The Disruption of Evangelicalism: The Age of Torrey, Mott, McPherson and Hammond

Abstract

This volume is the fourth chronologically, but the last to be published, in a five-volume ‘A History of Evangelicalism: People, Movements and Ideas in the English-Speaking World’, produced by Inter-Varsity Press. The project was launched with the first volume, The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield, and the Wesleys, by Mark Noll, in 2003. Geoffrey Treloar, the author of this volume, is Director of Learning and Teaching at the Australian College of Theology and Visiting Fellow in History in the School of Humanities and Languages at the University of New South Wales. As with the other authors in the series—following Noll these have been John Wolffe, David Bebbington, and Brian Stanley—and in line with the intention of the editors, Treloar is a scholar and an evangelical.The period covered in this volume is 1900 to c.1940. It is an era that has been seen as one in which evangelicalism was in a weak and divided state, compared to the growth and then dominance of the movement in the nineteenth century and the renewal that took place after the Second World War. While Treloar does not underestimate the struggles of these decades, and indeed his title names ‘disruption’, he shows that within the evangelical experience as a whole there were features marked by spiritual energy and advance. In particular he challenges the common interpretation that has as its focus the notorious Fundamentalist-Modernist debates. In place of this rather superficial view, he offers the idea of a spectrum of opinion within global evangelicalism. Within this he includes, for example, the liberal evangelical Methodist Fellowship of the Kingdom. However, those looking for Wesleyan/Methodist developments might wonder if they could have been given more attention.Each of the three main parts of the book has chapters that take up important themes. The first part (c.1900–14) contributes to an understanding of the multifaceted nature of evangelicalism, with its treatment of revival, revivalism, and missions, the life of faith and the question of a social gospel, as well as the major theological issues. In the second part there are three chapters on the First World War. Here, Treloar is seeking to make up for what has been a tendency to pay too little attention to the war, although one hundred years after the war, its religious dimensions have actually been receiving considerable attention. Treloar offers many important insights, but refers only very briefly to conscientious objection to war, which was significant among some evangelicals. Given that the third part of the book, examining almost twenty years, is covered in four chapters, questions could be raised about the overall balance of the three parts.One of the great merits of this book, as with all the volumes in the series, is the global reach. Evangelical figures from across the English-speaking world are introduced to the reader. Treloar has been committed to drawing from an impressive range of sources. These four decades produced few leaders who were as widely influential in evangelicalism as was the case at other times in the history of the movement. Bebbington was able to call the later nineteenth century ‘The Age of Spurgeon and Moody’, and Brian Stanley was similarly justified in denoting the later twentieth century ‘The Age of Billy Graham and John Stott’. The designation ‘The Age of Torrey, Mott, McPherson and Hammond’ is less convincing. Certainly Torrey, and perhaps especially Mott, can be seen as powerful shapers of evangelical thinking and action, one more conservative and one more progressive. However, the Irish-Australian Anglican, T. C. Hammond, and the American Pentecostal, Aimee Semple McPherson, while important, did not operate at a comparable level. A case might equally have been made for the significance of Frank Buchman, whose Oxford Group movement Treloar describes as ‘the most successful conversionist force in interwar evangelicalism’, with Buchman ‘the outstanding international evangelist’.The way in which Buchman is presented is in fact an indication of the strength of this book. It clearly shows the ability of the evangelical spirit to be creative, which at times has meant creating a degree of chaos. The picture is not a tidy one. At a time when there is a trend both from within and outside of evangelicalism to make absolutist statements—for example, that only those who are doctrinally pure are ‘true evangelicals’, or that all evangelicals are politically ‘right wing’—this splendidly rich volume renders portrayals of the movement as monochrome untenable. All those who wish to be informed about a period in evangelical history that has not been studied as fully as it deserves will find Treloar's work invaluable.