The Pioneers at Fifty

Last year, almost unnoticed, evangelist Billy Graham slipped past a milestone: the golden anniversary of his own conversion to Jesus Christ. Back in 1934 during a revival led by Mordecai F. Ham, the then 16-year-old Graham publicly accepted Jesus as his personal Savior. No one at the time could have guessed the impact this gangling teenager would make upon worldwide Christianity during the next half-century.

Billy Graham’s anniversary is typical of evangelical Christianity today. The 1980s have been highlighted by a number of golden anniversaries among evangelical ministries and outreaches. They started in 1980, when the Independent Fundamental Churches of America marked its fiftieth year; followed, in 1982, with the fiftieth birthday of the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches.

In 1983, the Navigators looked back a half-century to the personal ministry of Dawson Trotman and the beginnings of their distinctive training program in Christian discipleship. That same year Gospel Light Press observed its golden anniversary. It was 1933 when Henrietta Mears, director of Christian education at the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, began writing materials for her Sunday school teachers and Gospel Light was born.

In 1984, Scripture Press recalled the similar beginnings of its own publishing venture. In 1934 Victor E. Cory and his wife, Bernice, with the backing of Clarence H. Benson at Moody Bible Institute, began publishing Sunday school lessons for students and teachers in the Chicago area.

And these recent celebrations are apparently just the beginning. In the next ten years, the following will also turn 50:

• In 1986, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church;

• In 1987, the Bible Presbyterian Church;

• In 1988, Young Life, an evangelistic ministry to high schoolers;

• In 1991, Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship in the United States, and the American Scientific Affiliation, a scholarly society for evangelical scientists;

• In 1992, the National Association of Evangelicals;

• And in 1994, the National Religious Broadcasters.

In the meantime, all across the country Bible schools will remind alumni that their alma mater is passing the half-century mark. Between 1930 and 1940, evangelicals started no fewer than 35 Bible schools. And between 1940 and 1950, they founded 60 more!

Anniversaries always carry an invitation to look back to an earlier time, sometimes with justifiable pride, sometimes with fresh determination. This is certainly true of these anniversaries in evangelical circles. Something rather significant appeared on the American religious scene 50 years ago.

The Quiet Transformation

In the 1930s, American evangelicalism experienced nothing short of a transformation. Before this, evangelicals had relied upon the traditional denominations—Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Disciples of Christ, and others—as channels for their work for God in the world. They contributed to denominational missions; they purchased denominational Sunday school literature; they sang from denominational hymnals. And while they knew of such interdenominational ministries as the American Bible Society and the Christian Endeavor Society, evangelicals supported them through denominational channels.

During the 1930s, however, all this changed. Evangelicals by the tens of thousands turned their backs on the traditional denominations and poured their energies and dollars into a string of parachurch agencies, which soon provided the leadership for that informal coalition of Protestant Christians we now call “American evangelicalism.”

The reason for this shift was the so-called modernist-fundamentalist controversy. In the 1920s, a struggle developed over leadership of the traditional evangelical denominations. Within these denominations, conservative believers, often called “fundamentalists,” tried to erect doctrinal barriers against the waves of theological liberalism and the secularization of American society. Here and there they succeeded in diverting the waters, but overall the tides of change prevailed. Denominational officials accepted the principle of religious pluralism within their ranks. And today we can see the results: the so-called mainline denominations led by liberal-ecumenical establishments.

When these denominations refused to adopt confessional standards for their ministries, conservatives faced three alternatives. They could withdraw into some quiet corner of denominational life and forget about their battle for the truth. They could separate from the denomination and join their colleagues in forming a new, smaller denomination with better safeguards against theological liberalism (denominations that today are the fastest growing in America). Or they could redirect their zeal and their energies into new organizations for the spread of the gospel.

As it turned out, conservatives did all three. But the zeal to create new schools and parachurch ministries proved so great that the pursuit of this alternative—with the increasing strength of the new, theologically conservative denominations—changed the profile of American evangelicalism. While the mainline denominations fell into a membership decline and general spiritual malaise, conservative Christians showed amazing vitality. In the two decades between 1930 and 1950, evangelicals laid the foundations for the renovation of the gospel witness that caught national attention in the 1970s. The radio broadcasts, Bible schools, and youth movements of the thirties paved the way for the television programs, publishing houses, missions, and church-planting efforts of today.

The Parachurch “Partnership”

A fresh vision of the world without Christ blended with the disillusionment with the mainline denominations to contribute to the formation of a plethora of parachurch ministries in the 1940s.

Parachurch organizations, of course, had existed alongside and within official church organizations since the days of Justin Martyr’s ministry in Rome and Clement’s school in Alexandria. They were simply voluntary associations of Christians seeking to fulfill some distinctively Christian purpose and thereby extend the influence of the established churches.

But these new parachurch organizations were—and are—different. In spite of the fact that “para” in Greek means “alongside,” evangelical parachurch agencies are not, for the most part, “alongside” mainline denominations today. They do not have the approval of mainline leaders. And in many cases, denominational officials consider evangelical ministries as subversive outsiders and competitors. As a result, most parachurch agencies are “alongside the churches” only in the sense of sympathetic local churches.

This lack of approval from denominational headquarters has handicapped most evangelical parachurch ministries. The last 50 years have witnessed a sharp decline in mainline denominational loyalty all over the country. The South is the only possible exception to the rule, and even there many observers feel that appeals based on denominational loyalty alone are proving less effective. Most laymen today simply do not care about the decisions denominational officials make 500 miles away, especially those laymen who find significant expression of their Christian faith in some parachurch ministry.

In his recent book Mainline Churches and the Evangelicals—perhaps the most perceptive discussion of the denominational and parachurch “crisis” available—Richard G. Hutcheson, Jr., writes: “Mainline Protestantism today is in a serious state of disarray. These large, historic American denominations … are clearly in trouble. Almost without exception they have been declining in membership.… Virtually all are trying to cope with massive funding changes.… They have been faced with a loss of interest in denominational affairs and with growing localism.”

If we look intently, we can find some signs of a thaw in the cold war between parachurch agencies and mainline denominations. Most of these denominations have evangelical minorities, and some denominational officials have turned to these pastors and churches for a ray of hope in the deepening gloom of denominational life. For the most part, however, any sudden breakthrough in parachurch-denominational relations seems unlikely.

The Parachurch Witness

But doctrinal integrity was only one reason for parachurch growth. In the last 25 years, evangelical parachurch organizations have multiplied for another reason. The increasing secularization of American society has made the churches’ and denominations’ witness for truth and justice outside the walls of their sanctuaries increasingly difficult.

Secularists have applied the dogma of the separation of church and state to ever wider areas of public life. Most notably, the Supreme Court has ruled against prayer and the devotional reading of the Bible in the public schools. Consequently (and as recent organizations of the Religious Right show), a nonsectarian organization simply has a better chance of escaping the clutches of the Internal Revenue Service than do denominations or local churches engaged in the same activities. In the eyes of the IRS, Jerry Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church is one thing; his Moral Majority is another.

The recent parachurch proliferation has also come in part because evangelicals can afford to support a string of causes. In a recent article, Prof. Thomas Askew of Gordon College linked the spread of parachurch evangelicalism with the economic prosperity in America over the last quarter of a century. “Anglo-American evangelical piety,” he writes, “has for generations tended to resemble middle-class values.… Two decades of material abundance inevitably shaped the perception of Christian discipleship.”

Askew’s observation is a clue to an important but subtle shift in parachurch evangelicalism. Many of the leaders in the ministries founded 50 years ago were gripped by a cause. The history of the early years of most of these organizations reveals how little anyone had to gain personally by throwing himself into the work. Their visions, moreover, were bathed in prayer. All-night prayer vigils were not an uncommon occurence, as men and women gathered to seek out God’s leading and direction in formulating their “new thing.”

We are not, of course, without our sacrificial ministries. Indeed, the spiritual legacy of the prayer-warring, parachurch pioneers is alive today in the many organizations committed to taking an unadulterated gospel message into all avenues of life. But this is the media generation. Television can create a superstar overnight and mailing lists can raise millions in a day. Thus the constant challenges of money and power remain the formidable obstacles facing any man, woman, or organization that is intent upon “fighting the good fight” in today’s world.

The Parachurch Challenge

Today, few parachurch agencies offer any opportunity for democratic participation in the oversight of their ministry. They usually follow a corporate style of operation, much closer to the “big business” management model than the traditional denominational style of annual conventions.

A few years ago, responsible parachurch agencies recognized the possibility of financial abuses, and they created the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. Member organizations of the council pledge to use contributions responsibly and to provide a regular accounting of the use of funds.

But as the parachurch years turn golden, perhaps their greatest challenges fall in the area of leadership. Since many of these ministries were launched by the gifts and vision of some individual, the inevitable changing of the guard—the moving from an entrepreneurial founder to a managerial leader—raises the question of continuity in leadership as well as organizational direction. The gifts and vision of a founder are often not repeatable. And while dynasties are a prominent feature of leadership “among the Gentiles,” what guarantees do Christians have that this all-too-human temptation is really from God?

These, then, are the questions that come with evangelical golden anniversaries. Most parachurch ministries can look to the past with a measure of pride. They have made a significant contribution to the work of God in the world. Since they are responsible today, however, for the management of billions of dollars and the selection of new leadership, we can also expect these parachurch ministries to look to the future with a measure of sobriety.

Spiritual Fighters

Bruce Shelley writes: “A fresh vision of the world without Christ blended with the disillusionment with the mainline denominations to contribute to the formation of a plethora of parachurch ministries in the 1940s.”

One ministry born of that vision was the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), a fellowship of denominations, churches, schools, and individuals committed to biblical oneness. Its formation in 1942 highlighted those factors motivating much of the then-burgeoning evangelical movement: commitment to a cause, individual zeal, and a lot of corporate prayer.

The first director of the association’s Washington office, Clyde Taylor, reflected on these dynamics during NAE’s fortieth anniversary year.

The cause

Back in those early years, there were motivational factors galore.

For example, there was the old Federal Council of Churches’ attempt to monopolize all religious radio time. In the name of American religious life, they informed the Federal Communications Commission that they represented Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, and thus had the right to suggest that the commission give sustaining time to each of these groups in proportion to their size—and to the exclusion of evangelicals. The right to buy time to disseminate the gospel was, therefore, a catalyst to the forming of NAE and later to the forming of the NAE affiliate, National Religious Broadcasters.

In those early days we also had problems with a group called the International Council of Religious Education (ICRE), which has since been absorbed into the World Council of Churches. Then an agency of the old Federal Council of Churches, its purpose was to stimulate Sunday school programs. But what it did was kill them across the country. The executive director of ICRE “endeared” himself to evangelicals by saying that one of the most foolish things we believed was that Jesus wants to be worshiped. You can chalk up the creation of the National Sunday School Association, and later the National Christian Education Commission, to the actions of the ICRE.

And on it goes. The [federal] government was restricting the movement of missionaries overseas due to the war. Consequently, one of the early discussions in NAE focused on the need for a central office that could save mission executives from running back and forth from Washington to argue with the State Department about missionary travel, equipment, and so on. So the Office of Public Affairs and the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association were in the early stages of NAE planning and are still playing a pivotal role today.

The zeal

Back then we had people who would speak up. Spiritual fighters. Now understand, I wasn’t brought up to be a fighter. [But] some of us, when confronted by evangelicals hindering or harming a particular ministry, would say, “Forget my personal reputation, I’ll expose or oppose these attacks on God’s work.” And God honored that.

The prayer

[One of the things that left an] indelible mark on that first meeting in 1942 was the opening prayer meeting. It started around 7:30 one night and ended, I guess, around 11. There must have been at least five or six hundred men there representing 51 denominations. I know that for a fact because I parked myself by the main exit and shook hands with everyone who came out.

The praying was spontaneous—with enough of the holiness and Pentecostal people there to keep it alive with amens and hallelujahs. It was a dynamic prayer meeting, the likes of which I have not seen since. And it spelled spiritual unity about as well as anything could.

Adapted from United Evangelical Action magazine, Spring, 1982.

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