note that liberal devotional writings frequently addressed family devotions, while fundamentalists wrote almost exclusively about individual devotions.

27. The innovative Fosdick took the standard daily devotional format (seen, for example, in such popular devotionals of the day as the Congregationalist Closet and Altar [1899], and George, Matheson'sLeaves for the Qmet Hour [1904])Google Scholar and used it to introduce readers to liberal theology.

28. Torrey, , How to Pray, p. 112Google Scholar; Gordon, S. D., Treasury of Quiet Talks, pp. 9–10Google Scholar; and Deck, Northcote. Prayer in the Mission Field,” Missionary Review 40 (1917): 181Google Scholar. Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret closes with an account of Taylor's devotional life, including his two hours a day in prayer and reading of the Bible forty times. The last paragraph concludes, “There are not two Christs-an easy-going one for easy-going Christians and a suffering, toiling one for exceptional believers. There is only one Christ” (p. 237).

29. Brown, , Life of Prayer, p. 14Google Scholar; and Fiske, C. Walter, Finding the Comrade God: The Essentials of a Soldierly Faith (New York, 1918), p. 168.Google Scholar

30. Dayton, Donald, Theological Roots of Pentecostalism (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1987), pp. 100–108Google Scholar; Pollock, J. C., The Keswick Story (London, 1964), pp. 64–118Google Scholar; Shelley, p. 76; and Marsden, pp. 72–80.

31. Bounds, , The Weapon of Prayer (Grand Rapids, Mich., [1931]), p. 147Google Scholar; and Torrey, , How to Succeed, pp. 80–81Google Scholar. The analogy of the balloon and the cart is reported in Marsden, p. 78.

32. Bounds, , Power Through Prayer, p. 121Google Scholar; and Torrey, , Power of Prayer, p. 18.Google Scholar

33. Murray, , Prayer Life, p. 97Google Scholar; Murray, , Abide in Christ, p. 85Google Scholar; and Bounds, , Power Through Prayer, pp. 63, 65.Google Scholar

34. Torrey, , How to Succeed, p. 49Google Scholar; and Bounds, , Necessity of Prayer, p. 24.Google Scholar

35. Borden, Bowne, The Immanence of God (Boston, 1905), pp. 3, 127, 126, 145, 149Google Scholar; and Campbell, p. 201. On the large influence of Bowne on American liberals, see Sidney, Ahlstrom, Theology in America (New York, 1967), p. 72.Google Scholar

36. Campbell, pp. 15, 246, 91–92.

37. Brown, , The Quiet Hour, p. 48.Google Scholar

38. Walter Fiske, p. 168; and Brown, , Life of Prayer, pp. 176–178Google Scholar. Implicit in this, of course, was a “historicist” understanding of Scripture, in contrast to the “ahistoricism” of traditionalists; see Grant, Wacker, Augustus H. Strong and the Dilemma of Historical Consciousness (Macon, Ga., 1985)Google Scholar, on the impact of historicism on modern Christian thought.

39. Brown, , Life of Prayer, 50–5 1Google Scholar; Willett, and Morrison, , The Daily Altar, pp. 224, 19Google Scholar; and Brown, , Life of Prayer, p. 174.Google Scholar

40. One should also avoid carrying the analogies too far. The windmill completely depends on the Initiative of the wind for its power, but one could hardly argue that liberals displayed a Calvinistic sense of dependence on divine initiative in the spiritual life.

41. Poems permeated popular fundamentalist writings, and would yield a fascinating study to the historian with a high tolerance for sentimental poetry.

42. See, for instance, Douglas Frank's penetrating though overly critical remarks in Less Than Conquerors (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1986), p. 109.Google Scholar

43. Lettie, Cowman, Streams in the Desert (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1925), foreword.Google Scholar

44. Current daily devotionals with Keswick roots such as Daily Bread and Moody Bible Institute's Today in the Word do the same. In addition to the Keswick theology that sometimes manifests itself, their distinguishing trait is a longer Scripture passage not printed on the page itself. Hence, practitioners must still break open their tattered Bibles.