The Development of John Wilbur Chapman's
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The Development of John Wilbur Chapman’s Life and Thought (1859 - 1918) by Ross A. Purdy A Dissertation Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History University of Stirling July 2016 Abstract John Wilbur Chapman was one of the most prominent clergymen, church leaders and revivalists of the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. More than sixty million people attended his evangelistic campaigns worldwide. A study of his contributions shows that he dominated the evangelical landscape of America from 1906 to 1918. His campaigns in Canada and his subsequent world tours helped his fame spread internationally. The objective of the dissertation was to find out whether Chapman’s contributions to Evangelicalism were as strong as indicated by his reputation during his day and if he should be remembered only as a secondary figure in revivalism. Historians have treated Chapman mostly as one of Dwight L. Moody’s assistants and as a lesser colleague to some of Moody’s lieutenants. If Chapman was significant, why did his name disappear from historical research and why was he relegated to a lesser position than his accomplishments deserved? What were Chapman’s contributions and how far did he advance revivalism? The research conducted in this dissertation represents a decade of analysing archival materials, primary sources and secondary sources, including journals and newspaper articles. What was discovered was that J. Wilbur Chapman was more significant to the history of Evangelicalism than previously noted. An investigation of his work has reinforced an understanding of the concepts and techniques of later nineteenth-century evangelism and it has also revealed his contributions to the trajectory of revivalism. The study of Chapman's work also illuminates aspects of holiness, dispensationalism and social welfare during the Victorian and post-Victorian era. i Attestation I declare that this thesis has been composed by myself and that the work which it embodies has been done by myself. I confirm that the work has not been included in another thesis. Signature ______________________________ Date _________________ ii Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge the exceptional guidance of my supervisor, David W. Bebbington. He has been an invaluable teacher, mentor and friend and I am appreciative for his support. Had it not been for David’s patience and understanding of the responsibilities of a clergyman, I believe that I would not have been able to accomplish this research project. I have learned a great amount about Evangelical history from him and I am tremendously grateful for his willingness to have accepted me as one of his students. Of equal importance is my gratitude to my wife, Kathy, and children, Katy, Heather and Jacob, for their patience and unconditional love for me while doing this project. My wife has needed to fulfil the roles of both mother and father while I was taking trips to archives, to places of historical importance and to Scotland to meet with my supervisor. Kathy has supported and encouraged me in every step of the process and I am indebted to her for her help. My children have been cheerleaders for me to continue the work for this project and I love each of them dearly. Several others have helped me complete this process and I am grateful to each one of them. Thank you to my extended families in America and Scotland who have not only offered me affirmation over the years, but have also provided places to stay while conducting research or making trips to Scotland. Thank you to Bob and Christine Ralphs for generously making available their mountain home in Lake Arrowhead, California, so that I could have some uninterrupted time to write. Most of all, I want to thank Jan McMurtry for her encouragement to begin the research project, her reassurance when things became rough and her reminders to me that the project could and should be completed. She has been a tremendous help to me. Lastly, I would like to extend a word of appreciation to the members and friends of the First Presbyterian Church of Burbank. David and Carolyn Lessley have been a constant source of encouragement to me and the congregation has generously provided the time and the financial help necessary to complete this program. I am proud to be their pastor and I am grateful for their love and support. iii Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................ i Attestation ........................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................ iii Table of Contents ............................................................................................... iv Chapter One: Introduction....................................................................................1 Chapter Two: Formative Influences .................................................................... 28 Chapter Three: Work with Moody ..................................................................... 62 Chapter Four: Presbyterianism .......................................................................... 97 Chapter Five: Theology.................................................................................... 133 Chapter Six: Pneumatology .............................................................................. 169 Chapter Seven: Evangelism .............................................................................. 200 Chapter Eight: Conclusion ............................................................................... 240 Bibliography..................................................................................................... 253 iv Chapter One Introduction In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, John Wilbur Chapman was widely recognised as a prominent clergyman, a leader in the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America and an evangelist. As an ordained minister, Chapman served several parishes, two of which were among the largest of his denomination. His sermons and devotional materials were collected and compiled to be used for home study and worship. Chapman’s educational instructions on the responsibilities of the Sunday school became denominational standards in the Presbyterian Church.1 Three of his hymns were printed in the hymnbooks of a number of denominations and after more than one hundred years, two of them remain in several Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian hymnbooks today. As a denominational spokesperson, Chapman served as the Corresponding Secretary of the Presbyterian General Assembly’s Committee on Evangelism in 1895 and was elected the Moderator of the General Assembly in 1917. It is important to place Chapman, a Presbyterian and a Calvinist, in the context of revivalism. Beginning in the First Great Awakening, Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), a Congregational pastor and evangelist, served as a bridge between the seventeenth-century Puritans and eighteenth-century Calvinists and provided much of the theological basis for revivalism. He felt that old Calvinism had grown stale and needed modifying to meet the needs of an eighteenth-century world. Calvinism had substituted a civil religion for the 1 J. Wilbur Chapman, The Spiritual Life of the Sunday School, Boston: United Society of Christian Endeavor, 1899. 1 passionate, pietistic faith of the Puritan founders.2 Living faith, Edwards believed, required more than knowledge or facts about God. It required an experience of the beauty, holiness and truth of a sovereign God.3 Consistently Calvinistic, Edwards believed that humans had participated seminally in Adam’s fall, were responsible for sin and bound by their fallen nature until converted by God’s grace. They did, however, retain an ability to choose, to ‘will’ something, which, for Edwards, was an act of one’s character consistent with the motives in a person. His theological position about one’s ability to choose in the act of conversion provided a foundation of support for revival Calvinism and, at the same time, rescued it from the reproach of Arminians who claimed that Calvinism denied people their liberty.4 The task of the followers of Edwards, called the New Divinity theologians, was to reconcile their Calvinistic tradition with the realities of the nineteenth-century world in which they lived. This pro-revival party affirmed Edwards’s belief that the emotions were vital in a genuine religious experience, even though not all emotions were desirable.5 During the latter part of the eighteenth century, Samuel Hopkins and Joseph Bellamy, joined by Jonathan Edwards the younger and Timothy Dwight, emphasized God’s love for humanity and forgiveness rather than God’s condemnation of original sin.6 With regard to the doctrines of irresistible grace and the elect, Nathanael Taylor’s psychology placed powers in the mind, thus asserting that people could determine their 2 Douglas A. Sweeney and Allen C. Guelzo (eds), The New England Theology: From Jonathan Edwards to Edwards Amasa Park, Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006, p. 14. 3 Mark A. Noll, America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 24. 4 Nathan O. Hatch and Harry S. Stout (eds), Jonathan Edwards and the American Experience, New York: Oxford University Press, 1988, p. 187. 5 George