The Lack of Power in the Pulpit
By Editor
THERE is a certain class of optimists who profess to believe that the world is steadily growing better, and that Christianity is constantly growing in power and influence. There are other men, however, who have a clearer insight into the real situation, and who plainly perceive that with all the outward show and the great expenditure of time and money and effort in Christian activities, there is yet an evident lack of the old-time power in the ministry of the gospel. In the July number of The Missionary Review of the World this question is considered at some length, and two principal reasons are given for the recognized decline in pulpit power:— FIRST.—There is not the proper place given to the Bible that there should be. The text-book of all preaching is neglected. Sociology and a score of studies, supposed to concern the “new gospel” of the twentieth century, absorb many modern preachers. The newspaper and the novel are often more the inspiration of the pulpit than the Word of God and the secret place of prayer. The methods of modern criticism are irreverent and destructive, faith in the inspired Scripture is impaired, and its hold on conviction and conscience is weakened. Nothing but a thorough knowledge of God and love can make a preacher. Nothing so expands mind and enriches heart and dignifies utterance as the habitual holding of one’s self under the full blaze of the Shekinah glory. The great preacher burns and glows and sparkles with God’s fire. . . . If our theological schools are not fountains of Biblical learning and prayer, how can they turn out truly powerful and prayerful preachers? SECONDLY.—We add, with some hesitation, that we fear the modern ministry is too much looked on as a profession and not enough a vocation. One sign of this is the new standard of compensation adopted. It is held that the church is like any other market-place, and preaching is like any other commodity, to be regulated by the common law of demand and supply. Preaching talent is on sale, and the highest bidder gets the goods. In principles of commercial equity, this is correct: Intellectual and oratorical ability is a costly product, and may command the highest price. And so we find men not hesitating to take, or congregations hesitating to offer, any salary that can be secured. . . . The more money obtains prominence in pulpit and pastoral work, the more the pulpit loses its dynamic. Avarice is one of the subtlest foes to spirituality. Moreover a man is prone to degenerate into a hireling, and consciously or unconsciously shape his utterances to please his auditors, and so the pulpit comes into bondage. A century ago the bulk of the preachers in New England had small stipends, lived in humble parsonages, with a small plot of ground, which they cultivated, and which yielded vegetables for food, and pasture for horse and cow. They lived on a level with the people, economically and frugally, and depended partly on their own labor for a subsistence. Many of them could not spend all their time in studying sermons, but they knew the people and visited in the families; revivals were frequent, and the churches were healthy in growth. Now in many of these New England villages the churches are deserted, and the buildings empty. There are a few splendid buildings with very attractive preachers, but even they are not full, while the smaller, feebler churches fall hopelessly in the rear in this unequal strife for popularity. Other causes may and do contribute, but we content ourselves with emphasizing these two, believing that if a more Scriptural training were secured in the training-schools, and a more self-denying service in the actual work of the ministry, we should have a more efficient class of preachers. The pulpit demands as its feeders pure springs of sacred learning salted with much prayer, and it needs for its constant guard from the secular and avaricious spirit a principle of self-denial that identifies the minister of Christ with the common people rather than the aristocratic class. These are not, perhaps, palatable truths, but are they not truths? How fast would all power vanish from our missionary band if the element of self-sacrifice were lost! Who can not see that if missionaries degenerate into sociologists, or even philanthropists; if the Word of God loses its dynamic force, and especially if large money compensation becomes an object, we might almost as well abandon missions altogether? The church of God needs to keep on her knees; the devil is alive and abroad. The martyr spirit is the only mission spirit. These are the words of truth and soberness. And it may be profitable for us to weigh them in their bearing upon our own work and experiences. We greatly fear that the ministry of this demonstration is suffering from the lack of prayerful Bible study. And while we can not truthfully be said to pay high salaries to preachers, yet we have sometimes thought that the very certainty of a support from the tithe militated against that spirit of sturdy work which characterized the pioneers in this movement. And further there has been manifest a distinct tendency on the part of some of our workers to become professional reformers and philanthropists, rather than to be preachers of the definite message for this time. When shall we learn that our strength and our hope of success lie in faithfully adhering to the instruction to preach the Word? There may not be preachers of great worldly reputation in this message, but there should be preachers of great power, who should be successful in winning many souls for the kingdom of God. The prayerful study of the Bible and the spirit of self-denying labor are great factors in the solution of this problem.